The Social Media State of Mind
November 17, 2009 by Alexis
The other day, Heather Whaling (@PRtini) and I were developing a presentation on social media she was to deliver at an IABC event. Instead of your run-of-the-mill Microsoft PowerPoint slideshow, we were venturing into unfamiliar territory with Prezi, a unique presentation tool we’d seen Sarah Evans use at IzeaFest last month.
If you’ve never used Prezi, it bills itself as “zooming sketches on a digital napkin.” It provides you with a digital canvas, where you can place images, videos and text wherever you want, and string together a presentation. Cool, right?
I didn’t realize how badly I was set in my PowerPoint ways until both Heather and I were staring at her Prezi digital canvas … and neither of us could figure out where to go from there. We had content bouncing around our brains, but for the life of us, we couldn’t figure out the best way to get it on that screen without the familiar headline/bullet point/photo framework.
At that point, it struck me that this is probably how many people feel when they first experience social media. They have an idea, company, product or cause (even if it’s themselves), but they can’t figure out how to translate it into an unfamiliar medium. How do you tackle something when the rules you’ve come to depend on no longer apply?
Is this how you feel/felt about social media? What advice would you give someone who feels this way? Speak up in the comments!
P.S. The presentation turned out nicely. What do you think?
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