Speed PR is at the foremost of those pushing digital use within the PR industry in the UK, and meeting Stephen Waddington from Speed PR last week got me thinking about how far digital and social media has come even in my own short lifetime. I am only 24, and even I can remember using technologies such as the VHS cassette, the Floppy disk and the rather flimsy 56k internet- what a difference only a few years makes!. After my meeting with Stephen, it could not help but leave me thinking about where we are heading to next and what is in store for PR as companies start looking to capitalise on the latest social trends?.On the same note, I was recently asked by someone to say something about myself that she could not find out about through the internet, and it must have took me five minutes to think of something to say! (I will not mention it to you now, or it will also be on the internet haha). Its funny how everything I do and have done is available for everyone else to see, without me even realising. My daily media consumption sees me having Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin accounts, a blog (this) and a Blackberry, which has its own messenger service. Every update I make in five seconds whilst on my phone is potentially reaching 500 people straight away and for everyone else in the world to see should they wish to find out, sometimes even telling them my exact location! Whoa!. Now that is scary.
But then again, the positives are way better than the negatives. My university course was a breeze thanks to the internet. I got into my current PR internship thanks to the internet. I make T-Shirts thanks to PhotoShop and sell them online thanks to the internet. I make networks and connections, create a loyal fan base and organise events all thanks to the internet. So who cares if someone can stalk me?. People will only see what you want them to see- no one is stopping you from changing your privacy settings. And like I said, the good outweighs the bad a few times over. However saying that, this is only 2011 and considering I have seen a huge overhaul in technology in my own short lifetime, who knows what the future holds?. The thought of that is not only scary, but is actually quite exciting.
