The Buzz about my Social Media Experiment

Well, my Web 2.0 & Social Media experiment and sweepstakes seems to be generating a little buzz. My Flickr photo of the exchange of the big $20 has gotten a respectable number of hits, even though a thumbnail of the photo is available on this here blog. Sue over at Face2Face gives a pointer and Wes Trochlil of Effective Database Management wrote me an e-mail, saying:

The highlight of the conference was your "social experiment" and the $20 bill. That could NOT have been more perfectly timed or executed. Nicely done, my friend.

Hey, thanks for the compliment, Wes, but trust me, dear readers: There were far more interesting events than this at the Technology Conference. In my opinion, anyway. However, there was a respectable outburst of cheering and laughter at the moment Misty popped the question. Some people were confused. Others clearly knew about the experiment.

Although I continue to believe that our panel somewhat glossed over important facets of Web 2.0 for associations, this social media experiment shows that at least one association executive was knowledgeable enough about web trends (and brave enough to ask a ridiculous question) to prove that this stuff is important for everyone to know about.

Let me finish by clarifying something I said at the close of my panel discussion. I said I thought blogs were passe. That doesn't accurately describe my feelings. Blame it on public speaking jitters. My opinion is better expressed as: Blogs are no longer cutting-edge. Look, if Dear Abby is giving advice about blogs, it's clear that they are entrenched in the mainstream. You can quote me on that. I'm going to continue blogging, even though it's not cutting-edge any more. Maybe you should start, too.

And yes, I fully realize that I used the word passe in the title of the blog post in that Dear Abby link. Whatever. That was so 2005.