21 May 2009

Social Media Is Fun. Seriously.

I'm very happy to chat today with Karen Russell's class at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Professor Russell is an active and thoughtful leader in this field, and I was flattered to get an invite.

I've been asked to discuss how social media can be fun. It's been a while since college so I don't exactly know what's "fun" for undergrads today, but I have fun collaborating with my colleagues and with others online. I enjoy being part of a community. I asked my social media team for their examples of fun, and that was the basic consensus - joining and participating in community discussions. Collaborating with smart people. The conversations and collaborations take on many forms, and the technology helps us harness creativity, but at its core the "fun" is in the community.

Social media tools give members of a given community the ability to share the fun no matter where they happen to be. For example, there's my wife, who got her Ph.D. at The University of Georgia. She's on the faculty at the University of Kentucky, but that doesn't stop her from wearing red and black when the Bulldogs come to town to play football...

2 comments:

LaurenRiley said...

Hello David. My name is Lauren and I am one of Karen Russell's Social Media students. I just wanted to say thank you for taking time out of your day to talk to us. You have provided a great case example of how social technologies are so important and valuable to companies, especially when connecting to their customers. I am now looking at social media as much more than a tool for young people to connect to peers and more at how it can be utilized by businesses to innovate and improve products and relationships.

Karen Miller Russell said...

Thanks for your time and expertise, David. And for the video of your wife, now part of the Bulldawg hall of fame.