That’s one takeaway from the amusing story of John Schwartz, a New York Times reporter who set up a Facebook page and got ‘friendbombed’ by his son. The younger Schwartz formed a Facebook group, Friend My Father, and sat back to watch his friends comply with his request. His father, in turn, watched the “new friend” requests pop up with bemusement and the growing realization that he’d need to do something about them. Read his amusing article in the “Week in Review,” here [this may require a log-in] or on page 4.1 of the print edition for 5 November 2006.
I’m thinking about this because I just did a workshop on using technology to market your institution at the AMA conference. One of my comments to the folks in my workshop is that if you don’t keep your content up to date on your MySpace page or other social media sites and respond to these kinds of inquiries you won’t be taken seriously as a member of the community and your efforts are sure to fail. So be careful what you wish for!
Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?