tweet wired sputter and hooked

My good buddy Dick Hakes writes a chamber industry newsletter. Recently exchanged the following emails about him having to update the technology of writing and distributing his newsletter for chamber executives across the country. Dick has spent time in our community and knows a few folks around town:

Dan,

You asked me to update you on ChamberPost....well in the process, I was informed that our generous hosts (Buena Vista University) have decided to discontinue the listserv. Not in their game plan...which I can understand. Anyway, if I develop something new, I'll let you know. Several have suggested a LinkedIn group. Are you in that already?


Dick


Hello Dick…

This Social Networking “craze” is truly interesting. I’m on Facebook (why I don’t know)…LinkedIn (still not sure how I got onto this one) and just YESTERDAY I got invited to ConnectIN which is the US Chamber Institute’s version of one of these social networks. Within 2 hours of signing up I heard from about a dozen of my chamber buddies around the country who I had been closer to during my Institute board and attendance days. Oh, and the Minnesota Chamber also has some sort of list serve program they use for MNCCE, but haven’t formally signed up for that…all those messages come through our general email address too. Now, I’ve got board members pitching me to use Twitter, and I wonder when I’ll find the time to do my real job instead of staying linked, hooked, and wired to the networks!


I must be getting old ‘cause I remember scratching my head wondering how to use the old “heat imprinted fax” machine (you remember those don’t you where the paper comes out curled and if you leave it in the sunshine it turns brown like an old sepia toned photo)…and don’t get me started about my first computer in the office that I had no clue as to how to use it or how it might make my chamber office more efficient.

Dick, I remember thinking how amazing it was that my father was born the same year the Wright Brothers had their first flight, and he died a couple of years after man walked on the moon. How amazing it must have been to live through those industrial and technological changes! Wish I could have had conversations with him about that. I’m sure I’ll get this social networking with phones, computers, hand helds, etc figured out sometime down the road and 20 years from now will wonder at how times have changed during my lifetime!



Dan