I’ve been an editor for a long time, and over the years of managing school newspapers, sitting on a copy desk for an automotive publisher, writing for a motorcycle trade magazine, and heading Mobility Management’s editorial for 13-plus years, I’ve learned this:
No one cares what I have for breakfast. Me included.
Reporters are taught to never become the news. Report the news, don’t make it.
So the social media world, where I’m suddenly supposed to rhapsodize about the perfect bowl of oatmeal I just ingested, is an alien landscape to me. Not only didn’t I “get it,” but I was pretty sure I was completely against it.
Mobility Management’s social media — Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., for both MM and our consumer site, TheMobilityProject.com — is led and championed by Online Product Development Director Marlin Mowatt, an uncommonly wise and patient soul who’s also the brains and brawn behind our Webinars and Web sites.
Marlin has the brilliant ability to get you to commit to an idea you hate by convincing you that you were the genius who conjured the idea in the first place. Like all great leaders, she sets a terrific example, but ultimately knows the best way to get her team to do what’s best is to convince them that that’s what they want, too. She has the perseverance and fortitude of the glaciers that carved the Matterhorn.
Fortunately for us, she’s almost always right. And Marlin says that starting my own Twitter account rather than just occasionally contributing to MM’s is a good idea.
My own Twitter account, Marlin says, is where I can offer more personal comments that would never be printed here or through our official social media outlets. If you go (please?) to my fledgling Twitter page (@CRTeditor), you’ll see for instance that my profile picture shows a little fresh snowfall in the background.
That photo was taken by Sean Burke, Quantum corporate sales specialist and my evergracious tour guide when I visited Quantum Rehab in January. Not only did my new friend Sean drive me around town, but he also didn’t crash the SUV when I pointed at a totally alien vehicle and shrieked, “What is that?”
(Sean said it was a “salt truck.” Having been raised in Southern California with family roots in Hawaii, I’d never seen one before. Thanks, Sean.)
Anyway, Marlin says my Twitter page gives me an outlet to post a picture of me looking giddy as I stand next to snow, as well as to acknowledge Sean, who would otherwise go publicly unthanked despite the fact that he deserved hazard pay for shepherding me around.
I’ll also use @CRTeditor to break headlines about policy, funding, technology and the other topics that drive our industry. I imagine Twitter will get a workout when I’m oohing and ahhing in exhibit halls, or when I’m sitting awestruck in an educational session.
I know your time is precious, and you’re bombarded with social media messages from all corners of your world. But if you can ever make time to chat with me @CRTeditor, I’d love to hear from you.
I promise I will never, ever talk about the meal I just had. Unless it’s that double-chocolate bread pudding at the Georgia World Congress Center. Because hey, that bread pudding is killer, and @CRTeditor is only human.
