What I learned from a social media presentation

Yesterday Mitch Canter came and spoke to us about social media. It was an excellent presentation..really interesting and all about things we're studying and using in class. Mitch even gave us a look at his twitter account and brightkite(which WAS new to me). Today I browsed his tweets only to find that he didn't think much of us as a class!

First he criticized the class full of college students for not having an iphone. As college students, most of us don't have the budget to spend our money on the newest technology out there."It's so strange coming from Nashville (social media savvy) to Murray (0 people in the room have an iphone). Very surreal" was his tweet. I have to disagree with his post, just because you have no iphone doesn't mean you're oblivious to social media.

Second, "@MatthewsChick it's funny, i went to speak at a Social Media class... it was like their minds were blown and oozing on the floor. LOL" and "@laura_jeanette college kids... I went back to my alma mater to speak on social media to a social media class. I think I blew their minds" and "@Surf_Records I was using it as a litmus test. They didn't know technologies like flickr and stuff existed" and "And I am the first to admit I just assumed by now people knew twitter... or at least flickr. I am proven wrong."

All of those comments were made, wrongly assuming, that we wouldn't read them I suppose. The first comment assumes we knew nothing until he enlightened us, the second assumes we're just kids and don't know anything about social media...and the third is just wrong. We have been talking all semester about different kinds of sites mentioned in these posts. Just because we didn't speak up doesn't mean we don't know. I am offended at the comments that were made, especially since I enjoyed the presentation so much, only to then be made fun of through Twitter, which I do regularly use.

So what I have learned again from these posts made about us is don't type something that you wouldn't want someone else to read. (For example, if I didn't want Mitch to know my feelings on the matter, I wouldn't take the chance on blogging). Maybe he doesn't care if we read his impression of us, which is fine, but I personally wouldn't have gone that route! This is not as bad as the Fed Ex employee example of course, but still, I am not left with a good feeling about this social media "expert"!