• Jan 8

  Old Dogs

  Author: Genevieve Gaddy

  When I was in high school, my mom was one of the least computer-savvy people I knew. She pecked at the keys, barely knew how to send an email and got frustrated trying to open a Word document.  She hated the computer so much that she wrote invoices for her interior design business by hand and used white-out when she made a mistake.  Fast forward ten years later.  That same woman is video-chatting with me while I’m on a flight from Atlanta to New York.  She tells me to hold on for a second because she has to text my dad from her iPhone, and then we talk about a picture she has just seen on Facebook.

  There was a point in time where my mom was either going to check out of technology completely, or make an effort to learn how to use it.  In the beginning, my brother, sister and I would just do whatever it was that she didn’t understand -  “Move out of the way, I’ll attach that for you,” “Scoot over, I’ll download the pictures from your camera.”  But she told us she needed to learn it herself, and that’s when things began to change.  She had the tools (new computer, iPhone, digital camera, etc.), but she needed our patient instruction and then to play around with things herself until she knew how to use them.

  In a lot of ways, my mom was like an old-school client averse to social media.  When people don’t understand something new, they don’t see the value and develop a distaste for it.  But it’s our job to teach them.  If we do everything ourselves, our clients will never understand or start interacting on their own. 

  The current shift in media is perhaps the toughest transition we will see in our lifetime, and it is our responsibility as PR professionals not to shove our clients out of the way so we can do it ourselves, but to show them, patiently and effectively, how to play in the new sandbox.  Social media will be most powerful when the company’s interaction is integrated and everyone knows how to participate – from the CEO to the summer intern.

  Old dogs can in fact learn new tricks.  You just have to teach them.

  PS: If you read this, Mom, you’re the most youthful looking old dog I know.

  Comments (1)

One Response to “Old Dogs”

1. Ginger Gaddy Says:
   January 8th, 2010 at 6:11 pm

   Thanks for your kind words and teaching this young dog new tricks. You really are a patient teacher. You obviously had an outstading role model. Mom

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website