I Get Jazzed Talking About Social Media

Talking Social Media, Business and Academia at the LSP Conference at UVa

I am one of those odd people who truly enjoys public speaking. The bigger the crowd, the better. I do quite a bit of speaking about social media, social networking, public relations and reputation management. Last week, I participated in a panel on behalf of Standing Partnership and Social Media Club Charlottesville. The topics were social media, business and academia and the session was held at the University of Virginia for a group of IT professionals who support the University’s technology needs. With me (and pictured above, left to right) were Darah Bonham, the director of Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC) and the infamous Steve Whitaker, director of technology at the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning/Curry School of Education.

As you can tell from the totally geeked out look on my face, the discussion of social media and its possibilities is my favorite topic. I love being before a group and fielding questions on the topic and can, for hours, talk about the uses of social media and networking for building business, for relationship development, for customer service, for promotion . . . I frequently get the “finger drawn across the throat” signal to shut up already because we’re out of time.

If you can’t tell by the content of this blog, I thought a look at my jazzed up, goofy grinning face above would be more proof of how much I love what I do.