Wednesday, November 30, 2011

From asimonim to SKYPE

After a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with my fabulous sister, I'm back to researching and writing my business plan, and networking and interviewing.  I've got lots of good stuff happening in these next couple of weeks, and my work life in Denver feels promising.

One part of my process has been thinking about how social media has changed the practice of public relations.  Came across the clever video below in my research.  Really, its worth taking a look ...



And thats from two years ago.

Right.

This morning I spent time with my future sister-in-law who lives in Israel, lets call her "R," well, because thats the first letter of her name.  "R" and I have never met (in person).  But, skype allowed me to see her, and talk to her, and start to get to know her, and show her pictures of my kids, her "niece & nephew to-be", AND even have the chutzpah to ask her for graphic design help.  And, to feel connected to her in a very real way.  Skype.  Fabulous.

So I've been thinking about social media.  (If you're interested in checking out a list of the top 50 social media resources, click here.)  And I'm skyping.  And, So, because I guess thats what you do when you get to be almost 40, I started thinking about twenty years ago, when "I was "R's" age" ... living in Israel and trying to communicate with my family in the U.S. ...

In 1991, I was a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.   In order to talk to my parents, I had to use one of the half a dozen or so pay phones located in the one "phone room" located in the basement of one of the dorm buildings on campus.  (I don't know the exact number of students this one phone room serviced, but just believe me when I say, it was a lot.) When it was finally my turn to make a call, I got to insert a phone card into a slot in the phone.  Then, I dialed the AT&T code, and then the phone number.  Maybe, just maybe, I would then get through to their line.  If I did have such luck, I had to talk very quickly a) because it cost a small fortune b) I was likely to get cut-off, and c) the person behind me in line was waiting to try and connect, albeit briefly, with his/her own family.

But oh how fabulous this all seemed compared to what I had to do 10 years earlier!  In 1981, I also lived in Israel - with my parents at the Mercaz Klita, or "absorption center" for new immigrants to Israel in Ranana.  Here, there was not just one phone room, but JUST ONE PHONE.  Though it was thirty years ago, I can see as clear as day in my mind's eye that lonely phone booth located in the lobby of that institution.  And, I can see my young mother, inserting more and more asimonim, phone tokens, into that phone so that we wouldn't get cut off as we tried desperately to hear my grandmother in Virginia over the fuzzy line.  

Oh how far we have come.

So good to connect with "R."  So good to connect with you.  Connecting in 2011.  So very very good.
 Back to work now.

-E



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