I’m sorry it’s been so long and you’ve had to look at that Batman poster forever. I was lucky enough to take some vacation and get some heavy work done - but now I’m back. And I promise I won’t do that again. Until next year. Here, let me make up for it. Look at the awesome Beach Volleyball team; my favorite part about the Olympics that isn’t Michael Phelps.

http://tastyburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/oly_a_treanor_walsh1_sw_300.jpg

I thought of all of ‘us’ recently. And by ‘us’ I mean people    who care about communicating; people who care about social media forums and the power they give. I gave a presentation on eCommunications the other day, and as I was doing research it dawned on me how few companies take advantage of social media. A fatal flaw given how empowered consumers are through this tool.

Think about it - you are giving strangers the chance to write, in a public forum, about your products and services. I know we know that - but do you think others do? Are we just talking to each other up here in the choir loft?

I know adoption is high but are we converting anyone? In a day of too many brands I don’t think enough are taking advantage of these tools to differentiate themselves. The era of companies talking at consumers is over. The ‘e’ in eCommunications might as well stand for empowered. Consumers are empowered; they have opportunities to influence products and marketing. But are companies doing enough to empower their employees to take advantage of this?