I’ve been talking about social media, well, since before it was social media. I’ve always had a bit of a passion for talking with others about the potential.  In various meetings, with individual executives, undergraduate classes, with student executives and a few other places, I had shared my thoughts. Often I wasn’t able to convey the opportunity, or rather the natural progress that I saw.

The first time I presented on social media at a conference was at the Canadian Nursing Association Leadership Conference in 2007. It wasn’t the first time share ideas about the potential for technology though. The only difference was that I broke down the definition, a related it to the past. Now the slides were by no means pretty, but I do remember one of them was of hieroglyphics. I truly, believe that stone writing and early parchment were all part of the history of social media. It is part of our human communication story.

Recently, I came across a TEDx talk by Tom Standage exploring Lessons from Ancient Social Media. I highly recommend it. A great way help those that are nervous about social media understand we are really talking about evolving how we share ideas, not simply the latest tech startup.