Good PR isn’t about a one-way conversation, or even a two-way one, it is about ‘making yourself useful to the network’.

(Another little gem from the January Social Media Club meet… can’t remember who said it though hence no source credit.)

Antony Mayfield shared some thoughts on the similarities between what took place during the print revolution and what is currently happening in the social media ‘revolution’.

Some very brief notes:

Networks
The introduction of the printing press opened up networks that allowed new knowledge, ideas and creativity from new kinds of authors to emerge. People were no longer restricted to receiving knowledge from the authorities (the church, academia etc), they could publish their own. Academic debates were taking place in coffee houses and people were publishing their conclusions. But the printing press was an agent for rubbish as well as excellence.

Fame & control
The concept of fame changed as people became well-known for their craft. The authorities (the church mainly) were wary of this new medium and discouraged the masses from partaking (although in the case of the church, they were also making a heap of money from it).

Accuracy
The print revolution created the new role of sub-editor. Up until then mistakes were copied and added to by copywriters who literally copied out texts by hand. The printing press standardised texts and accuracy improved.

Retrospective
The conclusion was that for us to be able to fully understand the significance of this social media revolution you have to imagine looking back on it in 500 years time. We attempted that in a small group discussion and didn’t manage to reach any conclusions!

Mega-cities & localised networks
It was mentioned though that the future is defined by mega-cities. National identity will be superceded by city identity. Personally I think whilst social networks enable us to connect with people across the globe, human beings will still crave physical contact and localised – and specialist – networks will play an important role.