Transcript -

JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference and I’m joined by Sree.

Sree, will you please introduce yourself?

SREE SREENIVASAN:  Hi, folks, I’m Sree Sreenivasan. I’m a dean of student affairs at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. And I teach in the digital media program there.

BURKE:  And I’ve heard Sree speak a couple of times, and I always take away great value from the presentation. You know, I think it’s interesting that you were an early adopter of Google, but for things like Google Buzz and Google Wave, you haven’t quite seen the value of those things yet.  So I think you have a really healthy perspective of how you look at things, and can you share some of those tips with the audience now about how they should try to find things and work them into what works for them as opposed to just adopting everything that’s out there?

SREENIVASAN:  Sure. This is, I like to say, very–or in a very early time in social media. This is where the Internet was in 1996, where radio was in 1912, where TV was in 1950, which means there’s a lot of new stuff coming all the time and you have to decide, though, whether to jump on things or not.

My own rule is, I’ll only work with something once it fits into my work flow and my life flow.  Work flow, life flow.  If it doesn’t do both, it’s not for me.  That doesn’t mean it’s not for other people.

So for example, Google Buzz and Google Wave are great examples of things that people love and thousands, millions of people maybe around the world use it. In fact, we all one day woke up and were on Google Buzz without knowing it because it’s something every Gmail user was on Google Buzz.  But what I’ve—I say is find when–only when it’s time for that technology for you should you use it.  So an example is Facebook.  I work at a university and Facebook was available very early.  I probably joined two years after everybody else did and couldn’t quite figure out how I can use it in my work till even after that.  Same thing with Twitter. Once you find something, then you are ready for it, then you use it.  Don’t panic, don’t worry that everybody’s using something that’s not important. Use the things that work for you.

The other thought about all of this is that it’s going to keep changing, and what we need to build is an ear that is listening to these new ideas and then looking for where we can–we can come aboard. Right now geolocation’s very big. I think it’s going to get bigger. Social media, I think, is much bigger than we imagined, and especially PR people need to be paying attention.

BURKE:  Great, Sree.  And where can people find you online and in social media?

SREENIVASAN:  Sure. My main web address is sree.net.  So if you Google “Sree” I come up first.  But Sree Stinks come ups–comes up afterwards, which doesn’t matter because the main thing is that I come up first.  But you can also find me on Twitter @sreenet, S-R-E-E-N-E-T, and on Facebook I have a page where I’m posting tech tips, job ideas, which is sree–sreetips.  So it’s www.facebook.com/sreetips.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much.

SREENIVASAN:  Thanks.