Barber Media

I headed over to Austin's Barber Shop today for a haircut - a pretty simple task that had absolutely nothing to do with KnowProSE LLC other than keeping my hair out of my face. While there, a young man asked Rod how to get a Coke out of the antique machine he has inside, and Rod brought up that he had made a deal on FourSquare for people - register that you're at the shop in FourSquare and you get a free Coke. I took a few minutes as Rod finished the guy before me to register on FourSquare and download the app onto my Android based phone.

Granted, I'd heard of FourSquare before, but I was out of the country when it first came out. I'm not big on having people able to stalk my whereabouts at any given time; for the most part I'd rather people not know where I am - and apps like FourSquare run contrary to that. Still, with me getting ready to start on KnowProSE LLC's first internal project, KnowBeloit.com, I wanted to see what was going on. If Rod, my barber, was up on it then maybe more companies in the area are. And in downtown Beloit, at least, they were.

Rod and I ended up discussing a lot about the future of getting people into his chair. Maybe using Twitter. He already has a Facebook Page. In fact, when it comes to social media he's ahead of a lot of companies I know of around the world. The main idea is to keep his chair full throughout the day, of course - and if you do meet Rod, you'll find him a personable and well informed person on a variety of things - but there's a little twist to this all that most of the social media pundits don't get. The Barber shop, in and of itself, has been a place where social networking has happened throughout the history of barber shops. It's one of those places where discussions have always taken place. Generally, men have their barber shops, women have their hairdressers. And they share information - as about 5 of us did today. Barber Media.

Interestingly, at no point in the conversation were the phrases 'social media' and 'social networking' used. They're overused phrases anyway.

It's easy to talk about how social media is 'changing the world', so much so that just about everyone is talking about it. Some will argue that it is making the world a better place, that the new methods of communication are pushing over dictatorships, making us more aware of problems throughout the world, and so on. But all too often we forget that these same technologies and methodologies are very important where we are, in the community we live in, in the community that we support. In our back yard, in our economy. We can't save the world if we don't keep our back yard maintained.

And we might get a free Coke, good conversation and a good haircut while we're at it.