Confessions of a Web Native

As a kid of the 90's, I can't imagine not having an instant way to connect with all my friends on the Internet. I've been through all the web phases, starting with MSN messenger and AIM in 5th grade. The next cool thing was the jump to MySpace in the early middle-school days, followed by the migration to Facebook once you hit high school. Today I have a MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN account, not to mention my old AIM and MSN messenger accounts, as well as a Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, and school email account!

Not until I entered the real world, if you will, at age 16 when I got my first professional job, did I realize that this many forms of web contact was not normal for the non web native. It amazed me that "grown-ups" had limited ways to access their friends or colleagues in a matter of seconds. But why would they? They didn't grow up thinking of a catchy screen name, or changing the display picture every three weeks like my peers and I did. They do not have over 500 tagged pictures available of themselves on the web, or wall-to-wall posts dating back five years, but they could, and hey, it could even help their businesses. I'd like to believe that this epiphany of teens my age helped spark the social media uprising in professional businesses everywhere; I know my former boss sure liked the idea. Three years later I find myself working in the Alumni Relations/Communication department at Leeds School of Business. Never before have I seen so many professionals using social media outlets! Leeds' Facebook friends outweigh mine 3:1, and I don't even have half the amount of Twitter followers. So good job kids of the 90's, we've created a new form of marketing for businesses, and it's working.