360DigitalInfluence

Over the past few weeks, I have been fascinated with the story of the Russian spies who were assigned to “Americanize” themselves to get U.S. nuclear secrets. Not stunned by the fact that we actually had “Russian spies” in this country, but more so the technology they were using to attain these secrets and communicate with their Russian counterparts.

In reading an article in NewScientist I was able to learn more about the technology that the spies were using, and actually began to chuckle a bit. Aren’t they supposed to have state of the art gadgets Mission Impossible style? Secret communication techniques that are not easily detectable? I was especially floored when I read they were hiding messages in online images…that is so 1990’s.

Speaking of 1990’s, this story also made me a bit nostalgic for technology that has come and gone. The floppy disk, the printers that used the paper you had to tear the edges off, etc. If I had to pick two things to come back, I would wish the original Sega Genesis game console would make a come back and the Motorola V60i cell phone (my very first).

So this begs the question: What technology do you miss and wish would make a comeback?

In public relations we talk a lot about influencers. Business press influencers, analyst influencers, trade press influencers, and at Ogilvy PR specifically, we have a practice dedicated to digital influencers. But what I have come to realize in my five years as a practicing tech PR professional, is that this job has a huge influence on the way that I look at other people…actually, the way I look at their consumer devices.

Some people notice shoes, some notice handbags, but if you talk with a tech PR professional, we notice devices. Everything from what kind of mobile phone you are using and on what network, to the type of TV you have and whether it’s equipped with the latest and greatest from CES that year. When tech PR colleagues get together, we pull our BlackBerrys and iPhones out of our pockets and purses and, without noticing, start to compare who has the newest one, giving everybody else in the room “tech envy”.

This “tech envy” stems from the reality that the work we do has a greater influence on our daily lives than most would like to admit. When you work in tech PR you learn about your client’s newest software offering or chip development, and what it means for their respective industry. You learn about what can make laptops run faster and more efficiently and the true capabilities of your BlackBerry if it uses one of your client’s products. And after learning about the product, we are tasked to communicate it as well. It becomes a part of who we are and how we talk about things. We “drink the Kool-Aid,” so to speak.

My job has influenced me to the point of becoming what I consider a “consumer technology snob.” I don’t have the best or newest technology by any means (it can be really expensive!), but I do know enough about it to want it. Additionally, when I started thinking about this blog topic, I started to notice how I look at people on the bus with older cell phones and laptops, and I wonder what is preventing them from getting a new one. Don’t they care? Why don’t they care? It is important, right?

So what I would like to know is… What about your job influences you? Have you noticed you look at people differently (for better or for worse) because of it?