ALPFA's leadership summit talks social media

Earlier today I had the pleasure of speaking at ALPFA's 2012 Leadership Summit. Their theme was social media and as you all know I love me some social media. And not just for personal branding, but putting it to use in your professional life. Other panelists included Myrna Soto, SVP & CISO Comcast National Engineering & Technical Operations; Duncan Avis, KPMC Managing Director, Business Intelligence and Lee Raine, Director of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

So is your company using social media? How about you? There's a huge difference when it comes to personal branding and organizations using it to leverage their marketing efforts. Most of the panelists agreed that social media is turning (and integrating) into traditional media. The terms can be used interchangeably. Other takeaways included security issues. When you have giant insurance companies or even something like Best Buy, you have to be 100% careful about what your colleagues are distributing via social media. Remember, once it's out there in the world, it can and will be used against (or for) you.

Richard Negrin, Deputy Mayor and Managing Director from the City of Philadelphia also gave a great introduction about the city's use of social media and where Philadelphia is in terms of use and strategy. Unfortunately, 55% of Philadelphians don't have access to broadband internet. That number is insane and needs to be dropped. Thanks to Negrin's efforts, the city of Philadelphia created the 311 mobile app which allows citizens to get involved with city government. I just downloaded the app myself.