I was reading through the comments of Mark Guzdial’s post What if computer science was required? this morning and wondered to myself “what if taking math were not required?” Would students take it on their own? Would parents make them? Of course math is important but a lot of people hate it. Same with English or history or geography. What subjects would students take if they were not required to take the “hard” ones? If school were not required would they even go?

Many would of course. Educated parents would especially make sure their children were educated. But could they keep pushing them there as they got older? Teens are notoriously poor decision makers. I think some would see the value and would continue but given how many students drop out in high school now I suspect even fewer would make it into high school if they were allowed to drop out earlier. This would be a societal disaster I think.

I’m thinking this would make an interesting book. Fiction I hope.

I guess I’m a little frustrated at people who view social media as something to hire people to do for them. They don’t have time you see. So they hire someone to blog for them. Or Twitter for them. Or “Facebook” for them. It somehow just seems wrong to me. I was thinking about that today and Twittered the following:

If people on Twitter are important enough to you for you to pay people to talk to them aren’t they important enough for you to talk to?

If you are looking at social media for marketing purposes you are looking to communicate with people, generally decision makers, and get them to buy your goods or services. These people are (or should be) important to you. You should see their time as important and valuable. I’m guessing most people think of their time as important and valuable. Are you broadcasting to them or conversing with them? Other than low level consumer products I doubt many sales are made without conversation. But even with consumer sales a company wants to create an attachment – a relationship – with their customers. Can you do that by broadcast alone? I’m not sure you can. At least not reliably.

The beauty of social media is that it is social. It is multi directional. Sure you can hire people to do this conversation for you. But all too often the customer binds to the person you hire rather than to you or your company. Think about whose personality is coming through. Is it the company image you want to project? If so maybe it can work. That’s probably more reliable as a plan if the person is a real full-time employee though.

I’m not a purist on this though. I’ve seen some cases of “hired guns” doing a good job. I just can’t see myself doing it. It seems risky. So I’m still trying to figure this out. Looking for opinions here. Thanks.