While waiting for an oil change, I heard a business man mumble on his cell, “We’ve got to figure out how to use this social medianess.”

Medianess is not word, but what a great way to classify something. Just add “ness” to the end, and somehow social media seems to be safer and friendlier to talk about.

What I took away from the conversation was that this gentleman was both very excited and very confused about social media. This seems to be happening a lot lately. Businesses, organizations, and people, who until recently never gave social media the time of day, are now scrambling trying to figure it out.

Is this really any surprise? I mean for the longest time things were done a certain way. Then in the blink of an eye, the game changed and many have been forced to change and are struggling to adapt.

For those of us who have already made the transition to this space, it’s easy to point fingers at the mistakes made by others.

However, I would argue that it is our responsibility to help those who are less familiar with this landscape make the transition. Sounds great, but how do we do that? We start by demystifying the smoke and mirrors that have been built around social media.

We can not simply throw a life line and yell, “Swim!” By taking on the task of helping others responsibly, we start building bridges. And as the communication builds, the doors begin to open.

Then all of a sudden, that businessman gets it and he no longer needs to add the “ness”.

So, as this discussion continues, we’ll have a series of posts that will help demystify and breakdown what this whole social medianess thing is really about. What are your thoughts? Are there specific topics we should cover? Next we’ll take a look at the essence of social media.