I'm a bit of a technological dinosaur. I feel like I'm one
of the five people in the world who still use a flip phone and
probably the only person who has managed to avoid having Facebook
put a timeline on my profile (You're in good company if that
doesn't make sense). I still sit at a computer to check my
emails and I do not know how to play Angry Birds. The first
step is admitting you have a problem, right?
Well after careful thought, I will no longer drag my feet into
this techie generation. Tonight I was encouraged by a seminar
at the vet school presented by the media savvy experts at
Veterinary News Network. The seminar took students through
the ever expanding importance of social media in our lives and
profession. Some shocking statistics of our evolving means of
communications and technology were presented to us. For
example, there are about one million books published every year,
but Americans now have access to around one trillion web
pages. There is truly a new way people learn information and
communicate with one another. It appears that I can either
embrace this new media fully or get out of the way because it is
not going to slow down.
It became clear to me that while this new age of LinkedIn and
Twitter are very different than the hand written notes decades
before, they are not necessarily a bad thing. Gone are the
days of one sided news reports that are now replaced with a more
conversational exchange of information.
The veterinary profession proudly acts as the voice for animals
and we must evolve in a way that their voice is still clearly heard
in the context of new media. I am motivated to share ideas
and help educate people on the best care for animals and listen to
the discussions that are already taking place. Tonight I can
proudly say that I created a Gmail account and have an ambitious
list of other media outlets to join within the coming weeks.
Excuse the pun, but I guess you can teach an old dog (or
3rd year veterinary student) new
tricks.