One of my daughters works at a regional bank and manages the behind the scenes software that the bank has begun using for all of its customer service activities. With the purchase of this software, her job includes getting all of the bank employees who work with customers comfortable with social media and all of its implications, limitations and opportunities. She has some very interesting stories of the bank president accepting the need to become social media aware and jumping into the learning activities along with the other employees. She has been trying to convince me of the value of the new ways people interact and receive information. I can see myself being even more naive than the bank officers in trying out this type of communication.

One of my brothers is on faculty in the Ag Engineering Department at Iowa State University – Dr Tom Brumm. He is also on a temporary appointment as coordinator of distance education (think on-line learning and more) for the College of Engineering. He constantly thinks about how students (both in face to face classes and using distance media such as internet access) learn and retain the learning. He was the one who pushed me almost 6 years ago to begin blogging as a way to reach out to industry with my thoughts and experiences. He is also aware of the many new ways students and learners have adopted as means of gathering information.

It’s 2:45 pm and I have just enrolled in Twitter. As our industry evolves and faces new opportunities and challenges this is another ‘social media’ tool that we need to become good at using to communicate our story to our consumers, regulators and even our detractors. I credit my daughter and brother (along with some of you) for continuing to push us ‘old-timers’ to the new methods.
While the change will be uncomfortable at first, I know I need to use these methods to pass on to the on-coming generation of owners and employees some of the lesson’s I’ve learned in my almost 50 years in this industry.

For those that want to follow my ‘tweets’ my hash tag (I think I called it the correct thing) is:

Michael Brumm@mbrumm11