Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. MySpace. Blogs. I know there’s a ton more social networking platforms and apps out there, so what am I forgetting? Oh yeah: Yelp. Discussion Boards. Flickr. YouTube. Viddler. Does that cover it? Nope, because I forgot the biggest, baddest, oldest, most important social network of them all: Word of Mouth.

It’s amazing isn’t it? Most of us who live and work online think and talk about and interact with social networking platforms all day, every day thinking all the time that the world of social networking is some new phenomenon that we need to learn how to manage. But humanity has been networking since we’ve had language and Ugg told Grog about that new warm and bright thing in the back of the cave.

A good friend of Office Nomads, Jeremiah Andrick, who happens to be a social media guru brought all of this to our attention yesterday with a post that says simply:
“We forgot about word of mouth.”

Often when I hear people talk about the how “Twitter is changing everything” I laugh because while I get that twitter and other social platforms are changing our ability to stay in touch, these tools are just enabling us to have conversations that we might have had by other mediums. Real change occurs not by a medium, but by people how people use it.

Take some time to read it. Jeremiah’s idea is pretty brilliant in it’s simplicity, and it’s definitely a D’Oh! moment because it reminds all of us who are in customer service (and which of us running our own business isn’t?) that every interaction is a social interaction, replete with all the opportunities and risks inherent in every social media platform there is.

Susan loves to curl up on the couch with a good book.

One other quick note of excitement we wanted to share with you. Office Nomads has published its first book! Unbeknown to us all, or at least to me, Jacob put together a bunch of shots from the Office Nomads Flickr gallery and had them printed in a really sweet little book to celebrate Office Nomad’s first year of business! Next time you come in, check it out at the front desk, or take a look when you’re here for our next Open House on Oct. 16. More info to come on the blog next week, but you can RSVP at Facebook now and while you’re there, join the Office Nomads Group and be our friend.