I nearly fell off my chair the other morning when I read about how the Pope is urging priests to blog (Does the Pope urge with a lightning bolt, I wonder?).

Then this morning, I found that other bastion of Medieval ways, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), is embracing social media. Aside from the fact that I find it astounding they are interested in what music fans have to say, I was gobsmacked to read that they understood there "is a paradigm shift happening, not just to the industry, but to our culture as a whole."

The article then went on to describe how NARAS had resisted this change because it invites fan feedback. In the past, you see, they liked to think they could control their brand and message.

A lot of restaurants would love to feel they can control their brand and message. Their strategy for doing that is to avoid reading all customer reviews. But as eloquently put by PR/Social Media guru Brian Solis in this post, "If a conversation takes place online and you're not there to hear it, did it actually happen?"

The answer, of course, is yes.  And it will continue to happen whether you are there or not.