Leo Bottary, SVP at Mullen, asked a pretty great question over on LinkedIn, What motivated you to learn about social media?  I took a stab at answering in my own way (via Marketing Conversation):

I came to social media PR the other way around. I have been online since the world of the bulletin board systems (BBS) and the Well, later in the 90s. I have been a deep member of social networks forever. Anyway, in 2003 I became a social media marketer at New Media Strategies and then moved onto Edelman.

Now, I am a social media native-speaker learning more and more PR and marketing practices.

So, I guess my question is, what motivated you to wait so long? Social media and online social networks have been alive and well since at least the early 80s in the form of message boards, forums, USENET, MUDs, MOOs, and IRC.

My fear is is that there will be loads of PR practitioners who will only invest in social media and online community because they have to and not because they’re passionate about it. I think this will all change when people stop making as much of a big deal about online social media and just take the mad communications and relationship skills and passions and just map them onto another forum: the Internet.

Why can’t PR practitioners do this? Short answer: “we” don’t consider all of those voices and all of those people and all of that text to be connected to real, powerful, and passionate people.

Leo, thanks so much for asking this question. I don’t know if I answered but I am happy to have thought through it.

So, what motivated you to learn about social media? Also, what motivated you to go into marketing or PR, if that’s what you do with yourself these days?

Here’s Leo’s complete question-in-full:

From: Leo Bottary

Date: August 11, 2008

To: Chris Abraham

Status: Viewed

What motivated you to learn about social media?

I don’t believe you can serve today’s public relations client without a working understanding of social media and the broader discipline of digital communication. Why should clients pay hundreds of dollars an hour for PR-lite? As PR professionals, it’s our responsibility to understand all the relationship tools at our disposal, not just some of them.

I got started because I felt like a fish out of water when the subject came up during a client/prospect meeting. And of course, I’m learning every day. What motivated you?