Conversation Group Co-Founder Chris Heuer and I discussed our roles before yesterday’s CEA Industry Forum panel on social media. We started with the need for social media consultants to get out of the echo chamber and talk to businesses. Our discussion revolved around and progressed over several points:

Total length is 20:30. You can download directly via libsyn, or listen to the podcast here.

An article from the NYT today has me eating a certain portion of my past words.

As some of you may be aware, I recently purchased an actual cell phone plan. This is something I never thought I would do. It made sense economically but it has turned out to be something that I hadn’t counted on: fun.

I’ve been having, dare I say it, fun playing (yes, that’s the word) with my new phone. Four hundred fifty minutes, with lots more if I talk on weekends. Plus I bought 400 text messages, a number which includes picture and video messages! This has caused the frequency of my utterz posts to skyrocket (when it’s not down, like it is today). I created my own ringtones, a quote from the Big Lebowski for voice calls, and another tone for incoming text messages, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

And of course, I’ve also been using it for its intended purposes: keeping in touch with other rural carriers while on the route and contacting potential interviewees while on the go. So it’s not all fun and games, honest.

Well, the NYT piece also highlighted another of my favorite things…

Apple is also now putting a lot of emphasis as well on the iPod Touch, which is being touted as much as a platform for pocket Internet access and mobile computing as it is for playing music and videos. Already, sales of the Touch helped Apple increase its revenue from iPods by 8 percent to $1.8 billion in the quarter, compared to that 1 percent increase in unit sales.

The iPod touch has to be the number one most incredibly useful piece of technology in history. It is by far the coolest gadget I have ever used.

These two thought threads, twirled together by the Times article, have brought me to a point of heretofore unthinkable technological, what’s the word, … lust: I realize now that there exist certain conditions which would result in me purchasing an iPhone.

There, I said it. I feel better. Except for the fact that Will is going to have me for breakfast once he reads this post.

Let me explain, as if it will make any difference. The wireless plan I purchased made sense economically because there was a 25% discount owing to my employment with the USPS. This discount and the plan that goes with it comes from AT&T. AT&T happens to be the carrier of record for the iPhone. So I looked up AT&T’s iPhone plans. Not bad. And if you’re an existing customer, it’s even better.

So yeah, if I have a really large, permanent windfall (very unlikely) in the near future (even more unlikely), I might possibly purchase an iPhone. But of course that extra non-existent cashflow may have to be diverted to, and this is also top-of-mind right now because of the Times article, my next notebook, which will definitely be the mac I’ve wanted to own since I worked for the ad agency in New York.

Until that happy day, I remain a mac lover trapped inside a windows shell.

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