Zuckerberg good choice for Person of the Year.

Courtesy: Time Magazine

Facebook PIC (Poster in Chief) Mark Zuckerberg is having a good year. At age 26 he's worth billions, a hit movie was made about how he either created, or stole the idea for Facebook and now he's on the cover of Time Magazine as "Man of the Year." He's the second youngest person ever to grace the cover. Aviator Charles Lindbergh beat him by a year. In a way, both accomplished similar things in how we live our lives. Lindbergh proved we could get from here to there faster. Zuckerberg has us communicating faster than ever before.

It's a good choice. The Tea Party by the way, was runner-up.

My epiphany about Facebook came this summer while in Alaska. While we had plenty of Internet access, even at a remote village 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle, we were so busy there was little time to digitally check in. I noticed that I was going to both my business and personal Facebook pages first.

I've heard/read different opinions about just how many people are connected by Facebook, but 1/10 of the world's population is a good estimate. Some 500 million people. There are a lot of people actually making a living teaching others how to make the best use of Facebook as part of a social media strategy for business. I'm one of them.

For most, it's just being connected. A colleague keeps her network to a group of close friends. She described Facebook as like having a high school reunion every day.

Business Schools are already studying Facebook's business model and how Zuckerberg runs his business. You've heard of Cloud Computing. Facebook has Cloud Management.

More than a few pundits wondered why WikiLeak LIC (Leaker in Chief) Julian Assange wasn't chosen. The response was that five years from now, he'll be at most, a footnote in history. As for Facebook, we'll see.

When someone is chosen as Person of the Year, it's not necessarily for doing something good. Just having a profound impact on society; good, bad or in-between. Among the 500 million Facebook users are a lot of very bad people using the technology to steal and to stalk.

There's also no small irony in Time's choice as it's a very analog publication trying to be relevant in this age of Facebook.

Most striking is the cover itself. Study the picture, especially those eyes. It's like he's peering into our very soul. Maybe he is.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters Public Relations
"We start the conversation about you" (Facebook is one way we do that)