Friday 25th of February 2011

On Tuesday I had a good day. Flew to Wellington then headed up the road to present my social media show to the IFA in Palmerston North. The presentation is all about helping advisers understand Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as well as talk a little about mobile technology and the mobile version of Good Returns (type m.goodreturns.co.nz into your phone’s browser to see it).. The IFA in the central North Island has lots of wise heads who have been advising for a long time. It was good to catch up with many of these stalwarts of the advice world. They were a great audience to present to only letting me get a couple of slides into the presentation before the questions started. From there on it was a lively discussion answering all sorts of questions (and telling some stories that shouldn’t be told). I talked about many things and examples of how social media can be used including the comments in this presentation from Gen-I chief executive Chris Quin about how he used Twitter to keep up with last year’s earthquake in Christchurch. While I had a good time that changed quickly. Right at the end of the presentation adviser John Doolan announced there had been a big earthquake in Christchurch. The magnitude of this didn’t sink in till I jumped in the car and started driving back to Wellington and tuned into Radio New Zealand. Then it hit me. While my day started off well, it didn’t finish that way. To all our readers, advisers and their families in Christchurch we hope are well. Our thoughts are with you. PS: if you are on Twitter you can follow the newstream at #eqnz and #christchurch