I’ve had the opportunity recently to talk to a lot of people between the ages of 55 and 85 about social media, thanks to the Bucks County library system in Southeast Pennsylvania. The library asked me to develop and present a series of programs to help older people learn about social media. At one recent session, an older gentleman interrupted me just as I was getting started. His question caught me a bit off guard: “What is the Internet, anyway. And who owns it.”

I gave him a B+ answer off the top of my head comparing the Internet to water in our natural environment. “It’s everywhere, with a lot of people owning parts of it. But you really need somebody to deliver it to you in safe and usable manner so that it really has value to you.” He seemed satisfied and I moved on.

After the presentation, I started thinking back to the early 90s when I was first introduced to the Internet. I had an Apple computer with a 2400 baud modem through dial-up. It was painfully slow, but it gave me the opportunity to begin to see the potential of the Internet to create a tremendous transformation in our society.

I remember many discussions at work and with friends as we tried to figure out what exactly the Internet was and how it would benefit us. Would it really be all that important? Would it really do all the things that people said it would? Was it really a marketing tool, a sales platform, or a communication tool? And who owned the Internet within businesses and nonprofit organizations?

Should the Internet belong to the IT Department, the Marketing Department, or the Sales Department? Then people in Public Relations started saying maybe it belongs to them, because it was a powerful way to communicate with the public. No one I personally knew in those days was even thinking about things like Customer Service or Human Resources. Some were talking about the concept of “social networking,” but we certainly weren’t calling it that!

With the passing of time, we now have the luxury of knowing that the Internet is not contained or limited to one department, one benefit, one area of any organization, or any one part of our lives. We now understand that the Internet is a really, really big deal – and it has changed everything.

Today I hear people asking some of the same questions: Who owns “Social?” Is it really going to last? Is it really valuable? Is this a passing fad? Is “Social” just a marketing platform? It involves a lot of technology, should IT be in charge? What about public relations – it is open and it involves the public? What is it, really?

I happen to be someone who believes that just like the advent of the Internet more than 20 years ago dramatically changed media, business and life, so too will “Social” now change media, business and life.

In the early 90s I had the privilege to attend one of the most profound conferences I’ve ever experienced. It was produced by the Stanford University Alumni Association in conjunction with Apple, and was held at Apple headquarters in Cupertino California. The premise of the conference was “Putting Your Publications Online.”

At the opening of the conference, they confessed to us that they tricked us into being there. They said that the worst thing we could do was simply put our print publications online. They made it clear that the Internet was completely different, and that it would indeed change everything about the way we lived and worked and communicated with each other.

Among the speakers at this event were Rick Smolan, Walter Mossberg, and many others whose names I wish I could remember. These were leading-edge people who helped shaped my thoughts about the Internet. And yes, they changed my life, they changed my business and they changed my media.

In a distant and small echo of that powerful conference I experienced so many years ago, I decided to create the SoMeBizLife Conference. It stands for “Social: Media, Business & Life.” I believe the social revolution in our society which is been sparked by technology, innovation and new ways of thinking will change everything. It is already changing media. It is changing business. And it is changing lives. It will change everything.

With this in mind, I have invited more than 25 speakers to share their ideas, information, and insights in a power packed day of presentations, networking, and sharing. I invite you to check out www.socialmediabusinesslife.com, and I hope you will attend this conference.

And I trust that you will agree that social media is indeed changing everything. Please choose to be part of this powerful day. I hope to see you June 1 at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown.