Last night, I attended the HARO happy hour. For those of you who don’t know HARO, shame on you. HARO is the brain child of marketing/PR guru Peter Shankman and stands for Help A Reporter Out. When you sign up (it’s 100% free), you receive 3x a day an email with a list of stories from journalists asking for help with their story. If you meet the reporter’s specs, you may reply directly to that reporter about how you can help. It is a great way to get PR for yourself or business, and did I mention it is free.
Anyway, Peter hosted a happy hour last night and (despite the rain) had a great turn out. I met a bunch of interesting people and got to catch up with my friends Susan Lindner and Chris Capra of Lotus PR.
Later in the night, we finally got some face time with Peter and, well, that’s when he made his move and “poked” me.
For those of you who are 30+ and only starting using Facebook in the last few years, you probably don’t know much about the “poke”. Facebook give users the ability to “poke” their friends by clicking the above icon. When a friend does this to you, you get a curt message that you’ve been poked. Well, when Facebook first started and was only available to college students, the “poke” was used as a flirtatious message meaning you’d like to hook up with someone.
Anyway, Peter’s “poke” was not this type. Rather, he reached into his pocket and said “Here … I only have one more of these” and hands me a new device called the Poken. The Poken lets you bridge the gap between the people you meet in the real world and those you stay connected to online. This unique USB device allows you to easily share profile information with others. I can’t wait to give it a try and start poking anyway. Thanks Peter!!
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