The sight of Carey Smith (aka Ray White Real Estate) in today’s Sunday Star Times got me thinking about my first meeting with the man at a public relations seminar a few weeks ago.

I didn’t know him from a bar of soap, but clearly he got into my consciousness and now he appears to be everywhere.

The seminar paraded a range of speakers, most talking on the subject of social media. Many presentations covered the theory of Facebooking, Tweeting and viral campaigning together with a scattering of case studies.

Carey turned up with a lively virtuoso performance hewn from the edgy world of residential real estate. Here’s a man who is discovering how his blog [www.careysmith.com] and social media activity is merely an extension of his lifelong need to have rich relationships with his family, friends and of course… business clients and prospects.

Refreshingly, Carey’s enthusiasm for social media seems to see it as a huge opportunity but not something to gaze at in gob-smacking bewilderment.

Praise be! Social media is spawning a bevy of overnight gurus who will have us believe that the processes are more important to understand than the ideas that are needed to make it work. I’m sure that when the telephone was invented, there were people offering themselves for “how to best dial to make the telephonic experience a rich and rewarding experience.”

It seems that a blog and Facebook were invented for Carrie Smith. Good on him and he sets a fine example for us all. Next time I sell a house, I might just call Carey.

I’m feeling the need to attack Telecom’s recent promotion of its new XT mobile network.

Call me old school, but successful communicating is about making sure the messages are the right ones for a particular audience, then making sure to use appropriate communications channels to those selected audiences. There is also the not insignificant factor of timing and resources to consider.

But I won’t be complicated; let’s just stick to the question of appropriate messaging.

My daughter, a very media savvy 18 year old, watched the 2Degrees TV commercials and laughed her approval for the way it connected her with the essential messages via a very kiwi sense of humour. The use of Reece Darby created an inspiring and simple vehicle for 2Dgrees to promote a completely new offering to New Zealand consumers.

What is Telecom doing in the same market space? Let’s not forget that Telecom is the firmly entrenched ‘old foggy’ in this market with a corporate reputation as something of a big, slow dragger. Telecom’s answer is Richard Hammond from the BBC’s Top Gear programme.

I can just here the logic at Telecom – high tech innovation demands a smart young presenter from a leading international car programme. Well that’s not what my daughter thinks. She compares the humour and kiwi slant of 2Dgrees communications with Telecom’s offering and there is only one winner.

Telecom need to get out more and work out that New Zealanders, not just 18 year olds, are no longer conned by flash-harries from aunty BBC TV shows talking about how you can get 3G reception from a shipping container sitting in the middle of the Hauraki Gulf.

The old rules remain the same. Appropriate communications can never be improved with the kinds of big corporate budgets and production values Telecom throws at its marketing.

Hey, and I’m not the only one less than impressed.