Two weeks ago I spent the better part of a 45-minute car ride home from work trying to convince my friend of the power of social media. He didn’t buy it. He’s an up and coming sales executive for a medical instruments company. He doesn’t have the time or inclination to learn about it or get involved. And why should he?

He’s a road warrior-spends a lot of the day networking with the right people, talking to doctors and advising them during surgeries (“Um, yeah, Dr. Smith, you’re gonna want angle that that titanium screw juusssst like this”)

So, I got off my soapbox, and realized , hey, maybe he doesn’t need social media…He doesn’t have TIME to blog, make connections on facebook, get linkedin, twitter, etc. He also has four kids under 7 which probably has a tiny little something to do with it.

My guess is that most of the sales execs on the road are probably like him too. They’ve got a quota to reach, food to put on the table, and don’t necessarily need to hop on twitter and tell everyone that Manny just signed with LA.

Buuuuut, I’m dying to see if he (and other people like him) changes his tune in the next year or so. What if he started blogging about his company and their effectiveness of their newest instrument in XYZ surgery? What if he Linkedin with a few doctors and was able to connect them to a great resource or idea? Has he heard about Sermo yet? I love their business model.

It seems like this little part of the world (medical instruments) isn’t ready for social media yet. But could it be? What’s holding it back?