The following is the press release for Connecting Directors, this week’s sponsor of Final Embrace:

The website Myspace.com allows friends to connect and share their stories, favorite music and future plans.  Other sites like Facebook and LinkedIn cater to a more professional user base.   All three are part of the online world of social networking.The funeral industry is already seeing the effects that social networking has on modern funerals, as younger members of client families use their Facebook account to notify their friends of a loved one’s death, others use MyDeathSpace.com to honor the deceased and MySpace pages are turned into permanent memorials after a user’s death. And while funeral professionals can use one of these sites to build their own online profile, there hasn’t been an effective place for the funeral industry to gather, share ideas, record important thoughts or work out industry-specific issues until now.

Connecting Directors is a new funeral resource provider that runs the social networking site, http://www.connectingdirectors.com/.  More than just a page to detail your likes and dislikes, favorite bands or movies and vital statistics (like MySpace), the site encompasses discussion boards for in depth discussion of industry topics.  Users can also create their own blog, where they can write about their life, their firm, their career or any other topic imaginable.

Member’s web pages allow a funeral professional to create a “presence” on the Internet, as well as offering a place where the user’s friends and colleagues can access all his/her created content.

The designer of Connecting Directors, Ryan Thogmartin is proud that his site stands out from the mainstream providers by offering teleconferencing and audio/video web conferencing to users.

“The funeral industry is trying to progress, but it’s a lot slower than other fields,”  says Thogmartin.  “We’re providing a resource for funeral professionals to connect in faster, more innovative ways.” Ryan goes on to share that many of his current users have found the web conferencing tool to be an effective way for employees at separate locations to attend a virtual staff meeting each day, which helps resolve problems faster and maintain staff unity.

“Between the web conferencing and the teleconferencing features, we’ve already shown several of our users how to save thousands of dollars each month in fuel and travel costs,” claims Thogmartin.  “Even our teleconferencing is different than a regular phone call, since several people can participate at once, saving time and money.”  Connecting Directors currently offers free memberships, possible because Connecting Directors also offers limited advertising to industry product/service providers.

“Building a site just for the funeral industry was fun but challenging, because of the specific needs of the field,” shares Thogmartin.  “But the feedback we’ve already gotten from the hundreds of page views each day tells us that we’re on to something.”

If you would like more information about http://www.connectingdirectors.com/ or advertising on the site please email Ryan Thogmartin at ryan@connectingdirectors.com.

Connectingdirectors.com…the “Facebook” of the funeral industry.