Had an interesting little “learning” experience the other day. Just put this in the back of your mind if you start using SkypeOut. Always remember that ever-so-important number “1″ right after the “+” sign when typing in SkypeOut numbers.

You see, I was calling my Father. Dad had Arlene dropping by for a visit. She is the current hurricane/tropical storm – first of the season. I forgot that little one (1) when I dialed. Chatted with a very nice gentleman in Ethiopia as a result.

Now, here is the other lesson learned. There I was thinking the phone call was faint and I could barely hear my Dad. The voice on the other end kept saying, “What?” At least, I thought it was “what”. Turns out, the unwitting recipient of my call turned the mobile phone over to a friend. He came on line with a bit of broken English. A light bulb went off in my rather dim mind and I realized it was a wrong number. I apologized for having called the wrong number. He responded with a very polite, “OK, no problem. Thank you.”

Well, had it been the other way around, I could not have turned my phone over to anyone. I don’t know anyone that speaks Ethiopian. OK, until now.

Perhaps this is striking close to home for me because in my recent PR Quest interviews with PR practitioners in Europe, I have become increasingly aware of the value of being bilingual or multilingual.

Now, I feel it is my duty to find an Ethiopian PR practitioner and interview them. The people of Ethiopia are one up on me.

By the way, I like SkypeOut as it allows me to interview people in other countries for pennies. My unfortunate call to the poor fella in Ethiopia? Only 35 cents. How do I know it was Ethiopia and a mobile phone? The country you call shows up – instantly it seems – in your call logs. If it is a cell phone, you see the word ‘mobile’ in the listing.

The lesson was well worth it.

Also, the reason I used Skype to call Dad is because I thought he would think it was cool. Dad was unimpressed. Then, I remembered that this is a guy that was born in the Depression, grew up in a home without a phone, served in the Pacific on Okinawa during WWII and was doing shortwave radio broadcasts before most people knew there was shortwave. Dad said, “Oh, that’s nice.”