Thursday, December 31, 2009

If it's Cool, You Win?

The video below is of a young man who will explain in three to four minutes how social media really works on the web. So why do you care? Well, he's explaining the shift in the nexus of ideas. The nexus or core is no longer rooted as much in places like the university classroom but moving towards the web with its quick transmission of memes (pieces of cultural information or thoughts). The often fast and furious transmission brings a kind of high that is not necessarily bad because it can be inspirational. That many ideas floating around bouncing into each other is bound to encourage something significant.

But there is a shallowness to it. The medium may have changed and now facilitates some ideas that possibly never would have occurred in our lifetimes. But the impetus of people hasn't changed one whit. They are not necessarily driven by what's best but sometimes by what's cool. For me the real question is whether or not the volume of their exchange inspires more depth. I have thoughts on that as well, but I'll save it for another post.

Hope you take a look at the video.



In case the intro blipped by too fast or you didn't see the ending, "TedTalks" which he refers to is a series of videos designed to spread great ideas. These are fascinating, and I highly recommend taking a look at them if you're interested in what you and others, and probably especially your kids, are going to be seeing and hearing and influenced by.

As for reddit, it's also fascinating, and "fast and furious" is sometimes not sufficient to describe what goes on there. At times I think of it like the trading pit at the NYSE.

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