Social Technology - what do you do with it?

As someone who grew up without the internet, I believe I had a fulfilling life before it existed. So, as it has become part of our everyday lives I have watched it and subconsciously compared it and all of it’s potential (good and bad) to life before it. I’ve watched it completely decimate the music industry, which has always been a big part of my life. I’ve seen the television market become less lucrative to the networks and subsequently watched the quality of shows and writing go south. And I’m seeing the United States Postal Service lose revenue and consider reducing it’s delivery schedule (same thing for newspapers) simply because e-mail is cheaper and faster.

However, there are many upsides to the internet as well, global audiences and global content providers. Unlimited resources in every area of interest, I can find websites on guitar tones forever. And the entire business to business supply chain model that has increased efficiencies and options for everything from raw materials to niche service providers.

The social technology side of this which includes; Youtube, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and all ‘blog sites (you can add more if you’d like) at first has looked to me to be a colossal waste of time. Hey, I enjoy searching YouTube as much as the next guy, you can find some informative things there, but I also see things that are so stupid or even dangerous that I can’t help but believe they wouldn’t be in existence if the internet didn’t give them their 15 minutes of fame.

Researching Twitter, MySpace and Facebook and finding the number of people that have accounts – 100 million, 12 million (see number of friends Tom has)and 400 million respectively; I have to believe that there is some value to these technologies. I suspect that value is different for different people and most importantly different demographics. But what is that value? And how do you leverage it?

I’d like to understand how these technologies are shaping the way we communicate and what role they will serve moving forward. I suspect that they really aren’t colossal wastes of time and I’m betting people use them in ways that really improves their quality of life.

So, what do you think?

Right, Wrong and Fair

This morning I was dealing with an issue that involved my two children ages 10 & 12 and it hit me that the ideas of right, wrong and most importantly fair are much more subjective than I thought. What really made my mind tick was that fairness is probably one of the most important concepts to have in your life but many times what seems fair to you, doesn’t seem fair to others.

Certainly, at the child level fair is much more selfish than it is as an adult. I mean by the time we all grow up, we know how to judge things fairly, how to be fair and how to drive towards fairness, right? We know how to avoid taking advantage of people or situations, we know how to allow people to have their own voices or opinions, heck we even know how to merge two lanes of traffic into one, right? So knowing all of this is great, but acting on this may be a whole nother story.

Maybe I’m confusing fair with polite or even just. Or maybe I’m thinking that fair should have a higher priority in our lives. When I think of war and conflict, I can’t help but think that both sides think they’re right, but I have a tough time thinking that both sides believe they’re being fair. I mean isn’t war typically started with someone thinking, ‘Hey, you have what I want!’? That doesn’t sound fair to me.

So as a parent teaching my children about right, wrong and fair is much more difficult than I thought. You have to consider their point of view, their perspective and their feelings. You have to look at a conflict through their eyes and then you have to figure out how to teach them that the world isn’t fair. However, you also want to teach them to act and treat each other fair. A parent’s job isn’t easy, in fact you could say that it isn’t fair.

What do you think?

Hello World!

I have to admit that I've been trying to figure out what I wanted to post for my inaugural blog. I mean this could be the start of something big so I don't want to mess it up - first impressions and all. But over the last week, I've come to the point of just wanting to say, "Here I am!" Now, I realize I haven't given you much reason to come back and I have a number of things that I want to discuss with you. But for this first one, let me tell you why I'm starting this.

I read Jeff Jarvis', 'What Would Google Do?' and I can't quite explain the impact that it's had on my because I know this is only the beginning. That being said, this really is only the beginning and thanks to Jeff I hope to really enjoy blogging, the blogosphere and everyone involved.

I look forward to interacting with all of you, positively or negatively because I feel like there aren't enough real discussions of ideas in the analog world. I'm hoping to find people that just want to discuss and debate things, to be intellectually stimulating and to help me learn - about everything!

I'm excited!