Damien Mulley

I did a media interview last week talking about the web and of course Twitter and what it means. Preaching to the converted is actually unrewarding. It’s more a thigh rub than anything that stimulates parts above the neck.

I’ve done a few interviews with “outsiders” to web media and it’s through their grounding in a different environments that actually allows me to understand this web area better. Lots of questions were asked and I found myself considering this area using factors that never came into my head. I found what I was saying to actually be quite interesting. Hopefully they’ll have a recording of what I’ve said. I blabbed for 45 mins straight so who knows what was in there.

Last evening a college student asked to interview me for a college project, I get about 2-3 requests a month from college students wanting to talk about blogging or social networks or Twitter or the future of news and bits in these areas. Some of the questions I get each and every time but some are nicely nuanced that they make my greymatter buzz. So I might bitch and moan but generally I like doing them from what I personally learn each and every time. (Please note this is not a reason to email me asking me for interviews)

I think only from being outside can we see things in a better light besides always being on the inside developing our own exclusionary language and ettiquette. And it only took me 3, 892 blog posts to get to here…

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky, Free by Chris Anderson, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, anything by Seth Godin. Just some of the books I’ve decided to not read given everyone else is extolling their virtues. Finite time and infinite words mean that for every one of these I read, there is another book I won’t. Shirky’s book in particular I should think is fantastic but with everyone in tech and online media talking about it and pushing the ideas of it on their blogs, on Twitter and at conferences I’d like to be influenced by different perspectives. I’m sure there’s a degree of Chinese Whispers to this but without reading Shirky I’ve heard most of the examples from his book already. Subtleties might be missed but this being modern times and modern media the ideas will come around and around again.

Even if all in these books are sound, these books with mass appeal push industry down one route. Perhaps another form of cognitive dissonance at the expense of underlying theories. With everyone sharing the same reading lists it feels like that the influences on business are homogenising. Just another version of the top 10 shelves in Waterstones. Sociology, philosophy, antropology are all being mashed into pop sociology/tech books. If we all look at the world with the same set of collective lenses then will we more or less see the same thing or get pushed along the same lines? Only when differing and opposing (but considered) views happen and smash together do we begin to see things properly. 3D instead of 2D or 1D.

I’m off to read the Communist Manifesto (hey, I was in Cuba!), Hidden Culture, Being Good and Beano Christmas Annual 1987.

Photo owned by Karen Roe (cc)