Years ago I heard that snowmobiles pose a special danger by pushing the consequences of bad decisions from inconvenient to fatal. Suddenly people got lost farther away from home than they did with snowshoes. Rescue became more difficult.
These days we have some new technology in the blogosphere. Most of us incorporate it with our other marketing efforts. Though some of us seem too giddy and without enough perspective. We hear that emergence of A-listers, blogs and podcasts will replace a big marketing staff, a huge budget, a PR agency and elaborate press events. This seems breathlessly naive. What happens when four of your competitors get to the A-list bloggers first? Why, you crank up your marketing staff, increase budget, hire an agency and throw an event. The arms race is on. This isn't technology. It's how we humans go about our business. Let's not get too enamored with the tools without looking deeper at the fundamentals.
Blogs and FaceBook are not important. The conversation is. Conversations are things that humans do. Twitter, blogs, iPods, fax machines, and cuneiform tablets are just tools that help that ancient human activity.
So let's get excited about the technology and tools around us and keep our feet on the ground. Humans and our culture change far more slowly than technology refreshes. Let's look at we need to communicate and choose the right technology. Let's keep our bearings as we ride our new technologies into the woods.
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