In the Web 2.0 world, however, the nightmare is not the scarcity, but the over-abundance of authors. Since everyone will use digital media to express themselves, the only decisive act will be to not mark the paper. —Andrew Keen
For the past month, we chose NOT to mark the paper. It was our decisive act.
Why?
Partly as a result of our mad adventure in the offline world, the place where we had spent most of our life, where we had toiled, bled and sweat, where we had wahooed and wooed, mourned our losses and celebrated our successes with family and friends, as we drank in the sunsets and beer— the world of flesh and blood, where we could hear sounds beyond the clicking of our keyboards, the sight of traffic not found in stats, laughter instead of LOL and smiley faces, the feel of a non-virtual handshake– the world we had loved before we fell under the spell of the Silicon Siren, before we were paralyzed by the frenetic net . On the road, we learned what we had forgotten. It was the drug that lead to our Awakening.
Besides, we had grown weary of the blog-o-whatever, RE.nonsense and the web 2.oh not another one. It was time to step back, take a breather and live a little. So we dropped out. Walking and talking with people, we experienced a satori of sorts. Once again, rivers are rivers and mountains are mountains.
We gave some thought to walking away. The offline world had so much more to offer– a richer, truer networking. But after reading the emails and comments of those we love out there, and to offset the voices of those we think “don’t get it”, we decided to jump back in the blog pool. We love swimming with our friends (and nice strangers). Besides, blogging has allowed us to connect with some fantastic people offline. We will devote more time trying to bridge the gap between the online and offline worlds. We urge others to do the same. The marriage of the two is the key, we think, to success in business and personal relationships.
So, we are back— back to break the rules others would construct for the individual blogger. Say we must write words and we’ll post images. Tell us video sucks and we’ll post plenty of it. Let us all color outside the lines. Be the exception to the rule. Stand proudly out from the crowd and do not let others define your work or your worth. Individuality must fight against Web 2.0 collectivism. The crowd is NOT always wise, neither the wise.
….Rudy, get the net, I think I caught the big one. Hey Scoble, keep the boat steady.
I was standing in line to meet the prop team from the show ‘the office’. They were looking for companies whose logo had anything related to “Scranton” PA (shirts, mugs, ect..). They ended up w/ a ton of stuff, chances of http://www.ScrantonVideoHomes.com being mentioned on the show are slim to none but what the hey right?
Anyway, I was standing next to a lady who owned a super market and during our conversation I asked her if she offered advertising on her shopping carts. I got the idea from an article by Marc Davison posted at Inman. http://www.inman.com/InmanNews.aspx?ID=63895 She was blown away. She thought that was the coolest idea ever. There’s something about ‘local’ that rises above cyberspace. It’s sort of like all the ‘Internet rules’ fly out the window when looked at from the community level; As if applying Einstein’s celestial physics to the behavior of sub-atomic particles within the level of quantum mechanics. The two do not match and accepted ‘known facts’ about our universe no longer remain true. We are therefore forced to create an entirely new set of rules to accommodate, though we know that there is only one universe. We have yet to arrive at a grand unified theory that rectifies these two separate understandings of our same single existence.
So is the same for cyberspace and shopping carts. (online – offline)
At the local level there seems to be this ‘point of mix’ where the behavior of media gets a little funky. It’s a land where a simple shopping cart ad has more impact than an online media campaign costing 10x’s as much. It’s a land where media converge more readily and where familiarity is king. Long live the king!
Well said Joe.
Web 2.0 is fabulous. We just have to get rid of the people who think its another way to advertise and trick the search engines.
You are exactly who I “expected” you to be. Joe and Rudy in person, are exactly who you were in the blogosphere.
You guys just have to learn to see past the screen into the eyes and hearts of your readers, as we see you.
Welcome back! Now stop that crap about leaving us or I’ll come out there and whack you upside the head, the both of you.
Rudy - couldn’t locate your email address, but this looks like an appropriate post to draw your attention to Joe, who you met at the Bloggers Connect.
http://www.inman.com/hstory.aspx?ID=64496
I’m glad you decided to stay and play in the blog pool with us.. it just wouldn’t be the same without both of you..