Still Here. Still Thinking
Posted on May 20, 2008
Filed Under About |
I knew I wouldn’t blog nearly as much when I started this site, but I thought it would be a little more frequent that it has been over the past two months. I still have lots of ideas. I still have plenty to say. Honestly, I even have the time to write a bit. I just don’t see the return on it compared to other things.
I have a hard time focusing on the web these days because of the Ron Paul effect. For those involved heavily in the web and social media, it seemed as if Ron Paul was at least making a dent in the primaries. As it turned out though, most of the rest of the world had no idea who he was. I think about that every time someone tells me about the latest frivolous web tool that is going to be the next big thing. I wonder, “the next big thing to who? A bunch of web novelty seekers that just move on from big thing to big thing?” It only seems like “everyone” is using the latest and greatest tool because we are pulling from the wrong sample.
I’m not one of those people who thinks that web is bad, or that it is useless. I just think it is a time sink and that the return on “being part of the conversation” is negative for most people. That isn’t anything that hasn’t been said many times before. I just wanted to explain why I’ve been missing.
Comments
7 Responses to “Still Here. Still Thinking”
Leave a Reply
so true. so very true.
i’m the only “early-adopter” type that i even know, so i have a very tangible sense of how little the online world interacts with the “regular” world.
which is why i spend entire minutes laughing about how silly a 15 billion dollar valuation on Facebook is…
On a contrary note:
- Barack Obama did completely flip the funding model for presidential campaigns by raising so much money from small, Internet donors.
- Facebook is a very mainstream phenomena (at least in my age group). So is YouTube. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s world changing. I’d consider both the MTV of my generation.
- The importance of the Internet as an informational tool cannot be overstated. Google, Wikipedia, Google Books, Gutenberg Project, Amazon, Blogs - all of these have put an extraordinary amount of information at our finger tips. The effect of this will be profound.
Points of agreement:
- The Internet is by its nature anti-social. Any so-called “social software” that gets you to spend more time in front of a screen instead of hanging out with live people is actually “anti-social software”.
- There doesn’t seem to be that much good writing about entrepreneurship/business lately. Perhaps there’s only so much to be said.
Rob — off the subject
I just stumbled across your indictment of Good to Great you wrote in ‘06. What a joy to discover someone who makes my kind of sense. While the data points are interesting, the book is far from a go-by. The very notion that buying this book would impart operational and ideological wisdom to the reader is absurd, and only points to the desperation of business people who have no idea what to do. Frankly, I distrust any business leader who puts their faith in a book. Can anyone say “Who Moved My Cheese?” The history of the world supports the idea that talent matters, and while we can all hone our skills, innate talent can’t be learned, duplicated, or gathered from the pages of a big red book. Good to Great is to business what my Super Man cape was to me in ’69. Guess what? The cape didn’t make me fly.
[…] Rob May Still Here. Still Thinking I have a hard time focusing on the web these days because of the Ron Paul effect. For those […]
Hi Rob,
Nice to know you’re still thinking (not that I had any doubts). It seems to me that “the conversations” can get awfully stale and the law of diminishing returns takes over quickly (just like conversations in the real world). I’m curious about the more valuable things you’re doing with your time. What have you been up to (besides parenting - a much better use of your time)?
Mike
Bingo. I already had that in mind, but perhaps what brought it home was when I created a resume that had anything more than the vaguest mention of blogging and got reactions from “I’d consider that bad” to “WTF is that all about” from so many “beta testers.”
It’s related to my observation that half of Twitter is “SEO experts” and related “I will help your company with blogging” types. Who learned about blogging years after us, but are experts.
Disqus commenting system would change your life.