Who melted my cheese?

by Ed Van Herik

One of the most overused words these days is “change.” Such as, “We are in the midst of accelerating change.”

But there’s a funny thing about change: It comes to us all.

Let’s take a case in point. We are up to our eyeballs in the birth of Web 2.0 and its host of interactive communications tools. We know that how the new tools will be used – and what they might mean in terms of business and personal application – is far from certain.

But one thing we do know: The change will affect not only those who are just learning about Web 2.0 processes, but also those who have been building and promoting them. 

Do you remember a book called,  “Who Moved My Cheese?” It was written like a simple fable, and it talked about how to cope with change, including looking for new things when the old ones disappeared, simply digging in and refusing to adapt, and being flexible when approaching change.

My cohorts at What a Concept! realized that we were experiencing culture shock as we collaborated with some of our techie colleagues. As we talked about Web 2.0 advances, we heard terms like “scalable structures,” as if the interactive opportunities now available were like a program that anyone could use right off the shelf. It sounds impressive: A world of elegant programs, scalable structures, clean communications.

But in the world of social media, communications is unrehearsed and sloppy. Kind of like eating a melted cheese sandwich, social media oozes off the edge of the bread, gets on the plate, gets on your hands and is generally a mess. Nothing neat and clean about it.

And there is little scalable about it. Our approach to social media is to tailor it for individual use. For What a Concept!, interactivity is more than what we sell; it’s how we do business. When you talk to us, expect us to ask lots of questions about your ideas and your goals before we make our recommendation.

As we discussed this disconnect, the What a Concept! staff began asking themselves how this melted cheese sandwich was going to mesh with the elegance of  Web 2.0’s interactive tools.

Beats me.

But I suspect we are all going to find changes creeping up on us just as fast as we tell the world to brace for the effects of Web 2.0.

Comments

[David Cohen]

Great thoughts - the discussion of change reminds me of a favorite quote: "If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less." --General Eric Shinseki

-David

[Sara Gold]

My favorite quote right now is : "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand" Randy Pausch

Dr.Randy Pausch’s Lecture : Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams has been viewed my millions already. The lecture is on You Tube and Google. Hundreds of bloggers have posted it on their blogs, including me. A tribute quiz is already up at mystudiyo.com. The quiz is never ending, you go to the site and post your own questions. Web 2.0 is zooming!