There've been a couple of articles about the 'politics should be more like Big Brother' report I mentioned on Sunday. BBC News did an amusing 'ten things politicians can learn from Big Brother' and Zoe Williams had a good article in today's Guardian on it, which included this quote:
Texting and emailing crop up quite a bit, as if, rather than being facilitators of communication, they were actually ideological standpoints in their own right.
Which is something that happens quite frequently, really. It's a lot like the web a few years ago (and today, to some extent) - lots of businesses and organisations saying 'we must use the power of text messages' just as they were saying 'we must use the power of the web' beforehand. No one has any idea how to use this mystical power, of course, but everyone knows it's vital that it gets utilised in some way or other. Which of course leads to a bunch of half-arsed schemes and ideas that do no good for anyone and are about as useful in disseminating information as carrier pigeons.
People never go on about how 'we must use the power of the telephone' or even 'we must use the power of the printing press', do they? Even though they've been around for a lot longer and people still don't know what they're doing with them a lot of the time. But then, all these new technologies are going to make the old ones obsolete so no one has to worry about them anymore. After all, television did a good job at completely removing the need for radio and cinema, didn't it?
So, what comes next? I can already hear the first distant shouts of 'we must use the power of the blog' sparking up, but what communications methodology is next to be misinterpreted after that?
Texting and emailing crop up quite a bit, as if, rather than being facilitators of communication, they were actually ideological standpoints in their own right.
Which is something that happens quite frequently, really. It's a lot like the web a few years ago (and today, to some extent) - lots of businesses and organisations saying 'we must use the power of text messages' just as they were saying 'we must use the power of the web' beforehand. No one has any idea how to use this mystical power, of course, but everyone knows it's vital that it gets utilised in some way or other. Which of course leads to a bunch of half-arsed schemes and ideas that do no good for anyone and are about as useful in disseminating information as carrier pigeons.
People never go on about how 'we must use the power of the telephone' or even 'we must use the power of the printing press', do they? Even though they've been around for a lot longer and people still don't know what they're doing with them a lot of the time. But then, all these new technologies are going to make the old ones obsolete so no one has to worry about them anymore. After all, television did a good job at completely removing the need for radio and cinema, didn't it?
So, what comes next? I can already hear the first distant shouts of 'we must use the power of the blog' sparking up, but what communications methodology is next to be misinterpreted after that?
Nick got away with this at 8:46 PM
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