Threads, Fabrics, and Quilts. What will you be?
Categories: Social Media, Web TheoryPosted on December 3rd, 2007Previously, our conversations and networks were limited to our physical surroundings.
These were the days of the threads.
Being Gen X, I grew up this way, my network was limited to my neigborhood, my school, my immediate surroundings. Of course for some, the phone expanded this although cell phones weren’t native to my childhood.
Fast forward 20 years and we now live in a hyper-connected world. Those few threads have formed a fabric, demonstrating our many-to-many networks. As a result, ideas and opinions spread efficiently like wildfire as well as the frequency in which we share. Our voices can easily be put online, shared with our networks, and the networks of our friends at any given time.
At any time, I can get my message out to hundreds of people, if not thousands, as my fabric is efficient and large. It’s easy, within minutes I could just blog/twitter/shared link in Facebook, then leave comments on the popular blogs driving traffic. I can do this in 10 minutes and it costs me nothing.
This isn’t just native to me, the next generation of workers is entering the office with their highly networked lives. By default, our college grads come connected to peers, prospects, customers, and even competitors –which will only increase as their fabrics increase in size.
Those that are truly efficient make their fabric overlap with the network of others. As these networks intertwine they become more powerful, as individuals with similar interests start to connect also the network power increases, the power is in the quilt.
So whenever we talk to someone (or have a brand experience), we have to stop and think, if I treat this person wrong, exactly how many people will know? If I treat them well, and genuinely try to help them, how many people will they tell?
[So the question remains, will your fabric (you or your brand) be part of the quilt? or will you be one of the scraps that is loosely connected by a dangling thread?]
Word spreads fast and far, I hope to welcome you to the quilt.
This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Social Media, Web Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Jeremiah Owyang
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