mortarandpixel

Ice and Technology and Social Media

A tweet earlier today sparked an interesting dialogue today about technology and behaviors around them. When I initially got involved in the conversation it had already moved a bit away from the original statement, but i wanted to take a moment and add my two pennies around the tweet that kicked things off.

Original tweet from @mikegermano

If you don’t understand the technology you realistically can’t see the future of social media. I am just saying. [link]

Parts of this comment feel right, but parts also feel wrong. Understanding the elements in play are always key to being able to do things in that space, or to plan a next step. But when it comes to ‘seeing the future’ of something you need to be able to step away from it, at which point i think the technology plays a much smaller role. Guy Kawasaki tells a wonderful story about the ice industry that well illustrate that point, retype with no ones permissions. ( email me if its a problem )

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in life is to accept
the known and resist the unknown. You should, in fact, do exactly the
opposite: challenge the known and embrace the unknown.
Let me tell you a short story about ice. In the late 1800s
there was a thriving ice industry in the Northeast. Companies would cut
blocks of ice from frozen lakes and ponds and sell them around the world.
The largest single shipment was 200 tons that was shipped to India. 100
tons got there unmelted, but this was enough to make a profit.
These ice harvesters, however, were put out of business by
companies that invented mechanical ice makers. It was no longer
necessary to cut and ship ice because companies could make it in any
city during any season.
These ice makers, however, were put out of business by
refrigerator companies. If it was convenient to make ice at a
manufacturing plant, imagine how much better it was to make ice and
create cold storage in everyone’s home.
You would think that the ice harvesters would see the
advantages of ice making and adopt this technology. However, all they
could think about was the known: better saws, better storage, better
transportation.
Then you would think that the ice makers would see the
advantages of refrigerators and adopt this technology. The truth is
that the ice harvesters couldn’t embrace the unknown and jump their curve
to the next curve.
Challenge the known and embrace the unknown, or you’ll be
like the ice harvester and ice makers.

My conclusion? Very difficult to use the technology of today.. and the current ‘way of doing things’ in social media to dictate what the future is going to look like if we are talking more then a couple months out.