Monday, August 22, 2005
MARSHALL MCLUHAN'S REVOLUTION IS HERE
I spoke to Critt Jarvis this morning on the telephone regarding a new project and also the acquisition of The New Rule-Set Project by Enterra Solution's Stephen DeAngelis. Dr. Barnett explained the numerous advantages to this collaboration for him on his blog and for Critt's part, he was made the new Director of Corporate Blogging. Now this is something entirely new but I expect that as striking as Critt's title is today, in five years it will be as commonplace as a company having a Chief Information Officer or a Director of Human Resources.
Marshall McLuhan is seldom remembered these days but he was the insightful media guru who was most famous for his statement " The medium is the message". McLuhan left a large body of work on the fundamental relationship between media and people, thought and society and not only would he have immediately grasped the change implied in Critt's new job but would have expected it.
New methods of communication actually re-train the mind to think somewhat differently than it did before. Socrates bemoaned the advent of literacy because texts were frozen in time, unlike rhetoricians, and people would inevitably lose their taste for the discipline of extended memorization. Joseph Pulitzer created the modern - who, what, where, sum it up in the first paragraph news frame that we are all familiar with and use to distinguish " news" from other forms of literature. Television's vapid mesmerization of the Baby Boomers led Newton Minow to condemn TV as a " vast wasteland" but TV helped change how politicians and journalists behaved, how wars were fought, who exercised the right to vote and how justice is done in this country. The internet and blogging continue that cultural evolution, altering societal expectations and accelerating our decision cycle - to a certain extent, shifting our worldview.
Director of Corporate Blogging ? McLuhan would have been proud. ¶ 6:34 PM
I spoke to Critt Jarvis this morning on the telephone regarding a new project and also the acquisition of The New Rule-Set Project by Enterra Solution's Stephen DeAngelis. Dr. Barnett explained the numerous advantages to this collaboration for him on his blog and for Critt's part, he was made the new Director of Corporate Blogging. Now this is something entirely new but I expect that as striking as Critt's title is today, in five years it will be as commonplace as a company having a Chief Information Officer or a Director of Human Resources.
Marshall McLuhan is seldom remembered these days but he was the insightful media guru who was most famous for his statement " The medium is the message". McLuhan left a large body of work on the fundamental relationship between media and people, thought and society and not only would he have immediately grasped the change implied in Critt's new job but would have expected it.
New methods of communication actually re-train the mind to think somewhat differently than it did before. Socrates bemoaned the advent of literacy because texts were frozen in time, unlike rhetoricians, and people would inevitably lose their taste for the discipline of extended memorization. Joseph Pulitzer created the modern - who, what, where, sum it up in the first paragraph news frame that we are all familiar with and use to distinguish " news" from other forms of literature. Television's vapid mesmerization of the Baby Boomers led Newton Minow to condemn TV as a " vast wasteland" but TV helped change how politicians and journalists behaved, how wars were fought, who exercised the right to vote and how justice is done in this country. The internet and blogging continue that cultural evolution, altering societal expectations and accelerating our decision cycle - to a certain extent, shifting our worldview.
Director of Corporate Blogging ? McLuhan would have been proud. ¶ 6:34 PM
