Blur the lines

iGeneration

Wanted to share some provoking thoughts I read in a morning devotional regarding a description of our time. description of our time. With the constant exposure and consumption of information via the internet, social media or TV (to name a few), the world has evolved into a place where many people are making up their own standards and using a sliding scale for principles, thinking they are at least better than the next person.

The world has evolved into a place where It is all about getting what we want and getting it now. With our 24x7 access to information on demand, we don't want to be told what we can see or hear or let others decide when we can hear and see it. We want what we want, and we want it when we want it.

Basically, its become all about us or you or me or I. We have become the iGeneration.

Do you agree?

How has social media or social media evolved us into the iGeneration?

Noise?

Many of you may have already come to a place of intersection with this story at some point in your journeys.  Well, today this story intersected my world via email.  After I verified that it wasn't some hoax or chain email, I began to think about how this story plays out when juxtaposed with the social networking space.

A Most Interesting Story

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Click here to read the full story from the Washington Post

So, here is my question...with our "worship-like" immersion into the noise of the social networking space how much of life is simply passing us by?

Revolution?

Is social media a fad or a revolution? Most likely the level of context you have within this space will better determine your answer to this question.  Taking the conversation even further, I would like to go out on a limb and propose that no matter how you would respond to this question, its tough to deny the incredible changes that have taken place due to 'online' social interaction.

Check out this video from Socialnomics and share your thoughts.

Comment here or join the conversation on LinkedIn.

Be careful what you tweet

When you mention Twitter in a community of diverse people, you will most likely get the full spectrum of responses from ‘useless’ to ‘useful’.  Despite what your personal stance is on the ‘usefulness’ or lack thereof, the reality is that it’s an evolving and exponentially growing phenomenon. You can navigate the many blogs on the positive side of throwing yourself into the Twitterverse, but what happens when what you say has a significant negative effect or consequence?

I have seen a growing trend of people coming into direct conflict with the law on what was said on a perceived innocuous tweet or even burglarized for sharing with ones community the details of your vacation.

Let me provide a couple of example for conversation.

Amanda Bonnen posted this tweet in May:

"@JessB123 You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

Although the message was aimed at one of Bonnen's 20 followers, Chicago's Horizon Group Management LLC, Bonnen's landlord at the time, came across it. Horizon filed a $50,000 lawsuit against her claiming the post was malicious and defamed the company, which had previously been sued by Bonnen.^[1]

The ripple effect is twofold in this case.  Because the Twitterverse went viral on Horizon due their course of action with a lawsuit, how should companies respond to these types of criticism from social media? …and do we now need to be more careful what we say with our new found publishing tools?

The other example is Twitter user "@IzzyVideo" who recently tweeted that he and his family were going on vacation.

On May 24th, Izzy dropped this:

“We made it to Kansas City in one piece. We're visiting @noellhyman's family. Can't wait to get some good video while we're here. :-)”

And shortly thereafter they were robbed.^{[2] [3]}

WOW!

This is also true in the Facebook world.  Check this article out.

The Perils of Oversharing on Facebook

Please share your thoughts.

Twitter goes dark!

Hackers attack Twitter, Facebook also slows down

Twitter and Facebook DDoS Attacks Targeted One Man

@cyxymu

How did this effect you or your business?