It is without a doubt that each generation criticizes that of the previous. Our strength as a new generation is oft not understood as being based on that of the past. We rail against the misogamy, bigotry and brutality of our forefathers through the narrow focused lens of our brief existence.
I’ve often excoriated management for failing in leadership, vision and execution. What is the point of being counter-culture if you don’t hyper-criticize management apraxia?
What raises my apoplectic ire now? Well nothing really other than my new pals at Burton group. In another round of apocalyptic paroxysm about the current state of business information management they proffer the following,
“Internet-based multiplayer games may be the most telling leading indicator of future, mainstream communication and collaboration opportunities, with services such as Microsoft Xbox Live and Sony Playstation online gaming offering low-cost, Internet-based, immersive, multimedia workspaces that have a variety of seamless communication and collaboration tools.”
My problem is they are probably right and not in a good way. You see I enjoy the pleasures of the revitalized culture industry. In fact the digital dopamine escapism that is pumped into our collective culture conscience is quite soothing and distracting. It distracts us away from the realities of our current American servitude to consumerism. It helps desensitizes us to the cruelties of our current consumption practices from the climate to wars abroad. So when a leading analyst firm proclaims that the future of content collaboration, creation and ultimately decision making can be found in the neonatal epiphanies of the gaming industry I shudder. Is our future to be reduced to the iconography of postmodernism? Are we heading towards a path of enlightenment that is lit by the neon glitter of digital glyphs?
So what does this have to do with blue haired management and their inability to manage their way out of paper bag with both ends opened? They tend to be intransigent when it comes to new media and communications. Perhaps it is that they grew up in a day where learning took place in quiet rooms filled with books and old librarians etched with permanent scowls. Perhaps it is that they believe the mind is best sharpened by the honed words of an intelligent treatise fully steeped in the beauty of the written word. And perhaps this I believe as well.
I enjoy new media, indeed I pleasure in it but I certainly don’t learn from it. At least not in a way that fundamentally enriches me. The new channels of communication the internet has opened certainly has exposed me to a wealth of life enriching information but nary has a single glyph ever been the door to a new epoch of understanding.
No, it has been words. Whether the words are in a book, journal, blog or rss feed they are the words that bring the sweet nector of knowledge. Not pictograms, not movies or the cacophony of sound echoing hollowly through my hallways of my mind. None touches my soul to reap the rewards of joy or pain like that of words. It is words that bring the tears, the laughter and ultimately the enlighten mind.