is that it is a return to the prehistoric human fascination with telling tales!
Since the beginnings of any civilised society the market place was the hub of civilisation, a place to which traders returned from remote lands with exotic spices, silks, monkeys, parrots, jewels - and fabulous stories. Interactive Communication, properly executed, more resembles an ancient bazaar than fits the business models companies try and impose upon it.
People respond to interactive opportunities like Twitter because it seems to offer some intangible quality long 'missing in action' from modern life. In sharp contrast to the alienation wrought by homogenised broadcast media, interactive opportunities provide a space in which the human voice would be rapidly rediscovered. Unlike the lockstep conformity imposed by television, advertising, and corporate propaganda, interactive communication gives new legitimacy - and free rein - to play.
People long for more connection between what we do for a living and what we genuinely care about. We long for release from anonymity, to be seen as who we feel ourselves to be rather than the sum of abstract metrics and parameters. We long to be part of a world that makes sense rather than accept the accidental alienation imposed by market forces too large to grasp; to even contemplate.
Remember the market place, of old. Caravans arrived across burning deserts bringing dates and figs, snakes and parrots, monkeys, strange music and stranger tales.
The market place was the heart of the city, the kernel, the hub.
Like the past and the future it stood at the crossroads. People worked early and went there for coffee and vegetables, eggs and wine, for pots and carpets. They went there to look and listen and to marvel, to buy and to be amused. But mostly they went to meet each other...to talk and interact! Markets are conversations...as is Twitter and the Internet!
It is all there in my book “Television Killed Advertising” detailing where we have gone wrong in the past and where we could still go wrong in the future. Would you like to discuss the further? paul.ashby@yahoo.com
