Tag Archives: Brian Solis

Among the Luddites

Ned Ludd Lives!

Once in a while the term Luddite enters the conversation. We who presume ourselves to be on the cutting edge all things social and techie are occasionally floored by a remark or observation from a Luddite – or neo-luddite, or as I referred to them in a 2010 post, Luddite 2.0, a term coined my friend and deep thinker, Bill Wendel. I have worked hard since I wrote that post to avoid the Luddite mantle, and I can hold my own with most of the Gen-X, Y, Z or whatever Gen folks I encounter, because, as Brian Solis points out Generation-C transcends age. And that C is about being Connected.

TechCamp Memphis (5/12/2010) featured some of the area’s best minds in social media, internet marketing and strategy, and an array of developer specialties. I will admit that the developer stuff is way beyond me, but a big part of being Generation- C is having a good handle on just how much you want to be connected. One attendee told me that her co-workers are not only not “connected”, but they don’t do very well un-connected either. “Most of them don’t know how to create a folder in Windows to put their files into.” I wondered later if she was talking about electronic files or paper files. I see that type of thing in my business a lot: “No, I don’t have a scanner; I’ll just bring you the contract.” These are probably the same folks who fear the internet because someone might grab their private information; who find it easier to say NO to social media, Google, and in some cases email, rather than looking into how those things could possibly enhance their lives and make lots of things easier for them. Having adopted the use of the telephone, they still carry pagers. Luddites 2.0.

Remember studying Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in Sociology 101? Look at how closely the upper 2 levels (and possibly 3) of the pyramid reflect what most of us are accomplishing, in a large part, online today through being connected.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

I am not saying that’s good or bad, but think about it. Once you are there can you go back? Can you give up that connection? Do you see a day when technology will evolve to the point that you will draw a line in the sand and say, “I’m a Luddite now.”?

-Images via http://en.wikipedia.org

2010 Roundup

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Some of us are probably pretty happy to see 2010 pass into history, and for a new decade to get underway. It has been a year of challenges and opportunities. I like to take the days between Christmas and New Year’s day to reflect on the year- trends, what went right, what went wrong, and how to tackle 2011.

It’s that time of year when everyone is coming out with their lists of important people, events and trends from 2010. Here’s my collection of other people’s lists and year-end summaries. I hope you find something useful here:

State of the Blogosphere 2010 whether you are a blogger or blog reader, social media thought leader, Brian Solis‘ analysis and insights are interesting as well as revealing. This is a good piece for future reference.

Lifehacker’s Most Popular Top 10s of 2010 Life Hacker covers just about everything in life, from high tech to easy cooking tips. This is an amazing collection of interesting and useful stuff.

Zeitgeist 2010: How the world searched Who better to expound on the world’s searches than Google. This data shows us what people around the world think is important enough to search for.

Top 10 Twitter trends of 2010 from Twitter’s blog. I am sure there will be much more analysis of Twitter trends by twitter and outside bloggers, but here is Twitter’s top 10.

Most popular DIY projects from 2010 Another offering from the hack-it-all site, Lifehacker.

2010 Memology: Top Status Trends of the Year Facebook 2010 trends.

The most powerful tweets of 2010, According to Twitter

YouTube Rewind 2010: Year in Review Top Videos on YouTube for 2010 and YouTube’s most viewed ads of 2010 (including my favorite – the little piggy Geico ad)

Top 20 Most Useful Twitter Blog Posts of 2010 Social Media Today post – the most useful blog posts about Twitter in 2010

Merriam-Webster’s Top 10 words of 2010 – The dictionary people can’t be wrong, can they?

Some of 2010’s top real estate sales in the U.S. – Zillow tells us what the rich folks bought and sold in 2010

So Long To Ya, 2010 | The JibJab 2010 Year in Review!

If you have a favorite 2010 List, or year end summary to share with the other readers, please add the link in the comments.

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Memphis and the World

Tag Archives: Brian Solis