video courtesy of YouTube user, Michael Wesch
When I was in Cambridge last month, I picked up the hardbound first edition of David Weinberger’s new book, Everything Is Miscellaneous. I just started reading it, so I’ll need to circle back in order to offer deeper analysis, but I can say “so far so good.”
Here’s a pickup from his chapter “Social Knowing” that grabbed me:
In a miscellaneous world, an Oz-like authority that speaks in a single voice with unshakable confidence is a blowhard. Authority now comes from enabling us inescapably fallible creatures to explore the differences among us, together.
Even if you don’t invest in Weinberger’s book, the above nugget might help as you plan and implement work for your clients, especially when that work has a digital element or base.
I don’t believe it will be easy for marketers (and their agencies) to stop acting like blowhards, but in the context of democratized content, false or single-source authority is so much more conspicuous than it ever was.