"Mass production was unthinkable to the classical mind, and not just for technical reasons"
Words of Carl Mitcham. I use them to show that the future has always been difficult for the human mind.The mind finds it hard to extrapolate past what it is doing now and what it has already experienced.
I mean can you imagine a world without mass production....now be careful although you can't today...maybe tomorrow may be production by the masses!
As Kevin Kelly points out despite numerous 'technological breakthroughs' the word technology was not used until 1802, based on the former Greek concept of techne meaning ingenuity and logos, meaning word or literacy.
We find the future hard because we see technology as a thing rather than ingenuity, rather than the expression of that ingenuity.
Whether it be social media tools, mobile technology, gamification, the internet itself...we look at them as things to use...rather than a means of expressing our ingenuity.
If I asked you how you could make your customer's life easier...you may say...let them design their own product, let them not have to wait for delivery, let them contact me directly, let them be part of our innovation program....all of those things make sense.
If I said have you thought about crowdsourcing, wiki's, 3D printing, social media...then to many the answer would be....yes, but it is not relevant to our sector or we haven't got time at the moment.
The former is seeing technology as techne logos.....the expression of ingenious ideas.
The latter is seeing technology how we have come to define it ...the thing on our desk, in our pockets, in our living room etc
To embrace social marketing is not to let go of the past...it is to embrace the idea of expressing ingeniuos ways of achieving.... what you did in the past...and what you couldn't do...and finding new solutions.
Technology is not to be feared.....it is the mind that fears ingenuity that must be feared!
