Race to the New Economy

Ever since I got hooked on Twitter, my journey has taken me deeper into the vast quadrant of social media space.

The further I dive in, the stronger my urge to take a closer look at the less obvious aspects that make up the overall experience, and I end up asking a lot of questions.

For instance, where is all this frenzy headed? What drives its momentum? Do we risk shooting ourselves on the foot for being bold zealots of a promising, new order?

We are all racing in this journey. We are in a race to create, originate, share, advance, enhance, outsmart, or quite simply talk (blog) about something that we feel has significance against the backdrop of a broader, evolving canvas.

Collaborative mantra
Initially I thought the whole deal with Twitter was to post the latest, greatest and, above all, most original piece of information for people to consume or pass along and promote.

I quickly realized that no matter how original your idea or approach, there will always be a version of it elsewhere. And it doesn’t matter. The point is not to be original; it’s to be able to create something useful, through instantaneous collaboration.

Case in point: my current virtual collaboration with Aaron Friedman (@aaron116), CTO and social media entrepreneur, affords the opportunity to challenge conventional comfort zones by promoting and educating awareness of social media’s immediate and long-term benefits for business.

How did it start? Literally, when I asked him the question “what are you doing?”, which is essentially Twitter’s mantra. The collaborative attitude is not only key to social media’s success, but also to future endeavours that emerge as a result of social media’s development.

Global sand box
Without question, the movement of the social media machine is constant, fluid and ubiquitous.

As we pant and heave to get to the finish line, we aren’t always conscious of the seamless interactive energy that fuels social media’s transformation, as we influence and shape it according to our needs.

Plunked within the context of a truly global framework, transcending time zones and geopolitical demarcations, the social media revolution weaves its magic within our unique sand boxes, which in turn are boxes scattered across a larger box of the social media universe.

Fran Melmed (@femelmed), communications consultant, tweets about the sand box as follows:

considering how Twitter fosters collaboration & strips away fiefdoms. is it because it’s virtual and we’re not in one another’s sandbox?

Perhaps it is precisely because of the ubiquitous nature of virtual environments and the connections we make to other sand boxes without disrupting them that we are all able to successfully collaborate and come up with innovative methods to build communities—something that we’ve never been able to do before and on such a large scale.

Virtually there
Technological advancement cycles through a process where new versions are engineered on the backs of prototypes.

Our new virtual soap boxes in the form of Facebook, Twitter and the like are essentially advanced versions of apps born out of the former tech bubble such as online newsgroups and instant message/chat programmes.

Among the hottest, emerging enterprise-geared offerings is Cloud Computing. I draw your attention to this latest trend because its sudden emergence is in parallel with the rise of social media. The virtual nature of both phenomena can’t simply be coincidental.

Today’s innovative, virtual environments will indeed evolve quickly (hiccups et al) and persist to win the confidence that will spark economic recovery. Of course, a revolution is not without those who resist the pull of change.

Damien Stevens (@damienstevens), cloud computing expert and entrepreneur, shares a recent experience:

Yesterday, I met with a seasoned CIO of a multi-billion dollar company who has been in the IT industry for some time.

He said “Virtualization isn’t new. We were doing that on mainframes 30 years ago.”

I disagree 100%. The Virtualization of today runs on commodity hardware and works with the very software and OSes (operating systems) you use at home. This makes this available to the masses, not just those who can afford a mainframe.

Virtualization is the catalyst that drives cloud computing. It builds on virtualization by abstracting infrastructure as a consumable service.

And we’re just talking virtual web services and applications. Imagine what other applications (technical or otherwise) could come about as a result of all the effort we invest in building this new industry.

Beyond the finish line
We stand on the crossroads of a bewildering revolution and are both witness and participant to a promising paradigm shift.

Now, more than ever, we are called to evolve as a global community and contribute to a revolution that jumpstarts a new economy.

The race is on. Let’s finish it and go beyond.