In defense of social media, no, actually, in defence of any media that doesn't suck

You have probably Noticed a lot of articles of late looking at different stages of "digital" things and how people jumped on board expecting a panacea.  Currently the "participation" model is under heavy review.  The baby is mid toss out with the bath water.

An article today from Tim Malbon is particularily well argued. Arturate.  True, and something to hold up in the mirror.

But, and this is a big but, are we not missing the bigger point?  Not because they are wrong.  The smart folks writting these articles, no, they are very right.  They need to be read.

But, are we not debating ultimately, regardless of the medium, what is great versus crap?  Are we not finding that the "participation" world, like every other world, is based on being insightful, interesting and truely in touch with the consumer?  Just doing it doesn't really do it.

It is cool now to talk about Old Spice and the 48 hour thing they did.  But, it is rarely discussed why they did what many other brands could have done, but didn't.  Like when the first mile was run under 4 minutes, quickly many others could too in subsequent weeks, despite so many for so long being so close for many years with the potential but never pushing into the perceived dangerous terrain.

I am, embarred to say, on extended vacation in the alps, but just read this amazing speach by a lead researcer at Bell Labs presented in 1986.  Found it from the blog of Jelly Helm.

The speach is powerful and direct, it ultimatley looks into what makes great first class, versus good or prolific researchers.

Read it, put the word advertiser instead of researcher throughout and it will hopefully inspire you to think harder about how to make what we do better, more compelling and effective.  Regardless what medium.

We must ask ourselves if we are at peak medium range of selection - are we at the point now where deciding what medium we choose is increasingly less important than what we do with any one medium we do chose?

Is the medium is no longer the message, what you do with a medium is your greatness?

Or something like that. Back to vacation...