Jason Sonnenfelt from Mind & Media posted a simply classy and elegant response to my recent posting on web 2.0 and the Government. This is the kind of dialogue I could participate in all day.
Ultimately, my anguish remains not with any one of Jason’s, “now wait one substantive minute” arguments, but with the speed at which web 2.0 has evolved (in the commercial space) and how slow parts of the government have been to harness or consider its power. “Effectiveness” is not my sole concern, but rather the art of remaining relevant. Think about the speed in which the government has approached web 2.0. Where is the U.S. Department of Innovation? Where is the over-authorization of Gen X & Y to usher in solution sets inside the government? Where is the urgency? With the world moving at such a rapid pace, why does our government think take a ‘wait and see’ approach, instead of dipping feet in and experimenting with agility and an eye towards innovation? The only real risk I see is potentially helping to solve massive problems through new and not old narratives.
Consider the speed of our government amidst this staggering fact as stated recently by the Librarian of Congress: “It took two centuries for the Library of Congress to acquire today’s analog collection—32 million printed volumes, 12.5 million photographs, 59.5 million manuscripts and other materials – a total of more than 134 million physical items. By contrast, with the explosion of digital information, it now takes only about 15 minutes for the world to produce an equivalent amount of information.” Now read that quote again (go on) and let it sink in. That is a simply amazing and humbling statistic.
After reading this quote, I am in awe at the speed of change in the world and in our country. And then I ask, “Am I relevant in that world? How will I stay relevant? Should I just dip my feet in the fast moving stream?” We have little choice: its time to jump in and define new rule sets. Yes, worry about privacy and inclusion, but please let’s not use those important rule sets from hurting our ability to define new ones.
Kudos to Jason on his very thoughtful blog postings. I look forward to our next exchange. Such musings bespeak a valuable consultant. Now go on Jason; pick another fight with me so I can assign you some additional summer reading. I promise it won’t be filled with anything but change agents, velocity management, horizontal ideas and last but never least, innovation. Start with Extreme Future by the way, I just finished it and it was excellent. Class dismissed!
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