With Twitter, blogs, social media, voice recorders, the ability to take photos and videos and pass them on iMovie and so on. It makes creating and sharing content so damn easy. This at first glance seems like a good thing. However, how much of it is really useful content? And how much of it is just clutter and noise. A friend described Twitter as 'The mouthpiece of mediocrity' a premise I once Tweeted, before receiving the brief retort 'bullshit'.
In my industry some of the noisiest bloggers and tweeters in marketing are largely young punks who know nothing about marketing (I'll resist supplying links). However, because they are so busy outputting their voice is heard, or at the very least their voice makes it harder to detect voices of more merit (and I am sure it happens in other industries too).
I sort of blame Clay Shirky and his concept of the 'cognitive surplus'. Of course he is not responsible for it, but he has given the movement a name. He suggests that the cognitive surplus is something that should be harnessed so that we should constantly invent, create, share, blog etc. However, the alternative point of view was eloquently put by 'Spike Jonz'. He said words to the effect of "We are all obsessed with outputting we should find more time to input." That is, ensure we have the wisdom and content to make the output worthy of sharing.
So next time you're getting the urge to share your profound wisdom on Twitter or a blog - ask yourself. Does the world really need to hear this? Why not read a book instead?
Yes I'm aware when you point a finger you've got three pointing back at yourself - and I am a serial offender against what I'm suggesting (to the point of this very article). So yes I'll try and practice what I preach.
