Business Insight Zone

In the wake of my post the other day about reflexive bashing of Twitter, I was planning to write something about the cycles of hype and anti-hype in the blogosphere, the pendulum swings of which you could probably plot mathematically. But then I came across this piece of wisdom from Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research:

The cult of immediacy versus the unstoppable groundswell

I think bubble thinking is driven by the swirl of events in this frenzied cult of immediacy. It’s hard to think straight when your head is buzzing with the cocaine high of whatever happened ten minutes ago. Steve Rubel, quoting Brian Reich, called it out as “Shiny Object Syndrome.” Behind this bubble is a reality driving forward, an unstoppable groundswell. Stuff that builds with that trend will matter. The rest will be swept away. . . .

You may think corporations don’t get it, but they do, eventually — they just move more slowly and carefully. I’ve now spoken with dozens — they’re spending real money, moving forward with projects, making mistakes, learning, and mobilizing. They have lots of money and big brands. As the mass of regular people absorbs these social phenomenon, many of those companies will be there to meet them, and laugh if you want, but they are not all clueless — not any more.

In the end, the blogosphere has its fun with the news of the moment. Often they (er, we) have smart things to say. But in the long run . . . only the long run matters.

Category: Internet, Media