The Economist Discovers Peer-Produced Media

A friend and I have an ongoing discussion about technology and change. It goes like this: change opportunities in the organization she works for only really exist once The Economist writes about them. Before that, as far as her boss is concerned, nothing noteworthy has happened. From my experience, this kind of follow-the-established-follower mentality pervades many organizations. So I want to let you know that you (yes, all of you out there with tremendous frustration at not being able to sell your innovative ideas internally without some random external article) are not alone.

The best stories I get from my friend (because they provoke the most outrage in her) are when she tells me about her boss bringing copies of The Economist to her desk to show her articles. Topics like podcasting, blogs and wikipedia have recently appeared in The Economist, and dutifully, they have then appeared in her boss’ outstretched hand at the corner of her desk.

‘Look at this,’ he’ll say (as my paraphrase of her paraphrase). ‘Isn’t this interesting. Do you know about this? We should think about doing this.’ Then he’ll dawdle off to take a conference call, completely missing the fact, my friend assures me, that she had sent him an article on the exact same subject 6 to 10 months prior. A week later the boss will knock at her desk again to inquire how the new, new thing he’d pointed out was coming along.

At this point in her story my friend will make choking noise, squeals of derision and, if in dire straights, will violently shake her hands. I love it. This is the source of Dilbert resonance. I ask her to tell me more. I snort in agreement. I provoke her by calling to her attention the indifference with which her boss received the aforementioned article, 6 to 10 months prior. She indulges me and raises her rancour another level. It eats away at her like an unfilled cavity in a sensitive molar.

This story comes to mind because today I was pointed to an article in The Economist about new media entitled Among the Audience. The article introduces a broad survey that ropes in some of the bright lights of the current web vogueness. Its topic?

The era of mass media is giving way to one of personal and participatory media… that will profoundly change both the media industry and society as a whole.

Interesting and well written. I recommend it. Andreas Kluth does a nice job of laying the current cultural effects of digital technologies into a common and simple historical context, from Gutenberg’s movable type to MovableType, the blogging software. There’s also someone calling a big, brand-name media honcho an ‘ignoramus!’ which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Unfortunately, most of the components of the survey require me to sign up as an Economist subscriber to read, so I’ll never know what it says. Audio files from some of the luminaries are also available, to anyone, though I have not listened to them.

I guess I should go warn my friend that her boss is due to come knocking.