I was talking with a colleague of mine this morning about how Social Media is taking shape and changing the world, and that it would be good for people in business to know who the movers and shakers are. People like Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Danny Brown, David Armano, Robert Scoble, Hugh Macleod, Shannon Paul, Cali Lewis, Karina Stenquist and a few others. You know who you are.
And his response was: “I talk to my clients and they don’t know who any of these people are and they don’t really care. These people are all just social media/blog people who really don’t have any impact on the real business for these companies.”
And one respect, he is absolutely correct. Many of the social media experts are consultants, authors, theorists and people who really don’t have P/L responsibilities at the Fortune 100/500 level.
But….
In 1914, nobody in the railroad industry knew who Orville and Wilbur Wright were and even if they did, they would dismiss them as a couple of nut job bicycle shop hacks from Dayton, Ohio.
In 1876, nobody in the telegraph industry really cared what some speech professor and part-time mad scientist named Alexander Graham Bell was doing with his goofy electrocution equipment.
In 1908, nobody in the buggy whip, horse carriage or saddle industries really cared what some farm-boy turned engineer named Henry Ford thought about personal transportation.
And in 2009, few people know who Rufus is and why an itty bitty blog named DogWalkBlog is of any cultural significance whatsoever. (Hey, it’s my blog and if I want to plug myself with greats like Ford, Bell and the Wright Bros, I can.)
Just because you are not a captain of your industry doesn’t mean you can’t change it dramatically. I have no idea if any of these folks sitting around blogging in their underwear are going to change the way retail or marketing or advertising or publishing does business, but I’d sure as heck have at least one sideward glance in their direction.
