Paul Saffo, a Forecaster at The Institute for the Future (IFTF), Stanford professor and all-around guru recently declared we're not living in the Information Age. He calls it Media:
"...In the old media, all we could do was press our noses against the Glass and watch. This new world of personal media- the web, the internet etc. - not only delivers the world to [our] living rooms, but everywhere. And we get to answer back. And we're expected to answer back.."
Media more accurately describes the exchange aspect of today's information. The interactivity. And this is impacting every business out there,. You can sell tires or manufacture parts or design buildings-- regardless of industry, your customer expects to interact with you pre- and post -sale..and they expect you to answer back.
How will your customer expect to interact with you tomorrow?
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Of note: The web design agency I created for small business three years ago is called Wheel Media. Was I prescient, or just lucky?
I've heard it called Me Media. I like that phrase.
I do, however, think we're in the information age. The interactivity, or role exchange, between consumer and publisher in the media realm is just one aspect of a much larger phenomenon. When Drucker coined the phrase Information Age, I think he was referring to change in economic dependance from factories to the exchange of information. My brother in law works for a think tank in New York - selling analysis to companies who invest based on the information. Seventy years ago, he might have been a Dentist or on someone's production line at the plant.
Posted by: todd | February 23, 2006 at 10:13 AM
Do you think communicating with the customer via email is enough, or are blogs and forums really necessary for a tire company, for example?
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Posted by: Bay area web design | April 13, 2009 at 03:35 PM