I love real-time updates and open information

This is why I use the Internet and social media the way that I do. Undoubtedly we have already seen how powerful the Internet and the social media is, with real world-changing things like Arab Spring (social media overturning governments), memes that “go viral,” and the launching of billion-dollar companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Uber.

And it seems to me that many companies and businesses and organizations are using social media in a way that’s an extension of brodcasting mentality to push branded messages from corporate central, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

For me, what is of much greater interest and exciting and motivating is the power of real-time communications and widely-available information for everyone that’s connected to the Internet (and in the near future, also smart appliances known as part of the Internet of Things).

Just saying. The way I love seeing communications work is like the big screen at the airport or train station, with real-time updated info for what is going on and when things are happening. No need to wait for everything to be finalized before communicating because sometimes things do change. In a digital world, change is as easy as a click to update.

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The corollary to this personal value of mine is this: when I cannot find or get information online for events or projects or things, in real-time or in progress, then I tend to think to myself, what a missed opportunity. Too bad too sad. Not a good thing to keep people in the dark, right? Don’t we live in the 21st century and most people have a mobile device or smartphone at their fingertips to get the most current info right there right now?

Granted, how I think of communication (in my way of looking at the world) isn’t the only way to communicate and might even be a minority perspective. One of the other way to communicate is to share information only on a “need to know” basis, to prevent information overload or being seen as spammy. And there you have it, two different schools of thought: “need to know” vs. “want to know.”

I believe both can be accommodated, with many modes and channels of communicating today. Print and email could be for the “need to know” people, and web & social could be for the “want to know” people. Genius of the both/and.

And this is one of the reasons I’ve kept on blogging continually since 1999, to make information that I’m interested in more available– so if I have a hard time finding pertinent information, even with the help of search engines, then I’ll craft a blog post to make that info easier to find. (for instance, many of the most popular posts and pages here show info that I’ve gathered and shared that others look for too, and they look at these posts because they can’t find that info on the Internet except here).

[photo credit: johnseb]