Listening with your Mouth: The Age of Social Media
Sunday, November 27th, 2011For a couple of years, I have been a member of the LinkedIn group Greeting Card, Stationery & Gift Industry Gurus. For the record, I am not a Guru, – but I wish I were – and I didn’t join the group to become one. I simply joined to exchange ideas on industry trends with fellow professionals. When I joined the Gurus, I seem to recall that there were some 300 members. I now think that membership is approximately 2,000. Today, this group has one less: I quit.
My reasons are quite simple, I felt the forum had been hijacked by “members” with an agenda. Specifically, the expanded Guru membership consists of Chinese manufacturers pushing everything from radio-controlled toys to cheap writing instruments and from multilevel marketing evangelists to barter trade scam artists. This was not the group that I had signed-up for and I finally got exhausted at dealing with the inane self-promotion and general idiocy which characterizes a forum without direction. The Age of Social Media has arrived: Those who speak loudest and more often determine the message. It is an age where chatter is more important than relevance.
The instruments of social media provide a useful platform for people to promote agendas without substance and self-promotion artists posing as respectable business people. This is not a group that has much future since it has become a support group for people without an identity and not much self-confidence. I suspect that many other Gurus will soon jump ship if they haven’t already done so.
How reassuring that some people still write personal notes and are still able to express themselves eloquently in this abyss of mindless social chatter signifying nothing.



