You are digging at the differences between tacit knowledge, facts, opinions and idle chatter and white noise. My observation is based on the oft quoted “The medium is the message” by Marshall McCluen, which holds deep meaning and provides a good model for understanding.

If books, magazines, newspapers, Email, TV, IM, Twitter, etc are different medium, then they create a different message. When I map these medium against a continum of message types, for example, tacit knowledge, facts, opinions, idle chatter, white noise, I quickly see which medium I should choose for where I am in the message continum. I can quickly select the appropriate medium based on the message I am interested in. This works if I am a sender or a receiver.

New medium don’t replace the old, just as new computer technology don’t replace the old, a topic you have written on, but add new layers. As a creater and consumer of “messges” I have a wider range of medium to choose from, and if I choose the appropriate medium, it naturally holds my message.

As a slight tangent, I wrote a bit on the related topics of knowledge workers, tacit knowledge and well-being on my blog.
http://brook.reams.me/2009-08-07/minds-knowledge-well-being-and-education/

Best. Brook.

You comment “You can’t argue beliefs or opinion, but you can argue facts” but I think you got that backwards. Gravity is a fact, so good luck in an argument about which direction it works in. Beliefs are not facts, but perceptions, very individual, and constantly the topic of argument.

Best. Brook.

I recently did a class on Storage 101 and there was one participant in the class who had access to internet. When I ask people to think what could be an answer, this person would try and look it up in the net!! There is a major difference between learning and finding out the answer. I believe even in education, folks nowadays mistake finding the answer for learning. Our job, of course, is to convince people that we bring a lot to the table with our experience but in order to do this you must know how to compete with the Internet!! As you rightly said, if there is customer apathy, Internet wins!!

Regarding content, I too have this dilemma. I take a lot from the web and benefit from the information posted by so many people. I would love to contribute back in whatever way I can. So how much content to give out free and how much content can help your business? Yes, it is about the value that you bring but isn’t content also value? Tough question to answer.

Needless to say, we need to change our business model as times change. The million dollar question is when do you realize that times have changed or how? As they say, hindsight is 20/20. It is the foresight that is the problem

Thanks for bringing up this topic. I am currently asking these questions to myself in order to define my own long term model.

S.Suresh

Marketing is to blame too. People talk in marketing speak. Their kids pick this up, then everything they say becomes a proclamation of profound importance, otherwise nobody listens.

In the end nobody values you if your profession cheapens itself as a whole (journalism is no exception) or people develop such a bland taste and disinterest (who cares what’s going on if it doesn’t impact me). So adapt and innovate to get people involved in a new way.

Sorry for the terse comment. iPhones and small comment boxes bring out the worst in me.

Nice thoughts you present here!