Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

The flat world is real

I had a remarkable experience yesterday, which in the context of the flat world in which we live, may not seem so extraordinary to some. But for me it was, and I am still trying to process it.

Last night, before watching a tragic, compelling, and complex movie with my wife (Ararat), I posted a short entry to my blog about “Social Bookmark Tag Bundles.” No big deal so far, right?

Less than 2 hours later, Christian Spannagel, who lives in Ludwigsburg, Germany (5342.1 miles away from Lubbock, Texas, according to the 3D Weather Globe) posted a comment to my blog for that entry. Christian is a doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Learning with Digital Media at the University of Education Ludwigsburg.

Does this blow anyone else’s mind, or just mine? Granted, my blog post and Christian’s comment are not anything that either of us are going to win a Nobel prize for– but the communication capability and reality they represent in our 21st century flat world are absolutely astounding.

I was sharing this story with Paul Richardson, who is another doctoral student here at the Texas Tech College of Education this morning. Here is the analogy we came up with to describe the communication landscape in which we live– and the predominant perception many people may have about it.

Attribution Only Train photo

Many people today are like those in the late 1800s who were aware that a transcontinental railroad had been built across North America. The transportation and communication possibilities ushered in by that technological and political feat were tremendous. The telegraph made “current events” possible and the Pony Express irrelevant. Journeys that had taken months to complete and were fraught with danger could suddenly be completed in a few days, with a much higher level of safety and security. The world had changed in a fundamental way, and the railroad was the primary reason.

Attribution Only Stagecoach photo

Many people today, at a perceptual level, may be living in the late 1800s when it comes to Internet communication. They are waiting at the train station, for a scheduled trip that will take them down the track along a predefined and unchangeable course, at approximately 50 miles per hour. They are still using land-line telephones, using the Internet for email and some web surfing, but not much more than that. These train travelers are happily paying for their ticket and ride to their destination, where they will conduct meetings and share ideas. Their communication world is largely face to face, synchronous, and one to one.

At the same time, however, other travelers are zooming past the train station in Star Wars landspeeders and X-Wing spacecraft traveling at the speed of light. These people are communicating with others around the globe for free on fiber optic lines– maybe not moving physically, but none-the-less communicating quite powerfully in virtual space. In contrast to the industrial and even information-age communicators, these conceptual age communicators are participants in a global dialog that is largely virtual, asynchronous, and both one to many as well as one to one.

These travelers are moving at the speed of creativity. By reading this blog post, you are as well. Communication in this environment is dynamic and exciting. Who knows what will come next? 🙂

Attribution Only XWing photo

If you enjoyed this post and found it useful, subscribe to Wes’ free newsletter. Check out Wes’ video tutorial library, “Playing with Media.” Information about more ways to learn with Dr. Wesley Fryer are available on wesfryer.com/after.

On this day..


Posted

in

, ,

by

Tags:

Comments

One response to “The flat world is real”

  1. Steffen Avatar

    Wesley,
    i know exactly how you feel. The same happend to me when I first got unexpted responses from people on my weblog. Actually something similar happend with Christian an me. I had put a a peace on the class I am curently teaching and he left a comment. I then stopped by at his blog and saw what kind of interessting work he is doing… It is facinating how easy and fast one can get in touch with stranger that soon become an acquaintance, colleague or even friend… Another related fascinating thing is the theory of “six-degrees of seperation”. To me it seems the number of degrees get fewer and fewer with new light-speed-global telecommunication channels…
    Greetings from another German blogger…