The Value Of Things You Don't Own

It's very difficult to understand how you can use something if you don't own it.  Particularly in the commercial world, where the deepest instincts are too control.  All of which can lead to a More, More, More Mentality.  And particularly in the world of data.  After all, when was the last time you heard the words, "I think we need a little less information here"?  After a few hundred years of industrial empire building, it's hardly a surprise.  Many industrial metaphors have been effortlessly shipped over into the networked world to give us data warehouses, data mining and data processing.  In my yard, this mindset manifests itself in the desire to monitor all web content to assess sentiment, word-of-mouth and to extract maximum value.  After all, if you get enough of anything you can get something valuable from it, right?  Salt from enough sea.  Oil from enough earth.  Gold from enough hills.  So suck up enough data and you can extract....er, something valuable.  Right?  Maybe not.  Matt McAlister joins the dots between Umair's Evil thread and Scott Karp's analysis to  point out the pitfalls of this outlook: "I really like the idea that the future of the media business is in the way we build value for all constituencies rather than the way we extract value from various parts of a system. It’s not about how you secure marketshare, control distribution, mitigate risk or reduce costs. It’s about how you enable the creation of value for all."  To my mind, the simple idea is that the skills required to operate within networked media are new because no one does - or can - own all the data.  It's a bit like a library.  You can't really own it because it's actually a system rather than a thing.  However, you're very welcome to borrow stuff.  And maybe if I recommend some good books and you share them with friends we can get together over coffee as a result.  Then we have created a little group (aka social network) that can be valuable to us all and might become a big group.  Or not.  Alternatively, you can create your own library at home.  And put a big lock on it to keep all the value in.

Comments

[Internet Marketing Guru]

Hey,

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

Let me apply these things in my business and see the result...

[James Cherkoff]

No problem IMG, please let me know how you get on.

[Jeff Paul Big League Players Club]

Hi, Great post! I felt great reading your blog post. I’m working with my friend in a small internet marketing business as a web developer. When I’m free I go around for some IT info