Don’t Shirk Shirky
by Ruth Ann Harnisch on 03/14/09 at 10:25 am
Clay Shirky is a prophet.
If you have been looking around over the past few months and wondering, “What is happening to this world?” Shirky has a clue for you. He’s tucked it into this breathtaking explanation of what’s happened to newspapers, but if you stretch your mind around his premise, you’ll be able to apply Shirky’s logic to more than just the state of publishing.
We’re in the middle of revolutionary times of historic proportion, the likes of which haven’t been experienced for centuries. Last week I shut down another project I’ve been working on because everything is changing so fast that the new material is obsolete before we can get it out there.
Read this and adjust your mindset about where we are. Then you’ll know: you either head boldly into the adventurous future or stand there, looking around, wondering, “What is happening to this world?”
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
2 Comments
Rosemary
Mar 14th, 2009
Or both: you either head boldly into the adventurous future or stand there, looking around, wondering, “What is happening to this world?”
I think about these things every day. I admit to being intimidated by the future as I contemplate and analyze the present. The article was inspirational because it told me, of course we don’t know what’s coming next. Things have fallen and will fall apart. What emerges next does not necessarily follow from the ruins of the old.
The article told me: stop focusing on the way in which old models won’t work anymore, and focus instead on what has a chance of working in this revolutionary time.
David Cohn
Mar 15th, 2009
I’ve always loved Shirky. They guy is mind blowing.
If you never saw his TED talk… http://www.digidave.org/adventures_in_freelancing/2008/05/clay-shirky—p.html
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