Sociate

For years, I've been referring people to the crisp essay that Michael Schrage wrote for Merrill Lynch's online Forum back in 2001 titled The Relationship Revolution. The Forum has since vanished online, but I recently contacted Michael, who gave me permission to republish the piece. You will now find it here, as full of great ideas as before, such as:

To define the printing press or the World Wide Web primarily as technologies of information is to misinterpret what the real impact of those technologies has been. Misidentifying the real "revolution" means missing the real opportunities.

Consider the automobile analogy so popular with "Information Superhighway" champions. The internal combustion engine was a transforming technology. But who defines the automobile giants like General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen as leaders of the "gasoline processing" industry? The real transforming power of the automobile wasn't its ability to process fuel more effectively; it was the new relationships it created. The car created new kinds of relationships everywhere from drive-in movie dates to the suburban shopping mall.

Certainly it was -- and is -- essential for many tens of thousands of people to understand the nuts and bolts of automobile and highway technology.

But billions have had relationships and lifestyles changed by them. For the overwhelming majority of business leaders and public policy makers, the genuine impact of the automobile has come from the rise of the suburbs and new kinds of cities -- relationship changes -- not through greater understanding of the intricacies of gasoline processing.

and:

Consider a small thought-experiment: Whenever you see the word "information" -- as in the strategic importance of managing information, or the importance of timely information in solving problems, or the need to make substantial investments in information technology in order to compete in the cutthroat world of global competition -- substitute the word "relationship."

In the episode of West Wing airing right now -- The Hubbert Peak -- Josh Lyman manages to ram a Prius while test-driving a big red SUV.

Not only does the incident get blogged right away, but the ramee's daughter moblogs it with her cam-phone. Then Josh is on the phone with the blogger, gives an obnoxious answer that he assumes is "off the record" and watches as his words show up on the blog while he's still on the call.

Blogging, dear friends, is mainstream. What we do with it now matters more.

Did I mention Bartlett plugging The Tipping Point?