2 Shifts: Celebrity Bloggers & Disagreeing in Public

I have just started immersing myself in the interviews I conducted for the SAP Global Survey.  I have my report to them due on Oct. 30 and this will be the main activity for the remainder of this month.

The very first interview was with Hugh MacLeod, who I unabashedly admit is one of my favorite bloggers. As I reviewed my interview with him, I rediscovered this useful observation:
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"People finally figured out that yes, doing a blog well is actually very time consuming. Not everybody wants to be Robert Scoble- Hell, I'm not sure if Scoble wants to be Scoble all the time, either [Joke!]. Which created a lot of opportunities for less time-consuming web products.

This is us seeing Social Media evolving way from the time-guzzling "Celebrity Model", where people emulate "broadcasters" on a small scale, towards something that is far more useful to most people i.e. something that allows people to make friends and talk to their friends more easily."

This seems to me a profound thought worth revisiting. There is no surprise that the survey shows an increasing number of enterprises all over the world are embracing blogging just when celebrities like Hugh and Scoble are exploring new innovations.

I have said that blogging has started to normalize. Everyday people are starting to use them for everyday purposes in work and play.  They are posting long or short. Blogging is becoming like a telephone--just another conversational tool and the tool is less important than the quantity and diversity of the conversations that are being conducted.

While I was starting to write this post, I received an email from someone who knows Scoble, Hugh and me. He pointed to my recent post where I took issue with Hugh's praise of his client Microsoft. He wanted to know if Hugh had pissed me off somehow and if we were no longer friends. This comes at a time when I have become gun shy of disagreeing with Scoble in my blogs, something I have done from time-to-time since the very beginning of our collaboration on Naked Conversations.

Let me be very clear. These are too people whom I hold extremely dear.  They are two friends who have been very generous to me.  They are two mentors who taught me a great deal about what I now know about social media.

But this is supposed to be a forum, where there is a legitimate give-and-take on ideas. It is a place where we are supposed to take each other on to some degree. Otherwise, we will fill the blogosphere with pablum giving strong praise to weak thinking and blurry ideas because they come from our friends or business associates.

I hope this latter incident does not become a trend.

And BTW Hugh, I disagree.  Scoble loves being Scoble.

Comments

[hugh macleod]

For the record, I was not pissed in the slightest. In many ways Shel was doing MSFT a favor by being so articulate in his beliefs.

[shel israel]

Hugh, for the record, I never thought you were. Likewise, when I tell Scoble "we are not joined at the hip on this one," I didn't think he was bothered in the least. It's the 3rd Party intepretations that is making it harder to disagree with colleagues that bothers me.

[John Stavely]

Great point! We are overly concerned with upsetting someone and creating perceived drama or conflict. Even the slightest disagreement is seen as an attack. This doesn't allow for discussion and debate because folks are afraid of offending. Thus we don't learn and grow. I hope we don't design a world where everyone agrees all the time and thinks the same thoughts. How frightening...

[David Koopmans]

The more honesty I detect in your (or any) blog, the more I value it. We publicly disagree with people we respect all the time in the "real" world. This is how ideas get shaped and how we help each other make better decisions.
Too much polite conversation changes nothing.

[David]

Hi Your post have make me something a idea.Thank a lot.