I'm killing airport wait time after 3 great days at DEMO 08. I think it is my 15th DEMO, but I'm not sure. I've lost count. It was a good conference, as it always is and a personal favorite of mine. For me it has been a place of many firsts. When I started my own PR agency, it was the 1st place I launched a client. In 2005, it was where Scopble and I signed our book deal with the Wiley guys who flew down to meet us. This time it was where I launched my 345th career, this time as a Video Blogger for FastCompany TV.
This year was as different as for me as it was the same. It was the same because I have this aging circle of friends who get together at this event twice each year and most of us have been doing it for a good many years. We used to be the young disruptors in the back of the room. Now we sit up front where connection is better. It was different because I was my debut as a video blogger. I interviewed about 20 people all of whom connected with my core topic of social media's impact on business and culture. I won't really know how well I did until I watch the clips over the next two days.
I'm old enough to know that however good or bad they turn out. I will get better. But there was one paragraph in all the interviews I conducted that is resonating with me. It came in my very last interview, which happened to be Chris Shipley, the respected executive producer of the past 20-something DEMOs.
I asked her what takeaway trends she saw from this year and she told me that it would be the last year that DEMO would have a special segment focused on social media. This from the person credited with introducing the term, several DEMOs back.
Does ths mean that I'm getting into producing a program on a topic that is already becoming passe? Not it all. Chris put it another way and I can restate here without checking the clip. But her key point is that social media was normalizing. It was becoming a part of nearly all 77 companies presenting at DEMO and it can be expected to be part of most of the new technologies introduced at DEMOs moving forward.
But the social media elements, the community functionality, polling, blog, video pieces are no longer the news. They are just as normal as the line f a decade ago when presenter would boast with enthusiasm that "IT'S ONLINE!!!" One year it bacame a "so what," and we moved on.
What this means is that most innovation is now social in some sense and that has enormous implications for where society and culture and business are going. Social media is doing what all good technologies should do. They should fade into background as we become accustomed to them.
In the foreground should be people and that is my take-away from this most enjoyable event.
