Clay Shirky's Your Critics are the First to Go today on Many-to-Many on the emergence of smart mobs and distributed intelligence vs. experts names a trend that has huge significance for established authorities and all the consultants, professionals and experts among us - me included. Makes me want to re-read Howard Rheingold's book, Smart Mobs.
I'm reminded again how crucial it is to orient myself towards social networks and connections rather than trying to do everything myself or relying on relatively static sources of *authoritative* information. Stuff like this makes me think that all my web-surfing is worthwhile.
The downside of the ever-popular mantra, "it's who you know, not what you know" is getting too close for comfort - being a professional computer consultant and enthusiastic but still newbie blogger and social networker myself.
The twist that ups the ante is that being connected to lots of loosely connected and moblogging *whos* who each know and convey *what's going on* around them often beats knowing, relying on or paying a few less-connected, broadcasting *whos* who make it their *business* to know a lot and sell their expertise.
This is smart mob territory in spades. You've got all these people with camera-cell-phones or just cameras and cell phones wandering/roaming about all over the planet! As they use their ability to connect with each other more and more using the cellular network *plus* the internet, an amazing amount of *live* information is collected and shared.
We are just beginning to see the true power of network effects. Although we seem to be moving in a chaotic, meandering and often cumbersome way towards the payoffs associated with an internetworked world, we are really *starting* to get results now. You can dip into a live stream of information that stretches from here to Katmandu, kind of like what I imagine traders feel on the trading floor, but firing everywhere about anything.
This human-mediated, increasingly information-drenched world we find ourselves in might have some interesting chapters ahead - I wouldn't be surprised if it injects a big dose of energy into our global economy like the dotcommers thought it would. Dislocations and confusion yes. But there's more!