The author of “the everyday presentation of self” will need to completely rewrite his book for 21st-century readership.
For instance, what is the equivalence of holding the door online? (Leave a larger space for Comment ?)
Business and communication are out of breath, trying to catch up with network effect and the ProAm movement.
How to facilitate “listening”, meeting-up and following-up.
In short, traditional marketing are upended and PR will really need the “R” (as opposed to blasting the message.)
We all need to embrace “less is more” when tweeting.
And business will have to eat the upfront costs, hoping to reap long-tail reward.
With the Web, we can really experience deep reach. I love the long winding comments about “what are the lessons learned from your first job” on one of the sites.
(it’s now available as an E-book, on Audiobook.com I think).
People just pitched in. This is a great demonstration of crowd sourcing.
As a species, we will learn how to lead double-life i.e. living out our lives on and off-line, dog life and digital life.
Our digital presence is and should be different from our analog one. One is a sub-set, not an extension of the other, until it evolves and takes on a life of its own (like our grown-up daughters). At a certain point, we will master the art of transition to this Second life e.g. searching, learning, listening, and selling online. Finally, we will completely be hybridized. Those of us who are bi-cultural can testify to this (Read Netherlands).
I have my daughter’s work station next to mine. We both log on and for those hours, we live separate lives. Not from each other, but each, from one’s self.
When the machine boots up, that’s when I walk on stage, oops, online. I answer the curtain call to step into the digital theatre which opens 24/7 and archives everything eternally.
Shakespeare was right when said “life is a stage”. He couldn’t have foreseen our double life, on and off-line. But a stage, nevertheless, with things to say and people to see.
No more “all dressing up and no place to go”. The online world will always be there, beckon you and I to log on, to look around and to listen & engage.
Thang Nguyen 555 