The OPA forum for the future gig
(http://www.online-publishers.org/globalforum/) is on in London at the moment and finishes tomorrow, many bloggers, podcasters, journos and a large spattering of digeratti will be in attendance. And while, just like GSM in Barcelona, I had fleetingly considered attending, I really don’t need to be running off anywhere right now, listening to ‘visionaries’ tout their corporate philosophy while we’re still very much in start-up mode. I’ve got a huge chunk of work, broken into a small hillock of tasks to get through. Plus I’ve done my fair share of conferences and conventions down through the years and truthfully the major mitigating factor to attend such events is the networking aspect of proceeding, it’s the main reason why most would attend, new faces, contacts, maybe customers, possible partners, suppliers, some heretofore unknown yet essential fact, the flypaper that’s the rumour mill and other such stuff as product launches, statistics yadda yadda yadda….
All the very enticing sessions on offer begin to melt into each other, the mandatory ‘marketing,.(insert relevant industry) and the new ways we have learned to graft on our old thinking, the latest but greatest global outlook for (insert industry) the Revenue/ROI Tweaks thread ( more inserting) and of course the utterly insufferable lucky bald ox who despite himself made pot loads of dosh or somehow stumbled into the limelight last year will be spending one hour dispensing what he believes passes for wisdom.
The most intriguing of course are the future predictions and the thought leadership speeches, generally peppered with personality and often more entertaining than a Fox news report, most times keynotes. The mesmerized masses swallow it whole, hungry for any mental morsel that could cook in their own individual world domination dishes.
You know there was a time when I actually took some of that seriously, i.e. that someone else’s future revelations/predictions could directly impact, not only our company but me personally ! so I listened and absorbed assiduously, only to eventually realize that, most of this new thinking and innovatively uncompromisingly original perspective had probably undergone marathon endorsements by legal, senior management, co directors, partners, while also been written up in papers, outlined in submissions, etc etc etc, long before it ever gets to the keynote stage – furthermore soon as it’s said, it’s blogged, podcasted and reported in traditional media. If in any way a genuinely innovative or new thought is born, then forty clones are on it quicker than a rash, it’s old hat before it’s had time to dress for breakfast – it all sort of just spins itself round and round until we’re the ones that throw up. (our hands obviously)
So you see, Here in Ireland we have been guilty of similar thinking, we often coax the successful to share their insight and experience, often they are the ones who can’t prevent their ego from offering just a few snippets of future focus. We directly genuflect to superior insight, instantly compliant we immediately dream along their lines, we follow just behind, like a small silage trailer shadowing the john deer – cantona-esque in our impatient subservience to duplicate and replicate understanding. Having spent years in the long grass, I just want to plough my own furrow these days.
