atw: Re: Should we give the users what they want? (oops)

Peter Martin:
You wrote:
> Christine:
> You wrote:
>
>> I have absolutely no doubt that we are going through a paradigm shift.
>>
> Yes, just as we did when radio and then TV came, and all those who would only 
> have
> paper and books
> said we'll all be rooned, while others said newspapers will continue to rule 
> the day,
> and all that.      Despite L'Academie Francais  (plus accents) and Canute, 
> language and
> media interests and mixes of each
> change, and even "un jean" (a pair of jeans)  is now built into new 
> dictionaries.
>
>
>> I have been
>> doing my darnedest to stay in tune with what it is by getting on to Facebook 
>> (the
>> value of which is now apparent to me) and Twitter (the value of which still 
>> eludes
>> me) and doing lots of other Web 2.0 things.   I am not doing this to be 
>> fashionable,
>> or to pretend to be young, but to stay employable and useful into my old age.
>>
>>
>> I think it is like a major, tectonic plate shifting, earthquake - we have no 
>> idea
>> what the final new configuration will look like till things stop shifting - 
>> all we
>> can do for now is keep our balance, and avoid wasting our energy trying to 
>> stop the
>> earthquake.
>>
> [snip]
>
>> So the only positive thing I can do is keep myself flexible so that I can 
>> adapt
>> readily to change and not be overwhelmed by it.  This means I also avoid 
>> wasting time
>> trying to shore up the "ancien regime" when it is already dead as a dodo.  
>> Any
>> grammatical or linguistic rules I apply, I apply because it suits me or my
>> readership, not because it is "right".  Right is currently a very rapidly 
>> moving
>> target indeed.
>>
>>
> Sounds sensible to me.   Not much point in relying on any single media format 
> as a way
> of maintaining would-be "effective" communication if it turns out no one is 
> reading
> much of it anyway..     The only problem is going to be getting the balance 
> right.
> And I personally doubt that relying on say, Wikis to do the while trick is as 
> silly as
> relying solely on paper, and saying all other things are meaningless and 
> barbaric.
>
>> That being said, to my perceptions, a lot of what is happening currently IS 
>> asinine,
>> but I will allow the possibility that I am the one whose thinking is out of 
>> tune with
>> the changes.  However, I don't think this IS an age thing.  It's a Zeitgeist 
>> thing -
>> its just incidental that one person is young and another is old - at these 
>> times.
>>
>>
> Hurrah!  See?  We can agree !

Well, we could, perhaps, if it could just replace "doubt"  above with "think".
-Peter M
 peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
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