STFU Ugg and Build Us a House

Living at the end of a 1.5 km dirt road, in the middle of bush, 25kms from the nearest town tends to give you a different perspective to living in a suburban house 25kms from the CBD. I don’t know whether it is the wallaby droppings or the 2 stroke fumes from the brush cutter I have been wielding but I have suddenly developed a bad case of the angries about all the blather going on back in my home town around a certain social media conference.

I had every intention of going toConnectNow until I saw the price tag and then I had misgivings, would it be worth $700 to see Gary Vaynerchuk? Would anything I heard there, or anyone I met,  give me at least a 2 to 1 ROI? Did I want to say hello to all of those @names that I follow on Twitter, but who hate me because I do that disgusting thing – marketing on the internet. In the end my partner made the choice for me and declared a compulsory stay in the bush for a week.

No problem, I can follow what was going in from afar. Helpful people like @Warlach is live blogging the event and I can drop in and out as it went along.  Isn’t it cool how you can see what is going on in other places even when you aren’t there? Hurrah for information dissemination via online tools.

Yet I was left feeling unsatisfied. Worse I felt that I was witnessing a bunch of people stating the bleeding obvious, not people working the bleeding edge. I did mention my dissatisfaction via Twitter

Not really impressed with what is being tweeted out of #cnow . So we have taken human nature digital, yeah we knew that 3 years ago at least

I think it all has to do with a conversation I want to have with the nearest neighbour (about 2km away). We need to get the back area slashed and that means making a face to face visit and chat to someone we haven’t seen since we bought the place 2 years ago. I am not good cold calling on neighbours, and there isn’t a tool in the world that will make it any easier to communicate with them. Damn you social media, why can’t you help me?

Same with people in remote areas that desperately need assistance with food, medicine, shelter, unless somehow they miraculously catch the attention of someone looking for a cause celebre, they are totally screwed. Where is the REAL help from social media, I want to see the figures on how many lives it has saved.

A room full of privileged middle class people paying to hear other privileged middle class people rave on about how great it is to be able communicate is kind of sickening when you think of it in those terms. Especially when they start retweeting crap about relationships and connections.

Remember the scene in 2001 where the ape discovers the bone tool and all the rest of the apes go…ape shit? Imagine now the apes continuing to go off for days, weeks….years.  That’s what it all looks like from this end of the universe. When does someone tell Ugg to STFU and build a house?

Here’s to the people out there that are using the tool…and that is all it is… a TOOL, to actually accomplish something other than talking about the tool. Communication is a natural human trait and most of us can’t help but rabbit on. Why is it that some would have you believe that social media is somehow revolutionising communication.  The revolution comes when this shit starts solving some real world issues without causing others. Then I will be impressed with people talking about how cool it all is.