(not everyone’s a great photographer. da’s ok.)
one of the projects i’m currently working on involves cleaning some wreckage from a web 2.0-style mess that was never resolved, and is coming back to haunt the client. it’s not huge, but it’s a template, i think, for ways in which web 2.0 messes get made in general, and may point to helpful tips in avoiding even bigger spills.
1. NOT EVERYONE GETS / WILL GET / SHOULD BE EXPECTED TO GET WEB 2.0
it’s easy to hallucinate that once we outgrow the infancy of this whole online community development/management process, everyone will just intuitively “get it,” but that’s about as likely as all of us who have never known a universe without cameras being born innately expert photographers. unlikely. community management is a skill. everyone complaining about how all those old geezers don’t “get” web 2.0–what’s going to be the excuse when there are people younger than you coming up not getting it? ok, by “get it” i mean, “trained in it.” specifically how it works from the back end. obviously everyone wants more participation and interaction, but that’s the “front end” of web 2.0. that’s like in the front end of photography everyone does, in fact, now understand what to do when there’s a camera pointed at them. that part’s pretty simple. “getting” the back end of web 2.0 is about understanding how to enable, manage, and not accidentally carelessly wreck these delicate processes. that’s the kind of thing that takes training, much like any other SKILL. are there 700-level college courses on “community management” required for that marketing degree yet?
2. YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET IT. IT’S OK.
ok, there may also be a little bit more to it than just training. one of my best friends jokes that i’m so right-brained i lean. if you and i ever go out to dinner with a lot of our friends i am the last person, literally, you’d want to be asking to figure out who owes how much and how much each person needs to put in for a tip. i don’t get math, and despite what all my high school math teachers insisted, that’s OK. see? now you know, and you will never expect to rely on me to calculate anything for you. it’s ok.
3. IF YOU DON’T GET IT, DON’T MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT IT.
you wouldn’t send out a press release without a publicist’s involvement, so why the fuck would you make decisions about web 2.0-related issues without first consulting an expert? it’s probably because you’re not aware that there is an “IT” to it that you don’t “get,” i guess. i’ve heard that saying “i didn’t know what the speed limit was” is a great approach to take when getting pulled over. this is perhaps the point we’ll get to after the infancy is over. people will at least recognize that there is a concrete, specific “IT” that they may or may not be getting.
4. NOT EVERYONE IS GOING TO KNOW THAT YOU DON’T GET IT
if the receptionist screws up and accidentally transfers someone over to you who was supposed to have gotten connected to the sales dept., and you happen to be a graphic designer, are you going to pretend like you know anything about pitching? probably not! you’re probably going to let the person know you’re not quite the right dept. to be talking to, and as quickly as humanly possible, i’d imagine, get that call away from you to one of those sales people who’s actually equipped to handle it. i hope you see where i’m going with this. just because you’re approached to make a decision about something that you don’t “get” doesn’t mean you ought to. you wouldn’t want the sales folk mucking around with your design.
5. WHOEVER YOU HIRE TO “GET IT” OUGHT TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO FIX IT
this one deserves a whole other post unto itself. maybe a whole other blog. maybe a whole other graduate-level college course, and to be honest, i’m actually pretty exhausted from this day, and from this entry…. but i’ll say this: the web seems to be almost catholic in its obsession with sin and repentance. so if you done sinned, finding yourself a good priest is the way to go.