Over the years, I’ve attempted to stay abreast of business, cultural or consumer trends that may affect the media and communications professions. It often involves trying to understand changing consumer tastes or how new technologies could alter the way we do business. Along the way, I encountered specific articles or books that caused me to see things in an entirely new or different light.
George Gilder’s Telecosm was one, as was Nick Negroponte’s Being Digital, Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, and Dan Gillmor’s We the Media. All were epiphanies, of sorts, for me.
This week, Jeff Jarvis, on his Buzz Machine weblog, cites another important piece of work by Doc Searls, co-author ofThe Cluetrain Manifesto , the book that set the citizen journalism movement afoot. Searls’s piece “Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes,” published this week in Linux Journal, cogently lays out the competitive forces at work to fundamentally change the Internet as we know it today. It is a must read.
BTW – The choice of Linux Journal for his piece is an interesting one. He probably could have convinced Forbes, Fortune or Fast Company to publish it. I think Linux Journal is an astute move given its small, but evangelical readership. Let’s now watch how they catalyze interest in Searls’s perspective from the blogosphere and MSM.