We can share our stories; share how we use social media to communicate, share what we learn, etc. However, what works for me and/or my business may not work for everyone. Just like I can wear red and get away with making certain jokes that not everyone can pull off. The same unspoken rules that apply at offline social gatherings really do apply in online social gatherings — at least a lot more than linear process-oriented styles of communication.

That said, what do I know?

Social media tools were made for normal folks and being used by normal folks long before the social media experts came to “own” the tools and start making all the rules.

Fire, the wheel, the alphabet (the soup, and the cereal), paper, tables (the kind with legs) and chairs for face-to-face (F2F) meetings… um, electricity, the light bulb, copper wire, the telephone, radio, binary, ascii, e-mail, html…

The “newness” of each of these technologies has long worn off – most people have a general understand of how to use them and they have become fully integrated into normal, every day life. Thus we tend to just rely on them more and talk about them less. There’s “cooler” new stuff to talk about, now.

What could be cooler than social media? What will come after this? It’s exciting to even entertain the notion and envision the possibilities.

Maybe some day we can forgo the hand-held devices and clunky laptop computers in exchange for an autonomous communications chips implanted in the cerebral cortex, but I’m not volunteering as a beta tester for that, especially not if there’s any Microsoft software involved.

Speaking of which, many of us were ‘expert’ Microsoft DOS operators. But who cares about that now? Nobody wants to talk about that anymore.

This is why I think we’d agree that one who typecasts them self as an expert on any technology does so at the cost of becoming dated and losing the competitive edge when the winds of technology change yet again and new experts pop up. Someone should invent an expert pop up blocker

Regardless of the medium, communication will always be essential part of the human experience, sharing and discovery of ideas, in whatever shape or form that takes.

Great post, Fayza!