In my younger years the television and telephone were about it regarding communication and content sharing. This was the 80s and i was pre teen . Magazines and news papers were on every coffee table, desk or in some strange basket made of wicker next to the couch. MTV Had just came out and so my interest in anything other than cartoons was sparked. Music became a friend and music videos were like peeking into a world where only gods existed. I was 7-10 years old and the world was just about to get bigger for me.
Value is determened by the individual , its up to you to provide the opportunity.
Fast forward a few years into the late 90s and early 2000s . Imagine only a few friends and some businesses had computers web cams and an email. The Tv was still a monstrous size but telephones where now wireless and pagers were running pretty strong. When cell phones came out they were as attractive and as useful as a pager seemingly. Crappy service no texting and i could listen to my am fm radio through the headphone jack while ridding the bus to down town Portland OR where I lived as a teenager.
This is where things Got outta my hands and potential slipped away from me. I never saw it coming or could have imagined technology and the content sharing would ever become what it is today. I wasn't paying attention and when I finally had to get my own personal email I decided to look into what was called Myspace (social media) I was definitely behind and didn't know it. Who would have though a punk rock kid listening to his walkman would ever need to get on to this thing called the internet or specifically social media. I was around 20 years old and had probably not seen a single website or sent an email before this point. It had been around a few years but never seemed to be that important. Little did i know.
You see , eventually things change and if you don't change with them you eventually jump on board when its to the point where you have to. Email, social media, texting all seemed like it was rejected by a lot of older generations even when it clearly wasn't going away. They thought it was a fad and were super late in the game to get started. Once You had to send emails to or from work and Join social media to see what everyone was talking about you realized , hmm... I may have to get started with this thing. Meanwhile others were capitalizing on what would soon be one of the biggest shifts of culture in our time. The content sharing idea flooded fast paced and non stopping internet world was here and in full force. and some still neglect understanding a how to send a simple email. I was guilty too.
I am not writing this to talk historical events or make you feel bad about Grandpa not knowing what the world wide web was. What I am saying is that its easy to just see it as a fad. Like it was something that we didn't need to get started with. The truth is, The World Wide Web is a lot like the stock market in the early 20th century, investing into Coca Cola would have been incredibly profitable and starting as early as possible would have been the best idea. even starting a little late would sure have had its benefits, But starting now that you know its already a Mega Business, Too late to reap the Huge rewards on small investments. The internet, WWW.com, social media, youtube, text and email are all part of the world now and some are still not seeing the potential. Like investing hard earned cash into CocaCola in the 1920s , Investing into what is now the beginning of the Content Creation and sharing world would pay off greatly.
We share stories ,photos ,video and audio today more than ever before and its estimated that Youtube gets 500hrs of media downloaded to it every min of the day. If you don't see the use or the need to jump on board with this ever changing vastly growing world of Creative and talented people , let me just leave you with this. Investing your time end efforts into telling stories, creating valuable content or learning how to do so then I think you are missing out on a huge opportunity. You may be asking yourself why this matters at all or maybe doubting that it applies to you. Think of it this way, the next moment you get the chance to take sometime and observe how much of the day the average person spends on their mobile device consuming content, ask yourself, how can I create value and get started in this amazing world of content and information (If you are reading this you probably already are doing this to some degree) Its obvious that its important to others and here to stay. and it's only getting increasingly more necessary for you to get the next social media sharing app to stay up to date with your fiends and family or favorite artist.
We are here, it is the time to share with the world and were already doing it . Its not going away and we can capitalize on it by figuring out if its audio, video, photo or typed text that we want to use to add value to other peoples lives as well as our own. And if you don't see this clearly then good. Stand by and watch the world change and just like when you had to finally download Facebook or snap chat to see what your friends and family were up to, you will soon see that creating content sharing stories and providing value is the new investment in 2017. If you don't get on board do me a favor. In 5 - 10 years from now look around. Watch what everyone is doing, and make sure the next time you don't see the opportunity at hand ask yourself - where is everyones attention and how I can leverage that? Where are people spending their time? What do they deem valuable and how can I add values well? Share your value...