No original thought is possible?

Social media is the land of collaboration and never before has the saying “there is no such thing as an original thought” been more true. The Hidden Persuader shared the above image and it couldn’t be more timely for us because we are exiting the early adoption phase of social media and entering a new era where everyone is an “expert” even though they just got their first email address last month.

New Media case study:

In the new media space, those of us that create content are often imitated and while it can rub you the wrong way, it is inevitable. People new to the space should know that it’s okay to look to the pioneers for a road map. We’ve been at this for some time now and even launched a highly successful peer-to-peer magazine online that is often looked to as the template for others and that’s okay. We didn’t invent blogging, we didn’t invent Word Press, we didn’t invent Twitter, widgets, html, css, and we didn’t invent the color wheel, but we did put together a sexy, tightly run, extremely popular and well trafficked site.

Crappy Mariah Carey Perm

How? We just did it better. We accepted that we are in an environment of collaboration, of creativity, of authenticity and we took the building blocks of those that went before us and made them better, as others will try do to everything we’ve built. It’s a lesson learned by being immersed in this environment, so take it from us- it’s inevitable… as much as my Mariah Carey perm in 4th grade was eventually copied by my girlfriends which pissed me off because it was NOT flattery. But I digress… I got mad because I was copied. But as my father told me, “Lani, you didn’t invent the perm” to which I added in my head, “I just made it better.”