Some dude in Brazil just picked lint from his belly button. Someone in Belgium just bought an iPhone. Another guy is stranded at Glasgow airport due to terrorist attacks.
As I weave through these granular posts each day on Twitter I gain a telepathic sense of the entire world around me.
Global is the new local
Small is the new big, they say. Fifty is the new 30. New ideas replace the old. We need effective prioritization and speed to embrace a changing world. Smarter is the new harder.
I say global is the new local. Google shrunk the world by placing the planet on our desktops. We zoom down on countries, states, cities, neighborhoods, streets and rooftops. The effect on us is breathtaking.
Twittervision, which puts recent Twitter updates on a map of the world, now offers us a tactile sense of it by bringing us inside the structure, inside the heads of people. This is epic.
Think big
Ask a Realtor how many listings she has. She’ll say whatever number of homes she has under contract — four, eight, 15 — when actually she has as many listings as there are homes for sale in her city, her state, or the world (when considering the access she has through a referral network).
Think big; it is the new small. It’s about blasting through tunnel vision. It’s about shrinking the world through the experiential act of becoming part of the change as opposed to just reading about it.
It’s about forming telepathic awareness with others who you invite into your global world. It’s like your buddy list that allows you to gain a sense of where your buddies are, whether they are busy, away from their desks or just a quick ping away.
Stupid is not the new smart
Right now I am staring at the Twitter map wondering about homes that are being listed right now.
I wonder what’s happening in towns all over America that might sway my investment decisions.
I wonder what a new home buyer thinks about the open house he just previewed or about the Realtor who showed it to him.
Real estate has tried unsuccessfully to humanize itself on the Web, and instead has accomplished the opposite. Twitter, Dodgeball and others to come are succeeding at this human touch by creating this social proprioception — allowing the small to become intrinsically aware of the sum of its global parts.
Avoiding this experience and dismissing it and its application to our industry is arguably stupid. Stupid is not the new smart.
Right now
A beautiful French woman needs a massage. I didn’t get her name. Her jpeg said 1,000 words. Someone in Nigeria is about to go to class. He posted in English. Right now I wonder if I know anyone who speaks Nigerian.
In D.C., a girl wonders why she is never as relaxed as her cat. I could tell her why — cats don’t stress out. David Hasselhoff wonders why Pamela Anderson doesn’t return his calls. I wonder why she hasn’t returned mine either. Every fifth post on Twitter is from Japan. Right now, I wish I’d studied Japanese.
Right now I wonder what it would mean if the real estate industry “Twittered.” Portland agent writes: “Just previewed a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home that would make for a great investment.”
The Web has made us all aware of each other. Quick-ping media. It’s the app of the future.
Marc Davison is a founding partner of 1000watt Consulting. He can be reached at marc@1000wattconsulting.com.
