New stuff! We all love it. But how do we go from new, to Now, to accepted? As Clay Shirky said, things get socially interesting when they become technologically boring. But what happens after that?
We start with:
Exploration, when something is new, after it’s just been discovered or invented. Social Media saw this in the late 1990’s, much as people ignore the time gap between then and now, when Usenet was waning and live chats, blogging and personal TLDs were just becoming relevant.
Exploitation, when anyone and everyone tries to squeeze every ounce of satisfaction and value from something. Hunting before agriculture, the current fishery structure. Slavery. Child stars. MLM. There’s always exploitation where the gap exists between acknowledgment of a resource and real understanding of how to make that resource sustainable.
Ubiquity, when exploitation becomes commonplace, and people stop noticing the novelty behind the resource.
Utilization, when – for whatever reason, be it revolution or evolution of understanding – the exploitation of the resource becomes passe (and even taboo) and people get down to the business of integrating that resource into their lives.
Assimilation / Intuition, where we all forget it didn’t exist before we explored it and get on with our lives.
Discuss.
Image by kworth30.