The Great Upheaval
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. —Walter Bagehot
Most of us prescribe to the old adage that when the time comes, change is good. It’s how we move things forward. We can do great things when something that is recognized as universally lackluster needs an upheaval. As someone who designs internet experiences every day, it’s one of the reasons why I get out of bed; the chance to make an impact on this industry. My experience has taught me that when it comes to changing the status-quo internet, you need a visionary and a receptive team to push the idea forward.
I’m lucky to work with both of these. The always eloquent Greg Storey has published a solid background story behind the origins and purpose of the new Happy Cog Cognition blog. Reason why? Our commenting system bucks tradition and uses Twitter as the vehicle you use to, well, publish a comment or a link to a blog post. (Note: he is also the specific visionary in this specific change-story. And, yes, I know the whole Tweet-as-comment thing has been tried/done before.)
Why did he compose this specific Airbag post? Why am I writing my own? Why have others written their own blog posts to decry (or support) the idea of Tweets-as-comments?
Simply, writing thoughtful blog post responses is one of the ways we saw Cognition fitting into this hyper-level of communication we have with our community. The important words here: “our community.” And where is our community? They are on Twitter.
Our community also thinks critically. And, hey! They also publish! Here-in lies the gravy; we expect our community to be reactive. With the ideas we plan to add to the queue on Cognition, folks will be more receptive to responding with their own interpretation of the idea via their own sites. They’ll grow their own vines and bear their own fruit.
Change is good. But it’s only good if you have a goal in mind. We didn’t change commenting because we were bored. We changed it because we wanted to create something that was more aligned to where our community was active. It might not work for the internet as a whole but I’m anxious to see how it fits with the queue of ideas we have ready to publish on this new platform.
