Just a few hundred years ago oral communication was the reigning mode of communication. Reading and writing were skills that only a few people possessed. Mostly people with religious associations, priests and such.

The rise of printing technology made books the first, albeit a very crude, form of mass media. Suddenly, it became possible to effectively communicate with a large audience.

Information is power. Printing technology was the first revolution, a revolution that distributed power to those individuals that had the ability to read. No wonder the people in power tried to hold on to the right to control what is published. Many still try today.

If you think about writing, it is actually a very crude way to transfer ones thoughts or ideas to another person. First of all, getting ideas on paper  is extremely difficult. The world is so rich in nuances that describing all of them, to accurately paint a picture for the reader, would take forever.

And then there is the recipient. The human brain is built to automatically fill in stuff that is missed by our senses. The same thing with reading. We fill in the blanks with things that we have experienced ourselves. If someone wrote about a red car, I would most probably picture it something like the car my mother had a few years ago. For anyone else, the car would be totally different.

Digital tools are changing all this. It is no longer necessary to communicate by writing about something. We can just as easily show what we are thinking about. Using a camera to capture images and video. Letting the receiver actually see what we are seeing.

Digital tools even allow us to combine content from different sources to get our message across. This is what the red car looks like. This is the song I was listening to. These are the shoes that I was wearing at the time.

Digital devices also allow us to use sound and icons to convey meaning. Reading and writing are no longer essential skills that one must learn to acquire and transmit information. That is a major shift in power.

It is a totally new form of communication. And at the same time it is the exactly the same as thousands of years ago. Show and tell. The only difference is, that it is not show and tell your tribe members in the cave. It is show and tell the world.

I started this blog to help myself nurture ideas about what the future is going to look like. And possibly inspire someone, as I have been inspired by others.

My theory was (and still is) that digital is taking us back to the cave. The rise of mass media and the industrial revolution has somewhat skewed society. Our actions have been guided by outside forces, not forces that are inherent. Call it human nature if you will. This “human nature” has existed as long as humans have. Therefore it is a thing that can not be changed in a mere hundred years.

My posts seem to have drifted off the subject a bit, more towards daily problems than I initially planned for. The amount of work and the lack of time to think are the two biggest reasons for the misalignment.

Anyway, from now on I will try to stay on subject and keep the focus a little further in to the future.

Thanks for reading!

The tribe is having dinner. They have got a nice fire going. The men have been out hunting all day. They have brought back enough meat to last for a while, so everybody is happy. Life seems good.

The eldest is telling an educational story to the younger tribe members. Something that will help them next time they are in a sticky situation with a ferocious animal. All the listeners are tired after a hard day of surviving so only some are focused on listening. Others are already nodding off.

Along comes a marketer. Running and shouting. Waving his hands. Jumping up and down. Doing everything he can to get him and his message noticed.

What do you think might happen?

The tribe thinks they are being attacked by the relative of the animal they just had for dinner? They think that the tribe next door has launched a surprise attack to steal the fresh meat?

It really makes no difference what the tribe actually thinks. The fact is, the marketer is going to get punished. Punished bad. Really bad.

The tribe is not going to ask questions when they feel someone is threatening them. They are going to do everything they can to defend themselves and their possessions.

Marketers in the digital age are increasingly facing the same situation. The tribe is minding their own business in their own little social network. Doing things that they find important. Things they are passionate about. But marketers are still using their mass media tactics. Running and shouting. Jumping and waving their hands. And getting punished.

Now, how will a smart marketer get the tribe interested in what he has to say?

Approach the tribe in daylight. Offer them some handpicked berries. Or anything else that they might find valuable. Give them something and start building a relationship.

The next time it’s going to be much easier. They are going to start to trust the marketer and might even ask him to join them for dinner. Maybe the marketer will be the person that gets to tell the story. If the marketer is really wise he is going to throw in a few questions to get the tribe involved in product development. “Should I call my new thing iron or rion?”

Digital is bringing back the tribe and the only way for a marketer to survive is to build a relationship. A real, honest to god, relationship. No shortcuts. No way to cheat or fake it.

Now, I’m not saying that we will have to literally move to live in caves again. My point is that human nature has not had time to evolve that much even though industrialization and mass media have had a significant impact on society. We still have the same needs and desires that we had some thousands of years ago.

Digital media will enable and at the same time force us to change the way we live. Instead of a tribe living in a cave, our tribes will be defined by our interests and passions regardless of location. A tribe of snowboarders, a tribe of Star Trek fans , a tribe of whatever-the-hell-you-can-think-of.

This “tribalization” will have an enormous effect on every aspect of life: business, privacy, copyright, education, literacy. Just about anything you can name.

Yes, every major change comes with good and bad aspects but I definitely see a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Tribalization has the potential to take us to a new future. One where we can get sustainable living without sacrificing the comforts that we are used to.

The change is not going to be easy and there are going to be casualties, at least of the corporate kind. Some people are going to fight change to the bitter end but eventually everyone will just have to surrender.

I’m heading for my cave. Anybody want to join me?

Read the first part of this post here.

The other day my wife was in the park with our two daughters. On the way back home, they happened to walk by just as some men were lifting a telephone booth on to the back of their truck . Curious as kids are, our eldest daughter asked about the object that the men were taking away . My wife proceeded to explain that only a short time ago mobile phones were not available and that phones used to be of the fixed type. You could not take your phone with you wherever you went. We all learned from the news the next day that the men were taking away the very last phone booth in Helsinki.

I’m not sure if a four year old can actually grasp the concept of a phone that is not mobile. I don’t think she even gave the whole thing much thought but it certainly had an impact on me. I actually think it was somehow the last missing part in a puzzle that I’ve been trying to figure out for some time now.I am part of the last generation that remembers a time when digital was not a part of our everyday life. I really don’t remember too much about life before digital but I clearly do remember trying to stay awake in history class. Someone somewhere had decided that it was important to remember the who and when of the Swedish monarchy. To make it extra hard I seem to recall that all of the kings were named either Karl or Gustaf (or both).

Our education system is not of the most agile kind so I’m guessing that our daughters will have to sit in history class just like I did. They will have to try to stay awake while the teacher tries to get them to remember the who and when of important events like the reign of the fixed line telephone. But for some future generation education will not be about learning mundane facts when the power of digital provides us with the means to access any piece of information at any time.

If digital can challenge the traditions of education I can only wonder what It will do to the other parts of life that we are so accustomed to. And that is the puzzle I have been trying to figure out. From where I’m standing it looks very much that digital will not only take us forward, it will also take us back to where we came from.

A cave.

Read the second part of this post here.