I start today’s entry with the following link from Twitter that my friend Paula sent me. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhashemi/sets/72157619758530748/show. I ask you to go and look at the pictures. Better than any news photos, they come from within the news that is happening. They don’t lie, and they will move a nation. Please watch the entire slide show. They all risk their lives to give it to us, the least we can do is watch it.
I remember being around George Soros when the Berlin Wall and Russia’s iron hand were crumbling. In 1993, George immediately bought thousands of copy machines and started distributing them throughout Russia and Eastern Germany. “If you want an open society, you have to be able to disseminate information,” he said at dinner while plotting his action. This action, based on his theory of reflexivity (loosely stated it’s about people’s perceptions or experiences and the actions that follow based on them) told him that if you give people a way to pass what they know, things will change. That was just 13 years ago. Those machines cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million dollars, and the paper? Who knows. And, the time to get them working and executing? Much longer than a tweet. I think of it now, as this unprecedented time unfolds in Iran because what was so clearly innovative and now seems so obsolete and primitive.
This is how it's done.
Iran. The last few days.
An election happened where the outcome enraged the country. The people running the country shut down communication lines to try and keep people from doing anything. They cut off cable, email, TV (other than their own message) and telephones. But, they could not control Twitter. They actually tried, but because so many phones are satellite based in Iran, they couldn’t take cell phone access away. People tweeted, “Gather at 10 at the town square.” “Leave town square, forces are coming.” “Here is a picture of what just happened in Main Street, Tehran.”
The outside press was thrown out of Iran to try and quell the flow of information of what was really happening. The news shows started using Tweets from those brave souls in Iran as their source of information. Frankly, I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot more reliable than some of the sources (I’m certainly not bringing Chaney into this conversation about reliable sources of information).
I assure you that without Twitter, this Iranian phenomena would not be happening. Think about it. This is big. This will change the flow of information, and certainly news that we use, forever.
I was at dinner two nights ago with some friends, and I was mentioning my awe at the power twitter has shown in the events in Iran. “Really?” said one of my friends. “I didn’t know that.” While the story of what is happening in Iran is much more important than how it is happening, I know that this will be looked at down the historical yellow brick road as a moment in time that changed the course of any government’s ability to hold back a people.
I’d like to quote my blog entry from a few weeks ago (Wow, does this feel good! Quoting myself as if I am really somebody!)
Twitter, as defined in some dictionary or other, is the burst of noise a bird makes when excited. Twittering, as designed by Jack and Biz is the vehicle for following bursts of information from a source you want to follow.
Following sources of information allows us to get concise information that we want to have fast and in the moment. The problem with Twitter now is that we are a very narcissistic nation and feel that everyone has a right to be a source of information that you might want to follow. I do not want to follow Barbara WaWa (who is Twittering), for example, because I don’t care what she thinks about anything. (Frankly, I don’t think she thinks about anything; she merely parrots whatever someone she’s interviewing thinks so they will like her and tell their friends to have her interview them because she won’t ask follow up questions.) And, because this is America and you have the freedom to choose, you don’t have to sign up for those sources not of interest to you.
Yes, you should Twitter. You should decide what information sources you want to follow, and you should sign up to follow those sources of information. Try to discriminate. I think that’s the key. Following Ben & Jerry’s to find out what the next new flavor is as soon as it’s announced is not discriminating. In my business life, I like to say, “Sometimes more is not better. Sometimes it’s just more.” (The lines comes from the remake of Sabrina - which I loved.) So start out slow and follow one or two sources and see how it goes.
I take a moment here to thank the Twitter founders for inventing what is changing the world, one tweet at a time. And, I have to ask George if he’s going to give the people of Palestine satellite cell phones instead of copy machines.
