Every day I'm reading articles and blog posts about social media, the social web, the new rules of engagement and so forth. I can't resist titles like 'How to measure online influence' or 'The three most common mistakes businesses make on the web'.
I'm sure I can't be the only one with the feeling of playing permanent catch-up, desperate to take in the good advice of those in the know and thankful that they're on hand to tell me how to do it. How will I ever know it all? Will I ever know enough?
But it's occurred to me that I'm looking at it in the wrong way. I went to a good old fashioned grammar school, where the teacher taught and we listened. Even the years at university, when I learned how to debate, research and come up with original thought, even when later I was designing and teaching courses on marketing, even then, and even now, I've never lost that basic feeling that I am always the student and someone else the teacher. I need to know the stuff that others already know.
Which of course isn't really the case. I see people nervously stepping into the social web and thinking they are the learner drivers, the obvious newbies, with everyone else knowing exactly what they're doing and confidently cruising the internet with skill and wisdom.
In fact, we're all learners, albeit some more experienced than others. We all sometimes get stuck. It's as if we're all taking part in a huge project, where there are no teachers to hand down the received knowledge but many facilitators prepared to share what they're learning and welcome the participation of others, who then facilitate in turn.
I know this in my head, but my heart still finds it hard to take on board!
Photo credit: Moustakas Johnson Library
