We all know what www stands for world wide web, but it may as well stand for wild wacky weird. Indeed what we have is a most wonderful, weird, wild and wacky product but what, and I mean by that 'really really what' is the internet? Can the internet be anything if it 'is' anything at all? I dare anyone to find a definition that the majority of us will agree with, let alone, no-one will scoff at.
The internet allows us after a couple of clicks (and some spending of loose change) to be able to put whatever we want in whatever form we want it to appear in for the entire world to see. Ultimately the internet causes great friction against the very thing I'm trying to do here, define it. How do you define the undefinable?
The internet exist's as a whole new world, it is the 'undiscovered country' without geography, topography, boundaries, in liquid state bouncing word's, images, sounds halfway round the world faster than the speed of light.
Rules, there are none. Since the internet was created by Berners-Lee in the late 80's it was made to run on three foundational concepts (or protocols to use correct terminology) HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and URL (Universal Resource Locator). If there are any rules that can't be broken then these are the original three and are the only three who's state are and forever will be unchangeable. Apart from that everything else is up for grabs.
When i say everything I mean absolutely 'everything', absolutely absolute. What we are really saying here is if there are any rules of the internet then the only rules is that the 'internet rules'. Scared? I know I am.
But then again if your scared about this fact then get this:
Stephen Hawkings reckons that "soon everything will be done by robots"
Anyone care to disagree with someone who is often quoted as the most intelligent person alive? Certainly not me!
The second rule then must be that if the first rule is true, of which there is no doubt about then, then there is nothing we can do about it.
Now am I scaring you a little bit more?
Then the third rule must be if we apply the internet to the business world if we continually ignore the previous two rules then we're basically destroying our businesses, either painful, sudden or by a very slow death but ultimately our businesses will die. This is a inevitable fact.
The internet. The 'resistance is futile' internet. The 'destructive' internet. The 'inevitable' all controlling all dominating internet. All the same. All 'the internet'.
We have little choice really do we? Love it or loathe it, it's here to stay for good and at this point in time, and maybe it will always be this way, its the internet that plays the tune.
I love this quote by a top US Army General, "if you don't like change your going to like irrelevance even less" Its either or really isn't it? Change v's irrelevance. If a man in what I would say is one of the more rigid unchangeable institutions (not just the US Army, but any army in general) can say this then how relevant is it to us in the business world. The internet is indeed changing the way the military does business.
Let's not get pessimistic here or we will turn this into a real 'destruction' fest, death and glory. Oh well, let's go down fighting! Or let's not. Despite the inevitability of our predicament the internet offers us wonderful opportunities, new opportunities that only this type of undiscovered country can offer, the type that have never been available before. Think about it?
Some bright young spark can have an incredible idea. All he needs to do is take his idea put it on the internet pay minimal charge for hosting and domain fees and there he is fighting with multi billion dollar organisations on the other side of the world with hundreds of thousands of employee's.
Do we get it know? We want to make everything about size. Bigger,
The moral of the story is big and bulky isn't 'it' anymore. 'It' is about using the positives of the internet to push your business into the future. It's not about size it's about how quickly you can react to change and the smaller more mobile companies are obviously in a much better position. So what positives can we take out of the internet. Globalisation, fluidity, technology, connectivity, inclusiveness, communications, speed to name but a few.
It's very simple to me. The internet can improve our customer services, cut costs, improve performance, reduce operating cost's whatever market or industry we are involved in.
It's a no brainer really.
However how many businesses are actually using the internet for their benefit, not many and thoughs that do often only use the bare minimum of what the internet could do for them, personally I don't get it? Everyone seems to be running scared of the internet. Businesses, governments, music industry, society, the Church, stock markets.
Here's an example that proves my point. There are a collective group of organisations who are thoroughly using the internet for there gain. Do you want to know who they are?
Terrorists. No-one can forget what happened on September 11th, 2001. What is ignored is that these people had no real weapons, there only real weapon was the internet. And we all know what they did next. They took out the World Trade Centre out with a couple of aeroplanes using the internet.
Still pessimistic well I know what your next line of thought will be, but will have to leave it till the next episode and conclude this little session here and now.
Getting back to the original question, what is it (the internet)? Or rather what is it 'exactly'? Maybe we're asking ourselves the wrong question, maybe the key to understanding all this is not some tight, legal or scientific definition but a more rhetorical question or asking what isn't it? The internet is after all things to all men and as they say one man's fool is another man's saint. It can be funny or sad, intellectual or boring, flashy or totally un-cool, stern or it can be out right outrageous. At the heart of the internet is the heart of the human race and I think this is the key to understanding what the internet really really is. We have our web page and we put onto it whatever we want good, bad, ugly and even in some cases repugnant, it is us, a collection of our thoughts, fears and feelings, it is who we are.
If you want me to put it definitively, then the internet is exactly what you want it to be. And there concisely (and finally!) that's the point exactly.
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