Originally I was going to write a flippant post about how doing social media is a lot like having an 8-month old (long hours and sleepless nights worrying about how he/it is developing, and which are the best toys to be providing to enrich his/people’s lives).
That prompted me to consider how lucky he is to have been born now, even if it coincided with the family moving house, me changing jobs, and an economic collapse.
While I’m no economic expert, I’d guess that by the time he’s reading, writing and computing, the economy will have recovered in a changed fashion to what has existed until now – new business will have arrived, existing businesses will have changed, and the wikinomics of collaboration and social networking will be an accepted part of everyday life and business.
It’s amazing to consider the opportunities that brings compared to my own childhood, especially when I’ve only just reached my 30s. (I’m still adjusting to publicly admitting it!)
In some ways I was fortunate to have been given a head start on reading and writing by my parents, and to have always been encouraged to be a voracious reader – to the point that my primary school ran out of English and Maths textbooks suitable for me before I left.
Yet although I got good results from secondary school based on that start, if I’m honest, I probably good have done a bit better – and thinking about it now, it’s because I’d already got the information I needed, and I was bored waiting around to try and use it.
I wanted to be involved in projects and collaboration, and not in the restrictive setting of a school science laboratory, but in a wider world to be able to tie it into the things I was most passionate about. That’s partly why I played guitar and bass in bands, despite not being the most musically talented. And why I wanted to write and be creative.
But the biggest struggle was finding people to collaborate with – especially as two of the things I really wanted to do was to create a comic, and to make films – difficult for someone with no art or photographic skills.
Now it would be relatively easy to network with similar people – indeed, last year I was helping to run an online magazine, Disposable Media, which sadly seems to have stalled around the time I left.
And that’s why I’d love to be my son – the only major barrier to creating, collaborating and experimenting is time – which is harder to find as an employed father than as a school student. (Definitely not impossible, just harder). (How many dotcom successes under-30 benefited from being at universities with similar technically minded people, and having the time to play?)
He’s going to have time and opportunity to make use of a world which allows real-time collaboration across continents, and the infrastructure may finally allow speeds suitable to do far more than is even possible today.
After all, a nine-year-old has become the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, and a five-year-old can have his own company (via Communities Dominate Brands). And apparently it won’t be long before my son starts navigating websites etc for himself, from chatting with Chris Hambly on Twitter.
Actually, thinking about it now, perhaps it’s better to just let my son benefit, and then fund my early retirement.
