The force of ‘www’ is gradually and subtly changing the way we live. Obvious I know. I want to move with it but sometimes the changes are so subtle and intangible I’m not sure ‘what’ exactly I need to move with. Sure, sometimes I’m overwhelmed, but I’m always intrigued. I love people - talking to people, watching people, reading about people. I’ve experienced life as a Microsoft employee and now the opposite, at a small Internet company ‘My Emoticons’. I lived in England and now Australia. Diverse experiences enable me to build jigsaw puzzles. I gather pieces from interacting and observing and then fit them all together and create a picture that tells a much more interesting story. Here’s the bigger picture I discovered when I recently solved a jigsaw puzzle.

David Armano introduces the idea of a ‘Relationship Renaissance’ in a recently published chapter in the e-book the ‘Age of Conversation’. He asks;

‘Are we not seeing another Renaissance unfold before our very eyes? A Renaissance built off of us discovering each other? A Renaissance composed of a human Web woven through shared knowledge, interests and yes conversation?’

Armano’s concept of a ‘Relationship Renaissance’ is based on the idea of individuals relating - to things and to each other. Is this really anything new? Have we simply come full circle? Primitive village life made relating simple. I knew where you lived and you knew where I lived. We talked and I trusted you. You told me about the new French bakery in the village. I visited the bakery and bought a fresh baguette. It was warm when I bought it. I had time to chat with the baker. He gave me a free croissant as I was leaving. Had I stolen the croissant, everyone would have known. We lived in the same village. We walked the same streets. We met the same people.

Then the age of mass communications came along, as described by Seth Godin as the ‘TV-industrial complex’ i.e. buy ads, get more distribution, sell more products and make more profit. It worked. It worked very well. People got rich. But what happened in the village during this time? I didn’t talk directly to people anymore. I didn’t visit the shops. I started phoning my order to the grocer in the next village. He would deliver to my door. I didn’t know him and I didn’t know where his produce came from. It wasn’t as fresh but it was cheaper and faster.

Conversations become indirect and impersonal. Surely ads were more trustworthy than people in the village? What did they know? I’d seen the ad in Vogue. If I could just look like her then I’d be happy. I didn’t have time to chat. I just wanted service - now. Right now, I’m in a hurry. Couldn’t someone automate the process? Robots work better - right?

Gradually things started getting complicated. There was lots of noise. I was getting increasingly frustrated with ‘impersonal’. I reminisced about the little French bakery, forced to close when the ‘big bully’ supermarket arrived. I got disillusioned with cheap supermarket croissants. They pumped artificial ‘freshly baked’ smells into the supermarket. I believed it was real for a while. Then I found out the truth. But something has shifted. I agree with Seth, the impersonal TV-industrial complex is hemorrhaging.

The TV industrial complex was about controlling people. Making them buy more of product X. Companies are struggling to face the fact that business as usual is over. The Internet’s potential is vast and can be realized on one condition. What condition? Companies have to go back to the cradle, forget everything and see the world with child’s eyes. Companies need to learn to just ‘be’. Yes, that simple. Just ‘be human’ and see themselves for what they are - a collection of unique individuals who talk to other unique individuals living in the global village. No loud shouting. Just talking - and listening. Trust that starting an honest conversation is enough. Let people explore options and voice opinions to reach an informed decision - in their own time. And whatever you do, don’t be pushy, don’t apply pressure.

The ‘marketing mantra’ no longer resonates. Forget about talking in the rhetoric chastised by Christopher Locke in the Cluetrain Manifesto, as being,

‘…freighted with the same crypto-religious marketing jargon that characterized broadcast: brand, market share, eyeballs, demographics’

Such rhetoric does little more than make communication one way, contrived and meaningless. The Internet is not another tool to reach a mass couch potato market that can’t think or speak for themselves (despite much evidence to show many companies trying to deny reality and convince themselves this is the case).

Today, I’d pay; I’d pay anything for a croissant from that little French baker. Why? I’ve realized that all the things I loved about that bakery and living in the village matter. Relating and relationships matter. I realized this because Mr WWW arrived and provided a way to relate through a connection: a connection that’s always on. This connection initiated the weaving of a human web. It’s a complex web, but there’s a simple truth; at the end of each connecting thread in the web, there is a human. I’ve tried it and I like it. I’ve kept using it. But to make the web stronger, to make it easier for people like me to create threads and weave them together, we need to return to a village way of life. The difference is, this time around, the village is global.

The Internet invites participation and is genuinely empowering. It’s different. It gives individuals a voice. At My Emoticons, we’re trying to stop talking marketing babble and just be honest. It’s simple really but it takes some practice. There are lots of examples to suggest honest village life works. Wikipedia is perhaps one of the most commonly known websites which allows people to come together and communicate, to share knowledge. If we want to get opinionated about things, Metacritic is an example of a site built around the opinions of a group of respected and carefully screened critics who help people make informed decisions when choosing films, books, television, music and games. Trip Advisor’s tagline is ‘get the truth, then go’. People post honest comments about recent trips which help me understand more about what for example a stay at the luxurious Jnane Tamsna in Marrakech is really about. Having honest conversations and telling the truth determines acceptance in the community. The villagers know marketing jargon when they read it and hear it. Acceptance will buy you a lot - in time. How patient are you?

As the Zen Master Suzuki Roshi said,

‘To control your cow, give it a bigger pasture’

We like friendly competition in the village and we want to create win: win scenarios. Recently we reviewed lots of emoticon websites and shared our thoughts to let people know there are other sites out there that are definitely worth looking at (as well as sites to avoid owing to nasty adware and spyware). We want to make it easier for people to find their way around the global village. I have no illusions the TV-industrial complex is over. Trying to keep people fenced in the My Emoticons pen just doesn’t work. It’s this simple - create genuinely useful content, start a conversation and you know what, people come to take a look. They hang around because they sense it’s genuine.

I found there were lots of pieces in this particular puzzle but the picture itself is fairly simple. At My Emoticons, we want to talk to people and relate. We want to get to know people like you. We want to share our thoughts and ideas and weave a human web. In the global village, often I can’t see who I’m talking too. It can be challenging but it’s also an opportunity to meet infinitely more people. But I still want those meetings to be personal and meaningful. That’s why we’ve feel that My Emoticons has been accepted in the global village. Emoticons enhance digital communication. They help people add personality to conversations emanating from the keys on a keyboard. More and more people are arriving in the global village. Those enjoying it the most live by the village principles.

If you live in the village and have any thoughts or opinions, please share them with me. My address is charlie@myemoticons.com. I’ll write back.