Terry Heaton doesn't like the terms "user-generated" or "consumer-generated" content. He says,
Could there be anything more disrespectful to the people formerly known as the audience than to reference them this way? Users? Consumers?
As I read this, I thought about a criticism that I received from from a magazine publisher to whom I had submitted a couple articles as proposal for a column on leadership. He's a professional journalist. I am not. He thought my work "condescending."
What disappointed me about the comment was that it said nothing about the articles I submitted, only about me as a person. The material was beyond their subject matter. I know that now. But the executive editor of the magazine and I had previously struck up a convivial relationship. He liked my ideas. But the publisher did not. Instead of saying why my ideas were not right for the magazine, he criticized me as a person. This judgment rendered without ever speaking to me or having any interaction with me.
Terry Heaton points to a JD Lasica's DarkNet blog and book who uses the term Personal Media Revolution to describe with what is typically called "user-generated" or "consumer-generated" content. He writes
...what’s going on is that people — those formerly known as the audience — are taking matters into their own hands. The revolution is a real one, and it’s against, in part, the people who come up with terms like “user-generated” or “consumer-generated” content. They’re not users. They’re not consumers. They’re people!
We make these condescending terms, because we still think of us as an “us” and the audience as “them.” In the Media 2.0 world, we’re all the same, and that’s the key to unlocking creativity in building platforms of information service.
It is this sort of phenomenon that forces me to think that increasingly success will be determined by how well one handles relationships. When a professional journalist accuses an amateur writer of being condescending is it not more an example psychological projection than a logical, rational fair-minded critique of another person's work?
Increasingly, the distance between the haves and the have-nots is diminishing. The "We" and "Them" is turning into "Us". This will require a different relationship ethic requiring humility, openness, and the affirmation of talent being the traits that characterize professional relationships.
After having done eight to ten different sample columns for the magazine, I decided that I could not write like they wanted me to, and ended our discussion. I was disappointed because their readers will not get a broader perspective of leadership than what has been the case for a generation or more. And in all humility, and without condescension, the world of leadership is vastly different than it was a generation ago.
So, the idea of a Personal Media Revolution makes sense to me, and I am glad to be a part of it.
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