Hmmm, can I afford to be a skeptic?
My brain hurts. But no need to worry. I am not having a brain aneurysm. Not in the literal sense at least, although the case could be made that a virtual aneurysm is occurring.
My brain hurts because it is working overtime trying to reprogram itself to keep pace with the new logic and language of digital technology. If you will pardon the pun, it does not compute and causes my brain to spin its wheels.
Most recently I have been grappling with the new concept of virtual trade shows and virtual exhibits. They are product of COVID-19 protocols which puts limits on gatherings of people. Conference and trade show organizers are frantically reconfiguring their events into virtual formats to survive.
My 62 year old, Baby Boomer brain is having difficulty wrapping itself around the concept. The raison d’etre of trade shows has always been face-to-face contact. Now I have to come to terms with the idea of virtual face-to-face contact which is the very definition of an oxymoron.
Will they work? I am pessimistic, but for the sake of my job I have to consider the possibility which means accepting the twist in the language associated with it. My brain is disgruntled and holding out against the transition.
It occurs to me that this has happened before in the history of mankind. Let’s start a few hundred years ago with the Industrial Revolution. Imagine a skeptic’s first encounter with a manufacturing machine.
“It runs by itself? How does you start it?”
“You just push this button.”
“Button? This thing on my shirt is a button.”
“This is a new kind of button that you push.”
“It’s just silly. You’re wasting your time. It will never catch on.”
Jump forward a couple of hundred years when the Information Age arrives. Imagine a skeptic’s first encounter with a computer.
“It’s a thinking machine? How does it work?”
“You just click this button.”
“You push a button. Not click.”
“This is a new kind of button that you click.”
“It’s just silly. You’re wasting your time. It will never catch on.”
Those leaps forward, and the changes forced on us by COVID-19 protocols, are what is known as a paradigm shift – a fundamental shift in approach or underlying assumptions. My brain is not taking kindly to the shift. In fact, it is staging a revolt. Drawing a line in the metaphorical sand, while being dragged kicking and screaming in the Trade Show 2.0 world.
A virtual exhibit? It’s just silly. You’re wasting my time. It will never catch on…
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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Tags: COVID-19 · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · paradigm shift · virtual exhibit · Virtual trade showNo Comments