What Mike learned from his meeting
Mike Mason from the Farm Credit Council again is posting lessons learned from this year’s meeting. I especially like that he actually tried some of the meeting print program improvements he posted about last year, even if they didn’t always work out quite like he thought they would.
Sadly, two things he learned are 1) that attendees don’t like change, and 2) the tech corollary that those who are on board with technology already still are up on the latest, while those who aren’t, aren’t. This may just be specific to his market, but I don’t think so.
We may be at the point where the digital divide is pretty much set. I mean, social networking has been around long enough now that those who are interested have already given it a shot, and those who aren’t have already marshaled their arguments against it (see Ben’s synoposis of these arguments here). We may be able to nudge a few more holdouts over the fence, but my feeling is that the lines are already drawn.
But, believe it or not, I have been wrong. Maybe there just hasn’t been enough time yet to win over the luddites. With the pace of change in technology, though, those who aren’t on the bus may find themselves too far behind to catch up even if they do have a change of heart. My feeling is that they are missing out, but who knows, maybe they’re right and all this blog/Wiki/LinkedIn/Twitter stuff isn’t ultimately worth paying attention to. Naw.
