Signal is Noise, Noise is Signal

"Hello.... anyone out there?" - an early geek on his Personal Computer a.k.a. PC, trying to figure out whether he is too early in the networking game.

The pyramid is now standing on its Apex. Paradigms have not merely shifted; they have leaped and bounded. The dotcom boom that for many was a doom, actually turned out to be a boon in disguise.

In the space of less than a decade, the also-on-the-bandwagon crowd now keeps screaming - "Will someone shut up and listen to ME?"...

Myriad dreams that internet promised initially, and then did not fulfill - it replaced with this one element called Information.

The World Wide Web has been converted into a giant Information & Intelligence Internetwork. The 3 I's give an exceedingly egotistic touch to the entire cyber popultation. A certain Google appeared on the scene, and created a level playing field for anyone & everyone interested in receiving or disseminating Information (to the point of creating an overload...).

Ideaviruses spread faster than ever; Ideaviruses that challenged old notions. We understood from visionary pioneers like Seth Godin, Kathy Sierra, and many others: All Marketers are Liars, Small is the new Big, The Future is NOT in learning, Safe is Risky and vice-versa, Everyone is an Expert, Creating Passionate users,...

..All this while, a phenomenon known as Blogging was working away silently, causing bits to bi(Y)te, and generally contributing to making great ideas reach bigger audiences.

Now examine Blogging. Like a zillion other things, it's got the two characteristics representative of the Information age. First, it is counter-intuitive; second, it is from a post dotcom doom (inverted-pyramid-that-shifted/leaped) era.

What intuitions does Blogging counter? The classic transmission principles of Telecommunications Engineers (like me), for one. Intuitively speaking, a Signal propagating through a given medium attenuates as it moves further, and the component of Noise keeps going up. So much so, that after traveling for a while, the Signal stops being a Signal... all you have is ..Noise...When you try tuning into Radio Srilanka sitting in Alaska, for instance, you will pretty much hear static interspersed with occasional blips of information.

Move in Communication folks (not Telecommunication, Human communication). Even here, the concept of Noise is still valid - as corporate communications trainers have shown us through the Chinese Whisper experiments.

Anything that moves, slows down - in the simplest terms - if either type of Communication theory above seems too far removed from common reality.

Cut back to Blogging. It does not seem to be introducing Noise, does it? The further the Signal moves in the chain, the stronger it gets. One idea begins its journey in Blogosphere, and soon you have many more triggered. The medium itself seems to reduce the Noise and cut away the clutter. Whereas, some so called Signals are buried even before they leave the sender's computer (take a look at http://digg.com/..... the in-parentheses info for the non- believers).

So in the Blogosphere, Signal is Noise and Noise is Signal. Sample my version to help you memorize this crazy concept... SIGNAL - Soliloquy In General, Not at All Linkworthy! NOISE - Noteworthy Offerings In the Subscribable Ether!

Hey, standing on your head already? Go generate and post some NOISE.. A new Paradigm just got created!!!!

Tags: