It’s fun to watch the reaction to change change that I am not involved in guiding, forcing or in any way ensuring occurs.
I’d seen the over the top reaction to allowing video on flickr but hadn’t seen the humorous counter attack until Merlin Mann’s twitter post.
In a useful way it is interesting to see how people are dealing with this change. Some have no problem and roll on while others completely freak out. It all depends, it seems, on their investment with the concept/community and their perception of the change as a threat to that. I guess that’s obvious but it does explain why change in teaching is so hard.
People are completely irate by the addition of the option to have 90 second videos on a photo sharing site. Some of those people are even digital natives (previously believed to be immune to any issues dealing with change)!
Now imagine instead you’re trying to change one of the core elements of a person’s life. How long will that take? What do you need to do to make that person make the effort, feel comfortable, enjoy it? Is that even possible?
Don’t go bad-mouthing those Digital natives 😛
They’re all for change, as long as it’s THEM making the changes. Seriously though, I’m glad there are more conversations about what a Digital Native IS and what a Digital Native ISN’T, because it’s about time. Some of these people live their lives on Flickr, and other social sites, so when they see their world changed so radically from the comfortable little niche they’ve made for themselves, all heck breaks loose.