So in that vein, we're watching the entire Star Trek: The Next Generation series from the beginning. Here's a way cheesy promo spot to get you excited for the rest of this post.
But there are some other interesting lessons we can learn from Star Trek, especially when it comes to social media. Here are a few:
- "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise..." Best. Elevator pitch. Ever. We should all be so eloquent, succinct, and powerful in pitching our own organizations and their missions. And we should all have Patrick Stewart do our voice-overs.
- High-ranking crew members are forever going on "away missions" to weird places that just so happen to be able to support human life. Watching this, I wonder - where is your Flip cam? Your iPhone? How are you not recording every moment of this? On the one hand, I'm right - they should really be documenting these "strange new worlds" they're seeking out. On the other hand, there's a nice lesson in here about human experience. Lose yourself in the documentation, and you miss the big picture. (Like the, dare I say it, John Mayer song, "3x5.")
- A similar lesson applies to the power of speech, and face-to-face contact. Crew members aren't (at least to my knowledge) constantly texting one another. They tap their chests and start a conversation, or they bring up a video screen and talk things through, complete with facial expression and body language. (On that note, there's a great TED talk about the power of video here.)
- "Captain's log..." I love blogging, but as a singer I also know there is something about recording your own voice - getting the tenor, the pauses, the changes in pitch, the mood... It's powerful. Hearing that back months, years, after completing a mission must be an intense exercise in reflection. And how much more could the person taking our position after we leave learn from not just our words, but the sound of them? If podcasts/vlogs were as neatly searchable as they are on the Enterprise (and they will be, one day), it would be amazing to see what more we could learn about ourselves.
Nonetheless, there are some interesting lessons to be gleaned that can help us make our own experiences in social media more meaningful and productive. Bottom line: Star Trek blends social technologies that best mimic true human interaction and learning into the work of the ship.
Is there more to learn here? More to criticize? What would you add to this list?