Predictability of the Media

I think you are wise to it too.  The question I'm wondering is why do you still fall for it?

In the past year I have systematically shut down all unwanted forms of media in my life.  This includes cutting out 100% of all radio listening, all television viewing and all newspaper reading.  I only hear of relevant news stories from friends and family who are still submerged by all of these outlets.  It's been quite surprising to those friends of mine who want to start up a conversation about the volcano incident of 2010, and learn that I know nothing about it, let alone the fact that it even happened.  Yep, that's how I learn about news, when it gets big enough for people to want to tell me, that's when I hear it, for the first time.  I can then choose to find out more about it, if I deem the event big enough to my life, and I usually to so on the internet.


It's been said before, 'the most liberating thing about the internet is its ability to give the individual full control over what he/she wants to know'.  I use my friends and family as buffer for those important news items, and the rest is up to me. 


I know what you're thinking, "how can you shut it out 100% in the world we live in.  The internet is also part of that media machine".  True.  The big difference here is that I'm making a choice as to what is directed at me.  I know, for example, that if I visit my favorite hockey team website, that I will get my favorite hockey team information, usually biased but I expect nothing less.  


I can tell you, I have never felt more liberated.

I see the stress in others, sometimes even just slight stress but stress nonetheless, about a political situation heating up in some part of the world, and I say to myself, that was me.  That was me less than one year ago, and today, I'm much better without it.  I mean, what can you really do about it anyway.  It's not like you can redirect the weather patterns to make the volcano ashes falls somewhere else.  So, I choose to live my life, instead of someone elses, and that means focusing on the things that are important to me.


The media has become so predictable in its behavior and I have never understood this better than after my decision of 2009.  Take for example Sports.  Your team is in the playoffs, half of the journalists report that the team will lose, the others say they'll win.  The team win one round,  some gain confidence in the team, some hold their ground.  And so it goes until the team either loses in the end, where they ALL say, told you so, or they win and they ALL say told you so.  Apply that same theory to the rest of the news reported in the world, and you can start to see what I'm talking about.


In the past year, I have dedicated my time at building my own company called Maintenance Care.  It's a web based facility maintenance software that helps maintenance staff manage work requests including preventive maintenance planning and asset management.  The funny thing is that I have had to get deeply involved in Web 2.0 and now even Web 3.0 marketing theories in order to increase the way that we get business.  By excluding those parts of the media that tries to push content on you, I have been able to gain a sort of understanding for those things that truly work in acquiring new business in this day and age.

I highly suggest that you conduct your own little experiment, and I will guarantee you, that after just 3 to 4 months of getting your life back, you will thank the day you read this post...or maybe not.