What Galileo Taught Me About Social Media
Galileo lived 370 years ago and this morning he taught me a couple things about social media. Galileo was an inventor, mathematician, astronomer, and an artist. In short, he was a geek. He was also a heretic, found guilty by the Church, for his theories in astronomy.
Ok, let’s get to the heart of this post. What could a man from Renaissance Italy possibly teach me about social media? Well, of course nothing directly, but there are aspects of his life that can be applied to our efforts.
First off Galileo worked on many different platforms. Like I said earlier, he was a mathematician, an artist, an astronomer, and an inventor. Having a broad spectrum of interests like this to work from will give you a boost in creative thinking ability. That however is a very broad statement and can be applied to many aspects of what we do in life. So what are the specific of what he can show us about social media?
He knew his stuff
Galileo studied medicine, math, and art. He surrounded himself with the experts of the time in Pisa. He, like a dry sponge dropped in a bucket of water, absorbed as much knowledge as he could. He immersed himself in the culture and modelled himself after his mentors.
When I went to IT school one of my instructors told me to do just this very thing. Live the culture. Read the magazines, the blogs, stay online, learn one search engine inside and out, and then look up everything online. The same applies to getting started in social media. If you want to get into it, live it.
He had an amazing idea
Ok, I’ll admit, he had a lot of great ideas, but I am speaking more to his belief in Copernicisum. Copernicus was the first noted champion of the idea of a heliocentric universe, or one that revolves around the Sun as opposed to the, then accepted, idea of a geocentric universe, or one that revolves around the Earth. Over time and experimentation Galileo found the logical thought should be that the earth is not stationary but that it moves through space, around the Sun. This was a radical thought that went against convention and was a source of ridicule and notoriety for him. He was told he was crazy. He was told that he would go to Hell for such thoughts.
Against all conventional wisdom, he believed in his finding, he believed in himself. This is the very reason we, in the social media field, put our ideas out there. We discuss, and vet each other to help bring these new ideas about. If you have that one idea that goes against social media convention, you are not necessarily wrong. If you believe you are right, hang on to that. Nothing can replace a simple belief in yourself.
He stood up for his theories
Many believe that Galileo was excommunicated for his support of Copernicus, but that is not completely true.
- Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to “abjure, curse and detest” those opinions.
- He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition. On the following day this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life.
- His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.
There is a legend that after his sentence was handed down he muttered, “And yet it moves.” There is no evidence of that, but I really hope he did.
While under house arrest he wrote his book, “Two New Sciences”, a recounting of 40 years of his work. A book that would later receive high praise from Einstein himself.
The point is that even after he was told he was wrong, after censure, and imprisonment, he continued in his belief in his work and himself.
Social media is an “emerging science” of sorts. We are pushing its limitations daily and forcing it to evolve at a very rapid pace. We all have theories about how to do it and where it is going. Some are spot on, while others are out in left field. So we put them out there for inspection, and see if they meet muster. Will we be celebrated or censured? Time will tell. How strongly do you believe in yourself?
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Brian –
I wonder how far to take this analogy. I’m not aware of people getting put under house arrest or being banned from internet use because of social media innovation. I do notice that for some obscure reason the Department of Homeland Security has been tasked to enforce information property laws for big corporations (such as the recent shut down of sites handling the unauthorized streaming of sports events). Huh?
Not living in China, I do not find myself thinking much about saying something that could be considered frowned on by the state, but I’m more mindful of that sort of thing than I used to be.
And not being particularly inclined toward programming I’m not one to try gray- or black-hat techniques to drive traffic, etc. I guess my most “heretical” belief is that good content will eventually win out.
Eventually.
– Daniel
(P.S.: Neat little comment interface, by the way. I don’t have to dump in a bunch of tags and second guess what I’ll see after I hit “post.”)
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The “state” here being the other “experts” that social media consultants vet their ideas in front of. There is a huge difference between state imposed exile and getting an idea wrong in social media. It was just a parallel I saw. Thanks for the comment Daniel.
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Brian –
It sounds like you’re talking about a sort of “peer review” process, though an informal one. Interesting.
I have noticed that there are some “worlds” in the blogosphere where bloggers will actually cooperate with each other, whereas, in others, attack is the order of the day. As tough as this “vetting” practice sounds like it may be at times, it seems like a kind of cooperation.
– Daniel
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There is a lot of cooperation in the areas I deal with. When I started on Twitter, three years ago, I was taking a web design class. I started following professional web designers and watching what they did. One thing I saw, that really stood out to me, was designers asking for help. One would have a bit of CSS that they couldn’t get to work right, so they’d put out a link to the code and a few minutes later a designer from another part of the world would say “here it is, I found the fix”. This was monumentally huge for me. Collaborative work on a global level. Social media people are very much the same way. The underlying idea is that there is plenty of work to go around, so why not help each other?
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What if you were charged with a felony for donating money to Wikileaks- which is considered as an information “terrorist”?
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You’ve lost me Stan. What does Wikileaks have to do with this post?
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I think Stan is referring to the fact that the creator of Wikileaks is prosecuted the same way Galileo was prosecuted. . But I could be wrong..Stan?
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In that case I would have to ask myself if I felt strongly enough about what wikileaks is doing. Is their mission improtant enough to me and the world that I would risk my freedom? I really don’t have an answer to that.
Well, maybe I do. At this point in my life, I would not place myself in that position. I am a father first and everything else comes second. I would not have my children be without their father, their mother to be without her husband, over some glorified idea of busting up the Boys Club.Were it that my circumstances were different, maybe, but life is what it is.
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