I went to see Michael Geist speak last night at a Canadian Journalism Foundation event at MaRS in Toronto. I had seen him speak before, but at the time I was a volunteer standing at the back of the room at the inaugural mesh conference. I had no idea what was going on in May 2006 and mesh was my most important introduction to the world of social media. I remember feeling very excited about the world that day. I had spent a few years ‘out of the loop’ (due to an almost pathological dedication to travelling) and felt like I had to ‘catch up’. I didn’t really know much of anything about blogs, open source code, wikis or link-love. I wasn’t sure what I was going to learn the next day and it was an amazing feeling.

(Much like landing in a new city where you don’t know the language or where to eat.)

Michael Geist calls it ‘the new normal’. Normal or not, I’m still pretty excited about it. The world has an opportunity to rebuild the way it works and, if we want, we can help build it. If we don’t, then it’s going to be rebuilt by other people.

The ways in which we access knowledge, interact with each other, define culture and do business are all in the process of being reshaped and redefined. Geist’s rapid-fire examples of change (and other cool and exciting things) seemed to come from every direction:

Legislation (from Bill C-10 on Facebook to Yes, We Can), Publishing (e-books, Wikitravel and Lulu on-demand publishing), Film (Star Wreck free films), Data access (UN Data, MIT OpenCourseware), and Cross-cultural communication (Global Voices, Reporters Without Borders) are all being re-imagined in ways that only my most idealistic self could have hoped for.

Hence the problems:

Copyright, intermediary liability, access for everyone (1/3 of Canadians are using *gasp* dial-up) and net neutrality.

I have a bit of an optimistic streak, so I have to temper my grand visions with reminders that somebody will probably manage to mess up the potential with truckloads of money or inertia. My most worrying thought is that we will all decide to let the little things slide. Just like longer and more obtrusive commercials on TV, system access fees on our cell phone bills and ‘your call is important to us, please stay on the line’.