little girl BIG VOICE

Can you believe there are online newspapers out there still not linking to things in their articles? Come ON people! And you wonder why your paper is headed to join the dinosaurs.

The same goes for so many other industries out there. Banks. HMOs. Universities. You name it. The world has made their system irrelevant, yet they still cling to the established way of doing things. A way that doesn’t seem to work anymore, yet we still need the service they offer. We NEED good news. We NEED a good (and ethical) financial system. We NEED good hospitals and a strong education system.

So it seriously gets to me that these people–the ones who DON’T get it–are the ones still in charge, making decisions and running their businesses into the ground so that their companies are not only unable to fulfill the needs of the consumer, but so that they can’t afford to hire the talent that could save their ass either. It just blows my mind that they still don’t get it–it isn’t that hard.

Or maybe it is. Maybe the generational gap between the baby boomers and Generation Why The Hell Are You Leaving Me To Deal With This Mess You’ve Made has finally solidified.

Since moving up to Portland I’ve been out and about, networking and trying to learn everything I can about new media, the next wave of communication and how to ride it.

The surprising part is that I already know most of this shit.

Crazy.

Of course that doesn’t mean that I’m not learning hella. I’ve been sucking up knowledge like an industrial strength Dyson. Hoping that it lands me a job from some Baby Boomer w/a salary to give away to someone who can navigate the social media circuit for them.

I’ve been doing the right thing, but for the wrong reasons.

And then, about 15 minutes ago, sitting at Stumptown on Division, with my good friend Miss Lamb, I realized that I needed to take the advice I was in mid-sentence of giving her: Screw the establishment. Stop trying to play by someone else’s rules and write your own using the talents you were given, the skills you have honed and the innate audacity that won’t let you be satisfied with ending up average, mediocre and bored. It’s time to step up and be the Era Extraordinary rather than just talk about it abstractly on your website.

I’ve come to this conclusion before. It’s been simmering for awhile now. And it’s funny, because “Damn the Man” is a lesson my parents learned for the world and then sold their souls to corporate America for a quick buck, lower inflation and cheaper gas prices.

Well I’ll take the buck, but I’ll be keeping my soul thanks. As good ol’ Franky used to croon, “I’m doing it my way.”

And now all I have to do is figure out is what the hell “my way” is. Oh yeah, and how that manifests itself outside of this post in that thing we like to call the “Real World.” Shouldn’t be THAT hard right?

I think I’m going to need another latte.