The cognitive surplus
May 3, 2008 by Phil
Now here’s a thought. Clay Shirkey argues that sitcoms could be seen as the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels of society would come off. He points out that since WWII society has been faced with a new phenomenon; through social and economic development, society forced a large amount of people to deal with something they never had before - free time. And as society was simply not able to deal with this new phenomenon, we really needed a drug to numb our brains, make that new life a little more bearable - welcome sitcom.
It’s only now we’re starting to wake up from that collective bender and starting to see the cognitive surplus created by having free time as an asset rather than as a crisis. We’re seeing things being designed to take advantage of that surplus, to deploy it in ways more engaging than just having a TV in everybody’s basement.
Brands who are able to carve out and leverage on the cognitive surplus of their target audience will be the brands best placed to succeed in our rapidly changing media landscape. It is about involving your target audience through a media strategy that includes consumption (no, it wont go away), production and sharing to unleash the cognitive surplus that exist in our collective brain. Now that’s a thought.
(via PFSK)
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