We live in an era of attention-competition. Competition has always existed, all the way from Charles Darwin and his natural selection theory, but not like we have had it the last few years. I dare say it is going to be like this for the foreseeable future. The reason I called it attention-competition is because everyone, every business or brand is competing for the attention of the same population. This media we call social turned it on and it has never been turned off. It never will. Why? Because it works. Why re-invent the wheel when it is well-oiled and working fine?

In such an ecosystem, it is easy for important information to be missed. To avoid that, those clamoring for attention must embrace the idea of targeting their demographic of interest. Monies are spent in brainstorms to profile who should be targeted. For any demographic that one business or brand targets, there are a myriad of others in different businesses targeting the same. 

All this is not without its advantages. For one, brands and businesses are open to a wider market that they never would have reached if the world had not converged into one global village. This means that advertising budgets are better accounted for and influencers truly earn their checks.  It makes business sense now. 

It was never like this though. You had to have been there to see what a struggle it was to get corporations to embrace digital marketing as the propeller for their next levels in business. The uphill climb that was convincing managers that an individual at university whom they had never met, was born long after their company existed and thrived, and had racked up a following online almost equal to their daily or weekly sales had the ability to push or promote their business. It was unfathomable to them that someone who had never created or built anything tangible, never had to manage people (at least physically) wielded such power. They can post one tweet about a business and put them in the face of thousands with a few clicks. It seemed too good to be true. You cannot judge them for their doubts. The world changed from under their feet and young adults had started making millions from the comfort of their beds. 

Nothing could have prepared them for that world. These thoughts swirl through my mind as I contemplate the future of these online vocations that have gained steam and are now valid in their own right. I speak of blogging, podcasting, influencing and the others in that vein. Not so long ago, you could not see far enough with the strongest lens that this would be the world we are living in. It is decentralized and the best equalizer the world could ever have. It circumvents the limitations of race and color, the imbalance in regional economies and the bureaucracy of governments and corporations. We are happy this came to us and mighty glad it stayed. 

They say goals should be clear and specific. They should be bite-sized into daily executable activities. How is this for a goal to fit those parameters – my intention for this blog is to share life through my eyes and I do that daily through writing about the different encounters I live through. I am drawn to conversations. I believe that is because I, myself, am a conversationalist. I like to document those conversations and this is one of those avenues. So when you ask me what the future of blogging is, my response is that as long as God lends me breath and I find a crack in the hustle and bustle of life to write, I will. I will share stories till I draw my last breath and I can pen no more. 

I have one ask of you: Stay with me, let’s jazz.