We write a lot here about how things have changed — and we often criticize the current incumbents for not getting it. Often, we think they don't because they don't want to. But lately, I’ve realized that sometimes they don't get it because they can't. Their mental models – the very synapses firing in their heads – are so conditioned by the current that the future looks like noise to them. What's going on is more than a foreign language…it's the equivalent of a new number system or life based on something other than carbon.

Many have been thinking very hard and with great insight about what the explosion of online blogs and podcasts means to society and the body politic. More often than not, however, these same individuals are incapable of getting past the fact that it's all "unedited." In their world, managing editors decide what's appropriate and necessary. They "have to" because the information model that forms her world view is one in which there are limitations: only so many hours of airtime, only so many channels, only so many pages of print. But in the new model, distribution is limitless.

The barrier to entry for even the most sophisticated multi-user publishing systems (like WordPress, which we use) is nearly zero. Anyone can (and millions do) go into the media business every single day.

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Buried in this otherwise oft written article about how much time we all waste at work on social networking sites is a much more interesting side story about a UK-based website repair man who came up with… an application you can download to your desktop that will tally all of those wasted hours and dollars. He calls the application Notworking. Now that's interesting! The article, by the way, appears in Forbes.com and was written by Lisa LaMotta who I think I'm beginning to believe is one of the best in the business at covering the emerging social media scene.

I'm going to leave it at that, except to say, I find it more than a little ironic that while much of corporate America continues to pooh pooh social media marketing opportunities it doesn't understand, employees are so avidly interested that it forms an increasingly important part of their day. Corporate America ought to stop policing the use of social media and instead figure it out and give the new technology a great big hug.

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