A message in the medium?

The blank slate you choose may make a difference.

In 1964 Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase and concept: “the medium is the message.” It was meant broadly that any human expression’s delivery mode had inherent value itself beyond its content. I think that’s true. As I recently decided to write within Substack, I realized that its openness to short or long form essaying and its potentially sophisticated audience of readers opened my own thinking in those terms. What you’re reading is a case in point.

As I explored Twitter in the 2000s, the 140-character constraint had me think more in Haiku form, resulting in hundreds of tweets, reflecting on my awarenesses from a day of training or coaching. The short form forced my thinking into a different level, one which I found creative and valuable.

As I’ve thought about this, it’s opened my awareness to how many things have occurred, mostly in the digital world, that have validated the concept.

Here are a few examples of the messages inherent in the medium:

Word processors = you can express as many ideas as you want and then curate and edit them as you wish (vs. the typewriter, with which you have to be right before you write.)

Spreadsheets = you can now primarily manage your finances and assets (vs. needing bookkeepers and accountants.)

Personal planners = you can maintain an overview of your work and life commitments (vs. random navigation with “latest and loudest”.)

Journals = you can have the freedom to express and develop your most intimate reflections and ideas, usually with cool pens and notebooks. (vs. live with them gestating internally.)

The Web = you can have instant access to the world’s information (vs. out of date Encyclopedias and libraries.)

AI = with a smart question, you can instantly have a range of potentially smart answers (vs. lots of personal cogitating.)

So, now, irrespective of the contents, you can:

Express as many ideas as you want and then curate and edit them as you wish; primarily manage your finances and assets; maintain an overview of your work and life commitments; express and develop your most intimate reflections and ideas; have instant access to the world’s information; and with a smart question, you can instantly have a range of potentially smart answers.

Marshall McLuhan got something right. And…

When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. – Buckminster Fuller