Reflecting on Jenkins

Henry Jenkins is a truly intelligent individual that I and my Social Media class had the pleasure of conferring with today. Through reading his book, my eyes were opened to tons of different collective intelligence, brand communities and microsegments. I now feel more aware of the world I am living in, but feel more intimidated my the idea of its vastness, interconnectivity and complexites. Our visit from Henry Jenkins helped to ease some of my apprehension, however my brain is now full of possiblities and realizations.
Dr. Jenkins first talked to us about collective intelligence. We now live in a world where information is readily acessible to everyone, and it is our responsibility to work together to figure out survivor, or the health care bill, new imperialism or who Jennifer Anniston is dating. The fact is: we want to talk to each other. From " ask Jeeves" to Twitter, Yahoo! answers, and Wikipedia its all about figuring it out together. Although some things that we do may seem trivial, nothing is without meaning. The question itself may be trivial, but the means that we go about answering it, that is what is changing evolving growing.
With this growth comes power, as active partipants, we not longer let news fall into our laps, we respond to it. question it. reshape it. News and information are not the only things that we are taking for our own. Brand Communities are all around us, and I am proud the say that I am a member of several. I am the person that is loyal to a product to the very end. Henry Jenkins and Bert Dumars both spoke to us about the importance of taking these brand communities as apprecaiting them as they are the most loyal, important, and influential.
In talking about appreciation for the community we are lead to the idea of spreadablility as apposed to stickyness and viral topics. When advertsers move away from just grabbing their audience for long enough period of time to brain wash them and they move into the idea that existing customers are really the greatest tools then progress has been made. At this point in time this kind of advertising campaign is still in its infancy. Jenkins taught us the importance of spreading information and generating buzz, as in the case of the comicom convention.
Another game changer for me was the Ipad, which may very well be the black box or the bones of what the ultimate black box may be like. Technology is hurling forward all around us and we struggle to keep up. But it is comforting to know that fans can finally be able to exert the ultimate kind of power. They can scream ENCORE. In the case of the television shows being cancelled due to lack to veiwers, a microsegment may soon rein supreme and still be able to watch the show. This kind of power, is something unknown to us, but we have been doing similar things for years, just illegally.
In conclusion, the interconnectivity and responsibiity that we have is almost overwhelming. But is may be the best thing since sliced bread.