Categories: Articles

Rocketboom, Bust But Where's The Echo?

The big news in the Blog world was that Amanda Congdon is now living at her parent’s house (kidding, we all know that she left or got fired… or whatever from Rocketboom).
Bloggers like to eat their own, so all of the gossip, all of the she said/he said (“he” being the other half of Rocketboom, Andrew Baron), and of course the more-than-fair share of “how will Rocketboom survive without Amanda?” seemed to keep us all busy for about 72 hours.
I just hopped over to Rocketboom and saw the latest episode featuring the new host, Joanne Colan. Colan is cute, has a killer English accent and seems to be more than comfortable handling the duties of the SNL Weekend Update-style that is making Rocketboom the video Blog destination of choice.
Now what?
The time compression of our world is getting more and more compressed. What seemed like earth changing Blog world news is all but fizzled out. We had the (rocket)boom of the news and the full bust (comments, inquiries and insights), but virtually no echo.
Why is that?
I’ve been focusing a lot of my attention these past few weeks on how bad society has become at “following up.” In everything from saying “thank you” to how we conduct ourselves in business on a day to day basis, we’re just terrible at growing the conversation if it’s not in a Blog.
In a perfect world, I would assume that Rocketboom hit a snag, corrected the course and we’re all in sync with this new direction. My cynicism tells me different. Social media loves the scoop and dirt, but not the end result. My guess is because sometimes, in the end, we realize it’s just not that big of a deal in the first place.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.