When is a Studfinder Not a Studfinder?

We've all had the experience of being set in our way of thinking. The great thing about New Media is that it challenges us to transform our ideas on how we package our information, connect with our audiences/customers, and converse about our organization's issue areas.

The trouble is, this kind of thinking can be tough to start. We're so used to print being our main media of communication, that we merely transfer its rules and regulations over to the online world.

I'll go back to my Psych 101 class for an explanation. My professor concluded a lecture on set thinking by asking us "How do you pronounce the following names?"

Mac Beth
Mac Heath
Mac Duff
Mac Hine
Mac Inroe

We dutifully pronounced them all correctly, except for one. #4. Mac Hine. We all said "mac hyne," and then the professor lobbed the bombshell.

"It's machine."

We were blithely following the lead of what we've done before and transferred the rules from one set to another, missing out on the joke.

John Jantsch, on Duct Tape Marketing, gives us another example. In his post Sell the result, not the tool he shows us a lazer studfinder that's been re-tagged. He's asking us "When is a studfinder not a studfinder?"

When it's a Lazer Decorating Kit.

Now you may argue that renaming a tool is just a bit of cheesy marketing spin. Maybe it is. But it's also an object lesson in how we grasp on to what we know, what we've experienced, what we're comfortable with, and hesitate to investigate any idea that's a bit more out there, somewhere.

I've been caught up in the same thinking myself. Someone had to tell me that the famous street in the Harry Potter books called Diagon Alley was really the word diagonally. Split like Mac Hine. Boy did I feel dumb!

But that's not what's dumb. What's dumb is not investigating the new. Not trying on the unknown. Not attempting to understand those things we tell ourselves we don't understand.

Like Facebook, Twitter, and a bunch of other online applications.

I'll close with another example. What shape is included in the FedEx logo?