Johannes Gutenberg has been described as an engineer, a scholar, and an entrepreneur. I believe it was those three driving characteristics that fueled his desire to create something that was unique, brilliant in design and that added value to his community.
The revolutionary creation of movable type provided the method by which a mass communication would take place. Scholars argue that it was the Gutenberg’s press that ushered in the Renaissance era, an era that at the core was a cultural shift and a resurgence of learning. Had Gutenberg created the original Wordpress?
Interesting enough is the fact that the single letters were assembled in a rectangular box and then placed in what some historians believe was a press influenced by the wine presses in the German region where Gutenberg lived.
Without trying to make too much of a correlation to the communication era we are living in now and the communication revolution of the 14th century, is it possible that we might be in a Gutenberg moment? Over the last 500 hundred years, we have gone from a one-to-one form of communication to a one-to-many form of distribution of information to now a mass-to-mass distribution of information driven by individuals.
Have we stumbled upon this moment not realizing the significance? Have we, by adding 140 characters to tiny rectangles linking to world changing events, unknowingly participated in a cultural shift once again? Have we rearranged the letters and symbols in such a way that a new mobile type has dawned?
Speaking from my own experience, I would have to answer, yes! I have been engulfed by this social wave and experienced the passion of learning new things based on the timeless categories of relationships, life, and purpose.
Every day I find new blogs, updates on Facebook, tweets on Twitter, pictures on Flickr and videos on YouTube all making unique expressions, some beautiful in design and each adding value to a global community.
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