• by Kendall Allen , March 1, 2010

In our media environment we tend to awkwardly, equally, respect both the tried-and-true and progressiveness. But even here, we occasionally find ourselves pausing and marveling at the thing that could've been.  

This weekend, I was struck by how intense this perspective can be, as a new friend was describing a former large-scale venture in which she was passionately involved. Her initiative of yesteryear combined open source content authorship; production and distribution; progressive compensation models for creators; social platforms; and innovative monetization structures. It was downright cool. Or rather, as someone at the table said, "This was truly before its time."

 And it was. In fact, the time would be, could be now -- for this particular venture. Now that the environment has started to truly open up for original content production and global Internet distribution; now that we've great tolerance and curiosity in the sphere for new journalism models.  But this venture has long since been shelved, and all vision-keepers have left the building. So now what?

Following this chat, I found myself thinking about the concept of "being before one's time." It's rare that we dub something or someone such at the time. It's so often a look back, once the context and the history are clear. On this theme, I remember hearing tales of my grandmother bullying her school administrators to allow her to try out for the football team as a girl, around the 1920s. The family celebrates this fact of her life, but it's an isolated point, as she never went on to a life of athleticism. It's a reference point.

In our world, what's before one's time may be a particular business venture; an invention; being an early-mover on a probable trend; or opting out of a popular opinion. I recall friends' and industry lightning rods' early adventures in a random list:

 -      IPTV

-      Streaming media "in a box"

-      Citizen journalism

-      Premium paid content models

-      Touch-screen kiosks

-      File-sharing

-      Cross-media analysis

Designating something before its time implies a stalling out, a partial or full failure -- but it also acknowledges a core value, sometimes a diamond inside that may seed a future trend or serious market development. Of course, it's often under the guiding light of another force or at the hand of another player that the not-so-new thing restarts and takes flight. This happens when conditions are better, the market more conducive, social acceptance more likely.

True enough: where would we be today if we failed to eventually appreciate the significance of hypertext documents, Internet communications and email; instant messaging; or VoIP? Or if we failed to persist with early forms of social media like list-servs, message boards and chat rooms? What if no one ever took a stab at monetizing the search marketplace? What if no one sought to raise the bar on measurement and standardization across media? What if Open Source never happened? Cloud computing?

I suppose the things that are supposed to stall or fail, do, and those that must succeed, eventually will -- even if reconstituted from earlier efforts. The big picture leaves the emotionality out of it, and looks to evolution.  On a sentimental note, the only sad part of being before one's time is that one may not be a direct part of the comeback, if a comeback unfolds. But, for those paying attention to the look-back: The people, ideas and things that seem to matter in hindsight, quietly, actually, did mean something at the time, no matter how small the measure.