Former classmates I reconnected with at my high school reunion prompted me to join Facebook after years of resistance on my part. So I joined. Admittedly it’s novel and amusing right now. And it’s nice reconnecting with old friends and seeing who else is out there. But it also underscored a thought I’ve had recently concerning what’s ‘New’ and what to do ‘Now’.

Working in Interactive since the mid 90′s, I have always been surrounded by progressively minded people looking for the bleeding edge of technology. Per an earlier post, this is often accompanied by superlative claims of how drastically society is changing and even more exaggerated claims of current human behavior. Remember ‘brick and mortar will disappear’? How about ‘ATMS will replace bank branches’? Or even better, ‘Online banks will replace bank branches’? What about Bill Gates’ conviction that the PC would replace the TV – made back in the mid 90′s and still, despite the world’s best efforts, nowhere near a mass trend.

All of these prognostications are declared in large, bold type as if it’s not only inevitable but also right around the corner – or scarier, happening now and YOU are either riding the wave or destined for the tar pits my dinosaur friend.

Meanwhile people flood bank branches to cash paychecks that they then take into brick and mortar stores to buy 20th-century durable goods which they open back at home, in front of their TVs while watching Survivor.

…What I have found is that members of the tech-urban tribes, because they surround themselves with like minded people, tend to lose perspective on the adoption of technologies into culture. Because they and everyone in their circle yammers on about new technologies and signs up for closed beta memberships they assume everyone does.

Casual observation seems to hint otherwise.

For example, on Facebook – the big daddy of social networks in terms of hype and media awareness – I searched for people in my high school class. I graduated with 275 kids. 40 or so are on Facebook. “But you’re the older generation” you say. Ok, true, I’m Gen X and we’re supposedly a transitional generation. But my high school’s entire ‘alumni group’ – spanning everyone through the class of 2007 – is only 350 or so strong. This could mean one of two things… there aren’t as many people from my high school on Facebook or those people haven’t joined the group. Both, in my mind, point to a slower-than-progressive approach to technology.

Now keep in mind, this isn’t the boondocks. I went to school in suburb of Boston (30 min. outside), with a high index for affluence and technology. We grew up watching our parents get early shoe-box sized cell phones which they kept charged in their Beemers which in turn were newly tricked-out with automatic locks and the soon-to-be iconic bird chirp remote key of automotive yuppiedom. The point is, demographically I feel my high school’s alumni as a group represent a higher than average adoption potential than the U.S population at large.

I’m not claiming that seismic shifts aren’t happening – I believe they are (and candidly that we don’t always pay close enough attention to them). But the adoption curve, I believe, is slower than progressive minds assume.

Business again and again runs headlong into the fray assuming the digeratis’ proclamations to be true. They stumble in recklessly, like a teenager’s parents on Facebook. They spend a lot of money and often don’t get much return (witness the corporate wasteland in Second Life). Often they even walk away from sound business principles and concepts simply because they assume a new era with new technology requires a new approach.

I’m not so convinced. I think there is much to be gained by listening a little less to the tech-talkers and a little more to the guy standing next to you in the grocery store checkout line (or at the gas station, or on the sidelines at your kid’s soccer game, or wherever). I also think there are some sound, concrete business constructs that hold true regardless of what technologies rocket across our collective consciousness.

Smart money, in my opinion focuses on the ‘Now’ while keeping an eye on the ‘New’, not the other way around.