Best Practices - NOT

At the Social Media conference last week, several people mentioned they were looking for "best practices." These were inevitably the same people who also insisted on the importance of "thinking strategically" when it comes to social media.

It seems to me that both sentiments have the same root. Namely, both are expressions of a modernist worldview, in which rationality can supply all our needs and activities can be optimized. I'm just not sure this worldview stands up to reality. It makes sense logically, but experience tends to disprove it. When that happens, we can't blame the world for not living up to our theory (but Strategic Best Practice advocates often seem primed to do just that).

Best practices are someone else's best practices. We should use them for illumination, not imitation. We should reflect on them, not just copy them. And strategic thinking is all fine and good if we mean intentional, thoughtful consideration of our eventual objectives... but not if it means locking down those objectives before we even begin.