This is part 1 of a 2 part series on change.
I got an invitation yesterday to join a group on Facebook called “Petition Against the “New Facebook”. I was not surprised in the least to get this invitation because:
a) People make groups on Facebook for everything.
and
b) People in general hate change.
I was amazed though that the group had well over 74,000 members when I last checked.
Besides this growing group on Facebook, I have heard many other complaints about the New Facebook and how they just want the old Facebook back. Most of the reasons are because they are “used to” the way it was.
Facebook needed the Facelift really badly and didn’t have much choice in the matter of creating the New look because:
- People were going crazy with applications and you would have to scroll down forever to find anything on their pages.
- When signing up for applications on Facebook, you have to agree to let the application developers have access to all of your personal information. Ideally they were only supposed to use what was needed for their application to work but in reality, they had access to anything you ever put in your private profile and they used the information to sell to advertisers. They made money off of you by selling your personal information. The new Facebook, limits that.
- As people started using Facebook as more than just a game or fun way to stay in touch with friends, the interface had to change to adapt to that. Facebook is now used for all types of businesses, non profits, families, event planning, and many other useful activities. To accommodate the masses, they needed a new interface.
- Facebook was originally created to for college students to stay in touch and was designed for that purpose. As Facebook changes, they want to give the users additional functionality and the best way to do that is to redesign the site so that it allows all the improvements to be added.
People need to accept change just to get by and, to get lucky, they need to pursue change. It is the people signing this petition that pretty much says “we hate change” who lose out on all the luck and opportunity that change has to offer. The “New” Facebook has new functionality that can help people out and make things easier for them but all they are saying is “we don’t want to change and we will fight it (until we have to accept it)”.
In my next post I am going to describe the 5 different types of people when it comes to change and the luck that each group has or doesn’t have.
What do you think of the “new” Facebook or changes like this in general?