There are still many people who do not seem to be aware of the impact and the potential of internet. People who use it, probably, but who have not adopted it.

You surely know who I’m talking of: the teacher who thinks Facebook is evil… the marketing person who has never even thought about putting an ad on Google or Facebook… the politician who tweets only during election campaign… the people who still don’t know a bcc-field in e-mails exists…

If you work in a domain more or less close to the internet, if you are used to interacting on Social Networks, if you simply are of my generation (or younger), there is a big chance that what happens in the digital world seems pretty obvious to you.

You might hardly understand that, despite of what Jeremiah Owyang says, the state of evangelization is far from being over. No. Reality shows it is not. Although, I do not think “evangelization” is the right notion.

It’s not evangelization that is needed. Often, it is education.

Education about internet in general and the social web in particular. About the technology behind it. About algorithms. About the long-tail economy. About social interaction in the digital space. About the Cluetrain Manifesto. And then, it will be possible to move on to more specific matters. And learn about SEO, SMO, Usability, User Experience, Social Marketing. Learn how to do monitoring, build and run a Facebook page, Twitter or YouTube account, put website analytics in place and read the stats right. Get familiar with crowdsourcing and collaborative platforms. And so much more.

[NB: Just to be clear: I’m not saying, you cannot run a Facebook page well if you haven’t read the Cluetrain Manifesto.But if you do run your Facebook page well, you probably act and communicate quite in line with values expressed in the Cluetrain Manifesto.]

You have to know how to engage, and be willing to do so. In case you’re not at that point yet, you should learn it. And understanding the digital reality makes it a lot easier.

Learning happens, of course, not in a linear way. It is an iterative process. There is not only a build-up of knowledge – there is also a mindshift taking place, with fresh knowledge replacing inaccurate beliefs. And it is neverending: the more you learn, the more you realize what else there is to know.

Since the internet is not going to go away any time soon, I encourage you to start soon.