“Success brings the delusion that you must be right about your business strategy. It might only be momentum.” — Your’s Truly
The rise of electronic communication has no doubt had a substantial effect on the mail system that many of us grew up with. Coupled with the fact that penmanship is on a steady decline among the younger population and one wonders if paper mail is not due for a major overhaul.
Despite claims of a paperless office, I doubt we will see a paperless society. There are intrinsic qualities of the printed or written page that cannot be reproduced electronically. It’s more than nostalgia. Electronic files are not necessarily more secure than paper, they are only smaller and don’t require the felling of tress. However, it takes resources to make computers and mass storage devices too.
Speed is also a consideration. An email or blog post can be made in seconds while the same paper communication might take days. If you type, the electronic method is faster and doesn’t require as much effort. There is no hunting for pen and paper or postage and a trip to the mail box. There are tradeoffs in the match up between pen and paper versus the digital equivalent.
Speed and compactness are desirable but lack the tangible qualities of ink on fine paper with artful stamps affixed to the corner of the envelope. In the old days, letters were precious for several reasons. It meant someone made the effort to sit down and use their time and resources to craft a message just for you. It might take an hour or so to write, maybe a trip the post office and then it would take days to reach its destination. Those hand written letters had both a tangible and intangible value.
Probably more important than whether we are using ink or pixels is what electronics has done to our ability to write and to think as well. Modern communications are clogged with garbled disjointed phrases and IM or text speak. Where complete thoughts, sentences and paragraphs are replaced by catch phrases and gestures.
Regardless of the medium the critical issue of writing is to communicate clearly. To write well and present our feelings or ideas we must be able to think. Our thinking is improved when we are able to read with comprehension. Reading skills and a good vocabulary are paramount to the art of writing well.
If we cannot write the vision and make it plain we will never achieve our goals. No one can follow a plan that is not clearly laid out.
In the technology space there are no islands. Interdependence is the name of the game but some things do stand out. One of those would be the web browser, it is the OS of the internet and connects millions of people in a zillion different ways.
The interconnection that is created via the internet is shaping our culture, even for those who are not online.
Although not strictly an invention the other connection that keeps the economies of the world humming are royalties, commissions and compound interest. And one more thing, electricity.
“Social Media is a little bit like cooking, If you stop stirring it sticks to the bottom of the pan.” — —yours truly
“The first rule of obsolescence: whatever is well made, practical and fairly priced will be discontinued or replaced with a supposedly better, but not as useful and more expensive replacement.” — yours truly
—there is no definition without contrast
“It’s about who you are, not what you can do.” — yours truly
“You can take a great photo with any camera; you just can’t take any great photo.” — yours truly
It’s not who but what. What set of problems you solve defines the roadmap that leads to accomplishment. Fame, fortune and the rest of it may or may not come but if there is any of recognition, remembrance or legacy it’s tied to how you solved a problem.
It’s not only the problems that everyone can see but the ones we don’t see or have not been clearly defined. They may become obvious after the fact but the solutions you provide are what people will remember, not how simple the question was.
Ten years down the road the pile of information we call data grows deeper and wider across the digital expanse. The good, bad and ugly, ensconced in spinning platters all across the globe at the ready for some unsuspecting searcher to release those sectors which contain “the answer”.
Searches like spider bites, marketing plans and tooth decay render up tens of thousands of articles, but which one contains the few or the one, specific to the needs at hand. There begins the real chore; the analysis of all that information. We must read after all, and we are helped in that we now have a smaller pile. We wonder, is there a better way?
Yes there is a better way even though it may be a bit more costly than the free search on the internet. Enter the brain pool. The brain pool is where data meets intelligence and analysis. The brain pool comes in a variety of forms, crusader groups, committees, savvy individuals and the occasional genius. Some of these are online too but you still must find the ones who have the best answer.
The best solution to accessing the brain pool is face to face meeting usually brought about by presentations, conferences, meet-ups and the like. In oder to meet people who are able to understand things a search bar could dream of, it takes time, money, travel, hotels, meals and a few other odd expenses. Besides all the spinning platters the addition of skill, time, talent, research and brilliance, the brian pool can be accessed at these conferences.
So, if you’re looking for answers… —it’s hard to compete with a good mind.