ZIPPING INTO THE FUTURE

I have long been amazed at our shrinking world due to the the expansion of technology and am proud to say I've finally started to take full advantage of it. And my new found experience has made me start to imagine all sorts of possibilities.

I come from the olden days - before Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; before Skype; before cell phones (before cordless phones, even); before the Internet; even before personal computers! When I was a kid, I always enjoyed hearing the stories from my mom and aunts about how it was "back in the olden days." These were stories about things like color TVs, tacos, seat belts, and even garbage bags. Now, I find myself repeating these types of stories to my kids:

"Back in the day, if we wanted to communicate with someone, we either had to put on our shoes and walk to the person's house, or we had to be tethered to the wall and call them on the telephone."

Now, this past week, I've Skyped with someone near London, England, from here in the Midwest. It worked great; I could see her and hear her. We had a lovely chat. I also started my first on-line class with an actual virtual class meeting period and collaborated on a group project. Most of us were in Iowa because the class is offered by the University of Iowa. However, some people were not logging in from Iowa, but were as far away as Brazil. And except for some growing pains with software and echoes, it worked almost seamlessly.

So this has got me to thinking about where my business could go. As I get more comfortable with this technology, I don't have to restrict myself with just emailing non-local clients but I could actually have a "face-to-face" meeting.

I also wonder what my kids will be telling their kids:

"I remember back in my day, we could only see the person's face and hear his voice through speakers or headphones when we had a virtual meeting. We couldn't reach through the screen and shake his hand!"

Maybe????....

Happy Imagining,
-the Wordsy Woman

HAPPY 2014!

We are already more than a week into the new year. My husband I were reminiscing last week about New Year's Eve 1999. Remember Y2K? The whole world was going to end, our computers would crash, and technology would launch into a tailspin thinking it was 1900. Oh, how far we've come!

Now, not only do we have computers, but we've moved past a toddling dial-up Internet connection to computers we can hold in our hands and getting our Internet from the clouds. And we don't realize how dependent we've become on them until they are not there anymore. Tuesday morning, as I usually do, I came down to my kitchen, started my coffee, and pulled my iPhone off the charger to see what emails had come in overnight.

I was met with the black screen of death. I have an iPad through which I can text over Wi-Fi, a computer with all of the capabilities of my phone except the talking part, and a land line phone, but I paid extra to get my warranty replacement overnight, because I'm still dependent on that thing. Because it does EVERYTHING! And I can pull it out of my purse to do EVERYTHING literally ANYWHERE!

In 14 years, cyber innovators have brought us Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and a whole host of other social networking opportunities. We can now more easily get a college degree from the comfort of our homes, see and talk to people around the globe, and carry an entire library in our backpacks. The world has opened up to more opportunities to communicate with not only clients and customers, but the entire universe. It's an exciting time and interesting to think of what may be in store in the next 14 years.

Here's to a prosperous say-what-you-want-to-say 2014!
-The Wordsy Woman