Wow – an interesting and brilliant question Walter! – We use an expression in England – ‘How long is a piece of string?’
More rambling ‘Trevor’ thoughts below …..
I guess like everything in life, there are individual answers to this.
We are all at different points on the journey with technology. The implications for my 77 year old Mum who does not know about computers will be insignificant. The implications are massive for my new grandson Sebastian who was born 7 months ago.
For me - somewhere in the middle - at 53 years of age and someone who has had to work hard to learn about this technology I find the implications tremendously exciting and the only limit is that self imposed limit inside my head.
I guess how one views change will influence the implications of all this too. I am not a ‘change junkie’ but as I have become older – and particularly since the advent of PC’s on the desk of everyone I have recognised that change is here to stay in a big way. Computer keyboards are now extensions of children’s fingers and we are all potentially able to become ‘connected’ world wide.
The implications are aligned to one’s view of change. I feel you have to learn to accept change, then learn to embrace change, then learn to see change as normal. The ‘new local’ will be in the eye of the beholder. There will be people who do not want to extend their current view of what local means and that is fine – I am an advocate of choice and if people choose that option that is fine with me. For those who want to push the limits and re-define their own local that is also fine.
I take a pragmatic approach and I have re-defined my own local through developing the links I have now created through the web and technology. I cannot fail to reflect about my upbringing when as a child a trip to London our capital city in England was a huge expedition and something one talked about for weeks before and weeks afterwards. Nowadays although I have not physically visited many cities in other countries I get similar feelings when I correspond with virtual friends in the cities and towns of the continents of America, Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia.
The implications for me are immense – the implications for my Mum are negligible. Everyone will have a different view.
This is a wonderful quotation for us to ponder in the context of this element of our discussion of the new local
‘All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one other life before we can enter into another’ - Anatole France (1881)
Sorry for my tardiness in joining the discussion. No excuses, just poor time management.
What is the "new local"? I think it's a number of things:
- It's my network: family, friends, colleagues, fellow bloggers / web users.
- It's a project team (work, hobby, this project).
- It's my potential network: viral marketing, other people who might by chance be copied in on an e-mail etc, bloggers I might come across.
- It's definitely technology-enabled but it is user-driven and not a techie thing.
- It's about speed: I can contact people quickly, I can shop for stuff at any time of the day, I can download music right now, I can find out facts and information.
- It's about opening my mind to new ideas and thoughts, which can be accessed quickly and when I want.
- It's about opportunity, possibility, development, change, improvement, just doing things for the sake of a change.
- It's about choosing to ignore it all if I want and watching the world pass me by.
I started writing some individual implications last night, and it started getting too far into the science fiction realm -- not just futurism.
One important individual implication is that the need for choice will be increasingly pervasive as the availability of "cyberspace neighbors" multiplies and amplifies.
The plaxo's, LinkedIn, etc. services that make it possible for people to create their own network and their own "place" will become increasingly possible. Rather than an apartment or home, a "place" on the internet will be more important than a physical address.
In order to help people create a cyber address that has meaning, that has a real sense of place, individuals will increasingly be faced with choices for adorning their cyber address - for making it their own. Companies that manufacture or help individualize "the new local" will increasingly thrive.
Individuals can also count on their primary occupations changing. If you're going to have a traditional business building homes, manufacturing physical goods, your customers will increasingly come to you through connections in "the new local" -- but an increasingly large number of jobs and businesses will exist directly in "the new local". And again, even if it seems to be an old local business (like a local school or a local pub), it will increasingly extend out into the new local - through a website, through online purchases, through internet advertising, through email forums and customer chat rooms, etc.
Guys - sorry for such a pause between posts! In the world where I espouse simplicity I am in the midst of running between three simultaneous endeavors. (Someone needs to practice what they preach!) Some very good points relative to the impact of the new local on the individual. I particularly see a parallel to Trevor and Mark's comments in that while Trevor finds the web and other current technologies to have an immense impact for him while almost no implications for his mother. This would support Marks observation that the new local is "definitely technology-enabled but it is user-driven and not a techie thing."
Harold's observation about an individuals ability to define their own local "place" has implications beyond the individual. I think his observation that "Rather than an apartment or home, a "place" on the internet will be more important than a physical address" is being validated by the popularity of blogging. People's blogs can be far more "personal" than their physical address and in a sense more "permanent" in that it is for all practical purposes fixed while one's physical address can change many times.
Paul - having done a significant amount of research on the subject of virtual teams I can tell you that it has been noted that a significant benefit to the communications technologies is increased communication because people feel more comfortable in sharing their own personal views from the comfort of their keyboard rather than in a corporate setting that doesn't always promote or encourage free or radical speech.
As far as my observations relative to the new local's impact on the individual I would say that in addition to the ability to define your community you also have the ability to belong to multiple communities simultaneously. You can be John Q. Public in one community but you can also be Johnny Q - spandex-wearing cultist in another. (I couldn't resist Paul - I had to look up if there were any spandex wearing cults on google!) So an individual can actually become a multiple in the new local. It reminds me of the Michael Keaton movie, "Multiplicity" in which he existed simultaneously with several clones of himself.
4 comments:
Wow – an interesting and brilliant question Walter! – We use an expression in England – ‘How long is a piece of string?’
More rambling ‘Trevor’ thoughts below …..
I guess like everything in life, there are individual answers to this.
We are all at different points on the journey with technology. The implications for my 77 year old Mum who does not know about computers will be insignificant. The implications are massive for my new grandson Sebastian who was born 7 months ago.
For me - somewhere in the middle - at 53 years of age and someone who has had to work hard to learn about this technology I find the implications tremendously exciting and the only limit is that self imposed limit inside my head.
I guess how one views change will influence the implications of all this too. I am not a ‘change junkie’ but as I have become older – and particularly since the advent of PC’s on the desk of everyone I have recognised that change is here to stay in a big way. Computer keyboards are now extensions of children’s fingers and we are all potentially able to become ‘connected’ world wide.
The implications are aligned to one’s view of change. I feel you have to learn to accept change, then learn to embrace change, then learn to see change as normal. The ‘new local’ will be in the eye of the beholder. There will be people who do not want to extend their current view of what local means and that is fine – I am an advocate of choice and if people choose that option that is fine with me. For those who want to push the limits and re-define their own local that is also fine.
I take a pragmatic approach and I have re-defined my own local through developing the links I have now created through the web and technology. I cannot fail to reflect about my upbringing when as a child a trip to London our capital city in England was a huge expedition and something one talked about for weeks before and weeks afterwards. Nowadays although I have not physically visited many cities in other countries I get similar feelings when I correspond with virtual friends in the cities and towns of the continents of America, Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia.
The implications for me are immense – the implications for my Mum are negligible. Everyone will have a different view.
This is a wonderful quotation for us to ponder in the context of this element of our discussion of the new local
‘All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one other life before we can enter into another’ - Anatole France (1881)
Sorry for my tardiness in joining the discussion. No excuses, just poor time management.
What is the "new local"? I think it's a number of things:
- It's my network: family, friends, colleagues, fellow bloggers / web users.
- It's a project team (work, hobby, this project).
- It's my potential network: viral marketing, other people who might by chance be copied in on an e-mail etc, bloggers I might come across.
- It's definitely technology-enabled but it is user-driven and not a techie thing.
- It's about speed: I can contact people quickly, I can shop for stuff at any time of the day, I can download music right now, I can find out facts and information.
- It's about opening my mind to new ideas and thoughts, which can be accessed quickly and when I want.
- It's about opportunity, possibility, development, change, improvement, just doing things for the sake of a change.
- It's about choosing to ignore it all if I want and watching the world pass me by.
Welcome Mark, glad to have you with us.
I started writing some individual implications last night, and it started getting too far into the science fiction realm -- not just futurism.
One important individual implication is that the need for choice will be increasingly pervasive as the availability of "cyberspace neighbors" multiplies and amplifies.
The plaxo's, LinkedIn, etc. services that make it possible for people to create their own network and their own "place" will become increasingly possible. Rather than an apartment or home, a "place" on the internet will be more important than a physical address.
In order to help people create a cyber address that has meaning, that has a real sense of place, individuals will increasingly be faced with choices for adorning their cyber address - for making it their own. Companies that manufacture or help individualize "the new local" will increasingly thrive.
Individuals can also count on their primary occupations changing. If you're going to have a traditional business building homes, manufacturing physical goods, your customers will increasingly come to you through connections in "the new local" -- but an increasingly large number of jobs and businesses will exist directly in "the new local". And again, even if it seems to be an old local business (like a local school or a local pub), it will increasingly extend out into the new local - through a website, through online purchases, through internet advertising, through email forums and customer chat rooms, etc.
Guys - sorry for such a pause between posts! In the world where I espouse simplicity I am in the midst of running between three simultaneous endeavors. (Someone needs to practice what they preach!) Some very good points relative to the impact of the new local on the individual. I particularly see a parallel to Trevor and Mark's comments in that while Trevor finds the web and other current technologies to have an immense impact for him while almost no implications for his mother. This would support Marks observation that the new local is "definitely technology-enabled but it is user-driven and not a techie thing."
Harold's observation about an individuals ability to define their own local "place" has implications beyond the individual. I think his observation that "Rather than an apartment or home, a "place" on the internet will be more important than a physical address" is being validated by the popularity of blogging. People's blogs can be far more "personal" than their physical address and in a sense more "permanent" in that it is for all practical purposes fixed while one's physical address can change many times.
Paul - having done a significant amount of research on the subject of virtual teams I can tell you that it has been noted that a significant benefit to the communications technologies is increased communication because people feel more comfortable in sharing their own personal views from the comfort of their keyboard rather than in a corporate setting that doesn't always promote or encourage free or radical speech.
As far as my observations relative to the new local's impact on the individual I would say that in addition to the ability to define your community you also have the ability to belong to multiple communities simultaneously. You can be John Q. Public in one community but you can also be Johnny Q - spandex-wearing cultist in another. (I couldn't resist Paul - I had to look up if there were any spandex wearing cults on google!) So an individual can actually become a multiple in the new local. It reminds me of the Michael Keaton movie, "Multiplicity" in which he existed simultaneously with several clones of himself.
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