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5/29/2008

24 hours

Within the last 24 hours I’ve …

  • chatted via Googletalk with a distant colleague in Amsterdam who is running 5 simultaneous L2.0 programs.
  • Coordinated a date for a Skypecast interview for a library journal in Netherlands.
  • Connected via FaceBook chat (yes, FB has chat now) with a librarian (and an awesome aussie host) from Melbourne, Australia
  • and recorded a podcast via VoIP with a library director located just a few hours away in the Chicago area.

What amazes me about this is not only the various communication channels that I migrate in and out of during the day, it’s that these new channels instantaneous remove the distance that only a half dozen years ago would have prevented me from ever even having the thought of making a connection with someone I had never met across the globe.

Granted two of the above connections I have actually had the opportunity to meet in person. But what’s interesting is that in each case I had a connection online first before I ever met them in person.

I know that is normal for people who have earned by birth the moniker “digital native.” But for me, who technically was born in the last year of the boom (and I might add still remembers rotary phones, 8 track tapes & b&w tvs) this realization that the world has grown so small at times can be … well … how do I say this …

... inspiring!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The interview with the Dutch library journal will make you even more famous...;-)

Please invite more Dutch librarians to join for CIL2009...

Cat Herself said...

We must be around the same age - I was born around that time, too. I actually had about a year in my childhood when we had no TV in the house! Dad was out of work and the TV broke - catastrophe!

When I learned computer stuff in High School, it was actual Basic Language programming. We denegrated 8-track owners and Beta videos, but we sure had them! I remember when we got our first hand-held calculator! Dad had a big one on his desk (ka-chung-ka-chung-ka-chung), but this little thing was cool!

Remember learning how to "write secret messages" by typing in 07734 on the calculator and holding it upside down to read the word? LOL