Information Renaissance-Observations
In contemplating the Information Renaissance I thought I would look back over the past three decades and consider how the telephone aspects of human communication have changed for me and what the impacts of these changes have been.
Starting with the telephone, as a child I can remember when I called my grandmother it was a party line http://www.privateline.com/mt_telecomhistory/c_party_line_history/ where the people could tell which home it was for by the length of the ring sound. Of course you had to be careful what you said since you never knew who might be listening in. At this time I also remember the phone numbers only being 4 digits and if you needed to make a long distance call you had to go through a human operator. In fact, I remember being in Colorado in 1971 and trying to call home and the operator telling me I was not giving her enough numbers because she needed an area code and a local exchange number to go with the 4 digits and I did not know what she was talking about. Back then we only seemed to make a few local calls and a long distance call once in a while. Also, as a kid when you were out playing or running around it was understood that you were to check in or be at home at a certain time.
When I began my professional career the answering machine was the secretary and the message was a slip of paper with a name and number to call. Needless to say, but sometimes it might be days before you and the other person were able to finally talk to each other directly. Later on, as technology progressed, we got answering machines, then voice mail, and then pagers.
Today I have a Palm Treo 700p combination cell phone and PDA http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo700p/ along with my own personal conference call number. My wife and kids have their own cell phones. My wife, my kids, my co-workers, suppliers, customers all can easily get in touch with me. I host conference calls in the morning and the evening with coworkers from China, India, Europe, Mexico, and the US. So today, if anything, I am too connected at times.
As for the future, I have to wonder what it will be like when I watch my daughter setting at the computer instant messaging, emailing, talking on the house phone, and texting on her cell phone, all it appears at the same time!