You know my name, look up the number

I recently spent a 2-week vacation in the mountains of Idaho, my birthplace in the US. While there, it was easy to hide from the tentacles of the office. E-mail, fax, phone, and pager were powerless to reach me. I ran into a group of Hewlett-Packard executives from Boise on a team-building mission, frantically trying to retrieve voice mail on their cell phones. A few of them were panicking, suffering from the early symptoms of telecommunications withdrawal. I recognized the symptoms, as I had suffered through them a few days before. To my surprise, my symptoms had passed.

How much longer, I wondered, would I be able to unplug myself from the global network? With new gadgets, expanded ranges, advanced features, and cheaper prices, the world is shrinking ever more rapidly. Iridium (a global wireless communications network composed of 66 low-earth-orbit satellites) is about some serious connectivity. No more hiding in the corners of the Earth's far reaches, no more dodging the office, no more personal down time. The world of tomorrow is a world of access, a world of seamless communication, a world that never stops talking. This is a good thing?

Perhaps being hardwired into the global human collective will propel us forward to our next evolutionary level. Maybe we will all come to expect more of each other because of our constant access, and compel each other to new heights. Or maybe we'll just drive each other nuts. Either way, the world is closing in on us, and instant access can't be far away. One number,assigned for life, following you wherever you may go. Earl Warren, former chief justice of the United States said, "The fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a greater danger to the privacy of the individual." Maybe, but at least I can call my broker while climbing Everest or retrieve my e-mail while skydiving over South Australia.

"Hi. This is Robert. I got your fax confirming the e-mail about the voice mail on the subject of our virtual chat that we had after you paged me. I'm dying to show you my vacation pictures. Why don't we get together for coffee at amazon.com?"


Robert Jamison


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