Another day in the Global Village
When I was studying at a local university to become an elementary school teacher, there was some sort of mandate at the school to prepare us all for the global village; this concept that, someday, the world would be interconnected in such a way that all of us would compete with folks throughout the world for our jobs and other resources. At the time, this was not my experience of the world and I had difficulty believing it could ever happen.
Basically, I thought my professors were crazy. Maybe that was because, as a middle and high school student, I kept hearing we were learning the metric system because the United States would be switching from our antiquated English system of measurement to a metric system during my lifetime. The switch still hasn’t happened. At this point, all my measuring tools include English and metric, yet we’re far from changing to metric-only anytime soon.
So when my professors professed that I would be engaged in a global economy someday, I was, shall we say, less than receptive to the idea. Mind you, this was all pre-Internet, way back in the last century. My attitude at the time was, “I’ll believe it when I see it, and not a moment before.”
Well, as humbling as it is, especially for a guy who prided himself during his twenties on being “right,” I was way, way wrong. It happened: the time is now, and I’m working for an international company with a vibrant international audience and an international staff. I wish I could go back in time and slap some sense into myself. How could I not have seen this coming? Under what rock was I living? Was there something blocking my view? How could my perspective have been so clouded? Why didn’t I prepare for this better? Why couldn’t I accept the concept of a connected global village?
One morning last week, I arose at 5:30 a.m. to shower, shave, dress and caffeinate myself for a 7:00 a.m. videoconference with a large organization in London. We used Skype and it worked better than I expected. I was attending a 3:00 p.m. meeting with eight people at the organization. There was less than a quarter second in the audio delay, so our conversation was almost as if we were right next-door to one another. I’m in Oregon on the west coast of the USA; they were clear across the continent and an ocean away and I could see and hear everyone in some meeting room in the UK. Via wireless connection, I appeared “inside” a laptop that was placed on a table in a London conference room, while physically sitting in my home office in Oregon.
I tried to behave as if this was a typical day for me, nothing special. “Yeah, I commute to meetings through cyberspace all the time, no big deal, just another day at the office. La la la… ” In reality though, this experience was a major eye-opener for me. I’ve spent the better part of the last five years with my face in a flat-panel monitor online at all hours of the day and night. The Internet has become so commonplace in my daily routine that I rarely take a step back to look at the big picture anymore. I’ve been taking the web for granted.
When I pause just long enough to consider what it took to make that one-hour videoconference happen between my home office in Oregon and that organization in London, I’m in awe; it’s nothing short of magic.
So I was wrong, and my university professors were right. I can live with that and have learned from it. The question subsequently arises though: What part of the future could I be preparing for now, if only I would accept that it will happen?
