Insight From The CEO: On Being A Dinosaur

Posted on June 29, 2015

Many of my friends and colleagues bemoan the fact that the world seems to have passed them by. They are constantly looking at the rear view mirror and pining for the way things used to be.  I constantly hear “Things were better when…”
I can sympathize and to a degree empathize.  I think we all tend to sanitize and glorify our past and remember it as the good old days.
But then, I pick up my iPhone and ask Siri to remind me of a meeting, or find a chicken wings restaurant close to me.  My RetailMeNot app sends out a “cha-ching” sound when retailers around my current position is offering a special of some sort.
I have cursed Facebook as some time-sapping monster who is systematically crushing our ability to conduct normal human interactions.  But it has allowed me to reconnect with so many people with whom I have lost contact.  It also keeps me involved in my distant daughters’ lives on a daily basis.
I can talk on the phone hands free in my car.  I can listen to my favorite radio station anywhere in the world.  I can run my business from my desk and interface with contractors and customers, some of whom I have never met in person.
I do not Tweet, I must draw the line somewhere, and that seems to be the place for me. Although I do check from time to time to see what I may be missing from other Tweeters.
After all, technology is a tool.  Used wisely by intelligent people, it can open new doors, improve lives, connect people and place all of human history and knowledge at our fingertips.
Bottom line, we dinosaurs can either embrace today’s technologies without abandoning our traditional values, or we can get pushed inexorably into the margins of contemporary society. I say “bring on the hoverboard!”