Normally, I don’t open my headlines from the NY Times. I feel guilty, making them email me like that only to delete it, but what can I do? Often there is no time, or I’m just not in the mood, or whatever. But today was different, and the reward was great because right there in the tech section was a story about Google’s new operating system, Chrome OS. Techno porn! This is the kind of stuff I live for.
What I love about it is the idea of bringing so many things together and having them be accessible from anywhere. From news feeds to status updates and email, not to mention docs and spreadsheets, Google has the potential to do all that. I can imagine myself at my desktop at work, having fired off some emails, and taking a second to look at the headlines from the local paper. There is a story about the crop of heirloom tomatoes coming into the farmers market. I add that to my shopping list on Google Spreadsheets. Having bounced out of work in time to do a few errands, I check the list on my Android powered phone. Right, Tomatoes! When I get home and consume one for dinner, I’m so inspired that I fire up my Chrome OS laptop and sit on the porch writing a post here about it all.
That may sound frivolous, and it is in many ways but it also enriches my life, connects me to local resources, and makes my wife happy because she got fresh tomatoes. I can imagine equal or better applications in terms of connecting me to the people I work with and for. In a field that is totally about relationship building, tools that enhance that possibility are highly valuable. Besides which, my personality is such that I just love to see a plan — or anything else for that matter — come together. Interconnectedness makes me happy because I think it is the essence of who we are as a species.
Convergence is emerging on the Internet and in the world. To steal a bit from Thos. Freidman, we are really starting to learn how to use all that bandwidth we created in the 90’s. Of course there are risks, and those are often discussed if not well documented. But Al Gore has a good point when he says that we have to move away from risk aversion to embracing opportunities in the sustainability discussion. What I feel guilty about most in not opening the NY Times headlines is the knowledge that it was not so very long ago at all that we all went ga-ga over being able to do such a thing as read the NY Times on our computers. The convergence of tools and information is enabling an emergence of a new understanding of our most fundamental relationship to one another. That’s badass.