Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Blink, and...damn it, already missed it.

I think it's quite fitting that my first post in (yeesh, I can barely believe it) over two years was compelled into being by thoughts on the much buzzed about fantastical, fearsome, and forboding entity that is "change." The year has changed, cellphones have changed, reading has changed, my facebook page has changed, and yet much to the disappointment of technodoomsdayers, the world continues to go on.

I got thinking about this as I was surveying the job market as reference for what courses and skills I might need to take or develop in order to keep myself on the move career-wise (and God-willing, city-wise). Obviously, these focus almost entirely on maintaining, or in some cases, catching-up on, my digital literacy. What strikes me the most about this utterly expected finding is that less than three years ago, I was enrolled in an MA programme that taught me the ways of the digital world and introduced the most cutting-edge of concepts concerning the capabilities of technology for the future. And now, less than three years later, none of that is relevant.

Now, it is the future. Now, much like I remember that thrilling day in 1996 when I opened netscape navigator on my original iMac and experienced the internet for the first time, I now remember that day in class where I could not believe the newest capabilities of Web 2.0. Now, accustomed to the expected luxury of all these things, I ironically ask Siri why the internet on my blackberry is so crappy, become enraged by less-than-optimal internet service, and wonder sincerely how and why people continue to live without PVRs and highspeed. And yet now, I realize that despite being on top of all these trends in terms of being a user, and despite all my education, in the time I've spent getting to know blackberry, iphone, twitter, and Chrome, technology has already moved on. In fact, we are living in a world changed so quickly by it, few really have the chance to see it happening (except of course the Jobses of the world who kept the change coming and will thus be remembered for changing the course of human history - ya, no big deal).

So 2012 begins with me in a place where web word "search" is completely appropo. Search for new opportunities, seach for an escape from Capcity lock-up, and search for courses to keep myself current, because when it comes to being up-to-date, the user is just as important as the technology.

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