Discounting Decade

Let’s just pretend for a moment we are teleported back to Y2K.

We would be so preoccupied by the 00 (stock up on water bottles and duck tapes).

And we would rationalize that’s it was going to be doomsday anyway, so let’s charge up for Christmas shopping, drive those SUV’s and envy Hummers

(that, I saw as a fad which would go away, and glad it did).

Many more names would be on our Christmas card list (no social networking just yet).

VoIP was still in its early stage, so was funding stage.

And all things tech would equal all things Microsoft.

It turns out that the Decade from Hell had its early start with the computer panic, then the dot.com boom-to-burst.

You’ve got mail.

OK, click on the envelope icon, and check those spam mail, one by one.

We all self-taught on cookies, spam etc… More than a billion people learned a new language: HTML.

Not until mid Decade that we started to condition ourselves with Search, just because Search has been much faster and broader

(not Search, as in store look up for existing books in stock  “may we order it for you”).

I remember the time when local bookstores (Dutton, for instance) were facing extinction.

Now, print and TV Network news are facing similar fate.

In Revolutionary Wealth, the Tofflers predict a complete transformation of how we perceive wealth, disposable time and income. The more we search, the more information we are exposed to.

It may translate into knowledge, or it may not. (and from there, to distilled knowledge and when transferable, becomes wisdom).

As we end this decade, many things at the start now seem less important (upgrading your computer to Vista, for instance, or try to merge cable and telephone companies together).

We have a sensible man in charge. We hope in crisis there is opportunity e.g. retrofit buildings and highways,

recalibrate the work force (health and IT focus), rebuild confidence and pride at the national and international level.

It’s used to very cool to be an American at home or abroad. Now, young people want to go East, where it’s “emerging”.

Somewhere along the line, we have lost our sizzle. And what remains is the steak, albeit good, but needs reheat.

I would love to carry my US passport with pride once again in the coming decade.

From the standpoint of history, we might have had just a bad decade. It gives me all the more reason to survive it to see better days ahead of us, if not really soon.

I hope to see many of you at the celebration, old and new friends whom I am eager to meet and cherish.