Say Goodbye to 3-G

We have moved beyond “You’ve got mail”.

Now 3-G I-phone will be just another shelved version for late adopters.

The only consumer want-to-have in the horizon is 3D-TV perhaps as soon as the upcoming Super Bowl season.

I thought about 3-D, 3-G and 3M this morning, because I need a Post-It note for grocery shopping.

The stickiness of Post-it is an enduring testimony of 3M genius.

Our brain learns to “defragment” when we go to sleep, and it selectively stores only in categories: 3M Post-it, Apple’s I-phone,

Sony Walkman etc….The category killers.

When it comes to selecting products, we act out our discriminating taste (influenced by others, of course e.g. Betamax first, but then we all went VHS):

Samsung vs Sony, Boeing vs (Air) Bus etc…

It’s not good enough to be number 3 these days as more categories are vying for our compressed mental shelf space.

It’s like a supermarket in our head: frontal space is for SMS, email, headline news, Middle shelves are for food,clothing and shelters and lastly, chores.

Gone were the days of sitting at the rocking chair and gazing toward the sunset.

Select your sunset avatar, your e-signature etc…

There is a whole new lexicon for the 21st century (Newton Telecom and IT dictionary keeps expanding with updates) and new ways to relate to each other.

And thanks to Facebook, we now learn how to “friend” some stranger with the intimacy our spouse couldn’t even relate to a decade ago.

It’s ironic that the machine (and accompanied algorithm) humanizes us, by recommending or reconnecting friends, with a face.

I appreciate the music and photo sharing on Facebook by friends from Paris, Vietnam, California etc…

I “friend” with both the Left and the Right, Red and Blue, Black and White (and my favorite song is The Whiter Shade of Gray, just a FYI, to make the point that we share so much on-line).

Someday, I hope we can return the favor, by humanizing the machine to which (or whom) we owe so much. The Network is the Machine, and we with our fingers and eyes glued to it (IT) are its extension, spokes and hubs. It’s OK as long as we are connected, at faster-than-dial-up speed, on 4-G.