Gump And The Age Of Acceleration

There is a Russian proverb that says, "The nail that sticks up the highest gets hit first."  The defining characteristic of my character is that I'm never the nail that sticks up highest.  That in and of itself is most unextraordinary; what gets interesting is when you pair it with the fact that my job finds me floating like a feather from place to place like Forrest Gump so much that it makes me privy to lots of fantastic people.  (Playing with Orkut this weekend reminded me of this even more, as I realized a bunch of great folks I once TA'd for at Caltech are now making Google an even better place.  And that's coming from me, the World's-Biggest-Google-Fan-Who's-Never-Been-Inside-The Googleplex.)

Caution: name dropping paragraph ahead!

Reflecting over the last few weeks, for example, I went to a geek dinner organized by Jeremy Zawodny (which Joyce immediately noticed, I can't go anywhere without someone noticing! :) where I got to see several people I haven't seen for years (Tim Bray, Paul Hoffman, Dave Orchard), meet someone I previously only knew virtually (Bill Humphries), make some new friends (Johannes Ernst, Bill Lazar, Adam Kalsey, and Jeremy himself), meet some friends from Think.Org (Ben Sittler, Mark Lentczner), and of course see Rohit again (fresh from completing his PhD). A few days later I went out drinking with Jonathan Abrams and Rohit.  Then I missed a housewarming party by Erin Turner and Yael Shacham because I wasn't paying attention and thought it was the following week. Last week Dr. Ernie stayed over and I went to Happy Hour with Jeffrey McManus (now featuring vastly lower standards) where I got to see Joyce Park and Andrew Evans, and meet Patrick Breitenbach.  And then I set up a coffee meeting with Vinod Valloppillil.  And on Friday I made a connection through Friendster with a friend I haven't talked with in 20+ years who is one of the most intelligent people I've ever met.

Makes me think about the bigger picture: the world we grew up in didn't have such effortless facilities for any two people in the world to connect, whereas the world we live in keeps adding the technologies that not just facilitate but vastly accelerate the interconnection of relationships and knowledge.  Fast forward a generation or two, and imagine the possibilities.  Our grandchildren will live in a superconnected world, and that in turn will make such incredible advances for humanity that it's easy to get excited about what the future brings.

Coda: today a friend forwarded to my wife a post about Reality Bites on FoRK because he knew my wife really likes that movie (one of her favorites, along with Singles, The Sure Thing, and When Harry Met Sally).  Well it just so turns out that the author of the post was me, written seven years ago to a friend I haven't seen in probably seven years and Cc'd to FoRK, that I just plain don't remember writing.  And yet, a discussion between today's forwarding friend and my wife can now pick up from where that discussion left off seven years ago.  That hints at the beginning of the superconnected world in which we're going to live -- although presumably the subjects that will benefit most from this are science, technology, philosophy, and the social sciences (and not just Reality Bites discussions, as in this case :).  The future is now, only faster and more so.

Post-coda: today Ross Mayfield sent me an invitation to be his fellow Orkutian.  I feel really honored.  Thanks, Ross.  Also, this week I met and LinkedIn with Charles Caldwell, Silvano Maffeis, Augusto Paes de Barros, and Josia Kersen, all of whom live on other continents (Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, and the Middle East, respectively), and all of whom I have only met virtually.  I probably never would have met them at all had we not been living in the dawn of the Age Of Acceleration.

Comments

[Udhay Shankar N]

Adam, you might enjoy this: http://www.mrlizard.com/permaculture.html --udhay

[Adam]

Thanks Udhay, Mr. Wizard is right on. :)