Our minds will crisscross the world in infinite variety

Connecting in the new virtual world of Second Life

Joining the new age of mass connection

The telephone is a nearly extinct species in our new age of communication. It is now a residual component of a complex of functions to which we get ourselves connected. The education of us, slaves of new toys of communication, is abysmal. I-Pods and I-Phones are thrown at us like meat is thrown to the lions of the Coliseum. Those who run fast will most enjoy it.

I will absolutely buy an I-Phone, but I have not yet decided when. First, the price was prohibitive. Now there is a second version, better and much cheaper. So I decided to have a closer look at the I-Phone. Then someone said: the touch screen system is hopeless if you need to dial phone numbers.

I hesitate. It is inevitable that I take a closer look at the options, before making a move. In doing so I need to establish more precisely what needs I have, too.

I have concluded that over the past years my needs have evolved.



I need to increase my internet mobility. I do not want any third party dependence where it concerns my access to the internet, anytime and anywhere;

I also want to fully personalize – and centralize - my telephone access (by having just one telephone number);

I need a far greater mobile document retrieval or file storage facility than I have now. Each time I want to use or share a document I need to mail it to my various mail-accounts;

It makes sense to centralize my incoming and outgoing e-mail but also better organize and - partly - archive it.

But otherwise it is about communication, at least this is the case in my own life. Some 70 – 80 % of my present social life is conducted or supported by the internet (MSN, e-mail) and mobile telecommunication.



I want to be connected anytime and everywhere. It should be simple – i.e. easy to access and to handle – and it should be reliable. Also, I want to read, write and publish regardless of my location.

I believe we can all make such or similar assessment of our needs. This is particularly relevant at a time when new devices and new functions are being marketed in rapid succession. Indeed, if we do not wish to simply become docile consumers and allow our entire lives to become almost entirely directed by software programmers and telecommunication companies, then we should become pro-active users, on top of our own business and lifestyle. We should co-create the industry that serves us and not let it dominate us.

Ultimately every individual will become permanently connected. We may from time to time switch off, for instance when we sleep or when we are in a theatre or private party. Otherwise people will become a kind of internet or telecommunication device of their own, with many functions imbedded in our cloths or in just one slick rectangular device that does it all for us with a mere touch or sound of our voice (well, something like the I-Phone).

We will create our own permanent personal connection with the rest of the world and communicate, share, create and publish whatever we wish to share with others at smaller and larger scales.

I believe that this far from a prophetic view, for I do not describe anything impossible today. Most likely I am just re-iterating what is already in the instructions of existing devices, such as the I-Phone or other mobile communication facilities.



But the challenge is to turn those possibilities into their effective use. Across the board our world’s available technology far exceeds the grasp of it among the large majority of its consumers.

Our technology has become as incomprehensible for the average person as are the mechanisms of nature that sustain the cycle of life. Human technology is the third evolution of life itself [1].

If we wish to be connected as a human being, or as a business man, to the networks world wide of other human beings and business men, we should do so with a great clarity of mind as to what it is that we take out of it and perhaps most of all: what we want to put into it. We should create the proper identity (or even: identities) to maximize the benefits of being connected.

I am always there, from wherever you are, unless I am asleep.


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[1] ) The first evolution is of all physical nature and its laws. The second is the mechanism of life as we know it on Earth (Carbohydrate based self-replicating process).