The theme of this month’s issue is happiness. From happiness we can go to joy, and even fulfillment. How does Digital Strategy come into play? Let’s take a look.
We live in a time when information abounds, a moment away courtesy of the ability to open a phone or tablet and look something up at a moment’s notice. With voice commands you can even do this while driving. You can also ask Amazon Echo or Alexa or Google Home to look something up while you go about your business at home. But is that what makes for happiness and joy, or is it just satisfaction? And when a generation is accustomed to these tools, will it become purely expectation, and thus, nothing special at all?
Digital tools, ubiquitous connectivity, a plethora of devices, what seems like an app or a tool for everything, make it seem as though there is Digital Strategy for life itself. So how, we ask, does that bring about happiness, joy, fulfillment?
With digital, actually, It has been an evolutionary process. Early on in computing there was email and sharing of files. The scientists who developed the Internet took tremendous joy in the ability to exchange electronic messaging (now we call that email) and documents (now we call that file sharing or attaching documents). It was new, revolutionary, and eliminated distance and the high costs of telephone calls or postage to communications.
The early commercial days of email, chatrooms and forums and groups took place on CompuServe. It began in1969, and brought together people far and wide. BOFs, “Birds of a Feather” groups formed. Suddenly the Internet, via CompuServe, enabled men, women, and children from all corners of the globe to create groups and enjoy online discussion or, more so, forums in which messages were posted. Threads of discussion followed, and the birth of asynchronous online communication occurred. Friendships were made. The very earliest online dating services emerged via CompuServe. A teenager working as a CompuServe SysOp (Systems Operator) back in the early 1970s went on to become a lawyer specializing in Intellectual Property, a noted author, and the head of a department at Harvard Law. CompuServe brought not only digital joy, it created opportunity and paved the way for digital growth and goodness.
It might be said that CompuServe, and its imitator and earliest competitor, Protégé, were the earliest online social networks. Early on in these services it became apparent that “the long tail” found a place to gather. There are many descriptions and definitions of the long tail. For our purposes, we will use it to symbolize the gathering of disparate people with a common interest, be that geographic or by age or other peculiarities. They can be a teenager in Botswana, a senior citizen in Australia, a middle aged man or woman in Hawaii, a cop in Chicago, a rap musician in Little Rock, a schoolteacher in Ottawa, a long distance runner in Jakarta. What they had in common was a common interest. Threaded discussion kept them in a CompuServe Forum, and discussion would abound. They might never see each other, or they might share photos or graphic images of the subject of common interest.
I went on Facebook, Twitter, and email, to ask friends, colleagues, clients and my social and professional networks to tell me what brought them happiness or joy, associated with the digital world, or connectivity, being online, or their devices. The results were very interesting. Here’s a sampling.
An accomplished and acclaimed programmer (you probably take advantage of software he’s written. Every month, maybe every week, or every day) had this to say:
From New York City
Digital Strategy for Happiness
by Dean Landsman