the IBM Selectric – state of the art circa 1961 and 1971
How many blogs are out there now-a-days? Who knows? The transformation in communications modes, methodologies and their technologies in my lifetime is mind-boggling. For me, who remembers watching the funeral of JFK on a small portable tv with rabbit ears in my parents’ bedroom and had to submit card decks in college to write a program, life has changed a lot.
I was watching a rerun of “All the President’s Men” the other day and gazing upon the typewriters used by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Gosh, I remember when the secretaries on our floor during the early 80s were freaking out because their IBM Selectrics were taken away and replaced by computers. A couple of them resigned – they were so traumatized by having to learn to navigate the new technology! But somehow, we have all come along with the new trends. Nowadays, toddlers get to play with iPads and can do more than me in no time! More than anything, these “toys” play to the instinctive in the youngest of minds.
We used to speak on our landlines. We used to write manuscripts and memos longhand. We used to have to WAIT till someone answered the phone or showed up in person to communicate with them. Soon, we left messages on answering machines. Then came email. Then texting. Then Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest, Tumblr, Snapchat and the list goes on. I literally can not remember the last time one of my kids used a landline telephone. Or me too often, either. When was the last time you picked up a pencil to write a note to someone? Or,set an alarm on a clock (not your phone)? Picked up a camera other than your iPhone? How many business trips have not been scheduled due to conference calls? How many presentations have you prepared via PowerPoint vs. the way I used to in my old corporate job – print out the script, mark the places for the slides and send my stuff to the AV Dept?…… Yikes, I am quite the dinosaur. I’m guessing my kids don’t acknowledge most of the ways we did things just back when they were born.
I read an interesting article a week or so ago from MIT about the impact of technology on the overall trend in jobs. Not such a pretty picture. I can’t seem to find anything that nets out the added jobs from the lost jobs. Granted, this isn’t something that’s very easy to quantify accurately. Some jobs have been lost through other efficiencies. Many though have been lost because they can be done via computer or other emerging technologies. Perhaps most importantly though, these emerging jobs are both the cause and result of our society “moving forward”. Whether or not you agree that these events are all/partly good things for “us”, the momentum continues and the choice is to adapt or not.
I have thought about this a lot over the past several years. It would seem though,that as we all strive to keep up with the everyday evolutions of our existing technologies and work to acclimate to the new ones, do we realize how great of a revolution we are in the midst of?
For someone like me, who likes to write, research and publish, I have been the beneficiary of quite a lot of technology. I am well aware of this every day. For, if it weren’t for my laptop, iPhone, iPad, some photo software and Google, I’d be sitting in the library, (the bricks and mortar one) and be miles behind in what I am able to accomplish every day. In fact, I’d probably give up early and often as I don’t have anywhere near the patience to do this any other way nowadays.
For me, the research capabilities are probably the most beneficial. As I go through my days, thinking about food, flowers and farms, among other things, I can go online and find out just about anything in a minute or two. I can also get lost in the floods of information available. But, that’s another story.
But, perhaps most notably, for me, is the “library” of existing and emerging blogs available these days, where I can read up on what other people with similar interests are thinking about, working on or where they are going and how they feel. This is where a connection is made that I would never otherwise have with these people.
This is what I consider to be the Blog-US-phere, not the Blogosphere. Blog-US, meaning – an entirely “new” online medium for those who want to ponder, let their ideas flow out, try to construct salient and coherent arguments, and present. And, it’s a way to connect with other people, the world over, who you might never even hear about, let alone benefit from their ideas. For me, this has also had a way of reassuring me that there are other people “out there” who share similar passions, interests and pursuits. In short, blogs connect us in a way heretofore unknown. This is an “us”, a new sort of “us”, perhaps not a personal, face-to-face “us”, yet still valuable, because otherwise it would never be, and I would never know or know of you. I know that some people scoff at this, but I do not. I think that a blog is a great personal expression – where you can create your own little artwork, express some feelings and ideas and maybe a recipe or two or a flower or two……….
Sometimes I wonder, as we go through our days and years, whether we fully, or even partially digest what is happening in the world around us. While I’ve come to turning off the news a bit more lately as it’s so discouraging and frustrating, I am, at least generally, aware of the consumer-based technology which impacts my day to day life. And if, like an ant in the universe, I can step back and see how much things have and are changing in my own little lifetime, I can say, it really is quite astounding. It must be like going through the Industrial Revolution, I guess.
This revolution is not without its ticks, though. In the food writing and publishing industries specifically, this evolution has presented quite the conundrum. Where previously we had to buy or borrow a cookbook to get a favorite recipe or to look for one, now we can find it for free on the internet. There is quite the grey area now on intellectual property – as anything that’s on the internet is really up for grabs. I noticed the other day, for instance, when looking for a Cooks Illustrated recipe, where I would have had to renew my subscription service for them, about 3 other people had published the very same recipe for free. This had caused a great strain on the earning power of food/recipe writers. And, for someone like me who would like to get a “real” job writing, food styling or recipe developing, well that job pool has, shall we say, evaporated……….
Anyway, enough blog, blah, blahing. Here is a list of just a few sites and blogs that I enjoy – they are some of the most informative, inspiring, and compelling. I have enjoyed the most talented of photographers and some of the most endearing stories.
In particular, please do take a look at “Manger” Mimi Thorisson, whose book, A Kitchen in France comes out in October. Her blog, particularly this last post, is endearing, and, enchanting.
http://mimithorisson.com/2014/06/11/the-busy-bees-2/
(And, might I just add, that I don’t think I would be doing what she is doing just a couple of weeks after giving birth to my fifth child!)
Blogs to ponder:
Carolyne Roehm
Dorie Greenspan – Tuesdays with Dorie
Parla Food
On Rue Tatin
Belle Provence Travels
David Lebovitz
For Love of the Table
The Florentine
Michele Scicolone
Rosanna Constantino
Mary Ann Esposito
Food Lover’s Odyssey
Garlic and Sapphire
Vanilla Bean Blog
Manger
and this list: http://foodloversodyssey.typepad.com/my_weblog/links-to-other-blogs-on-food-travel-italy-france.html
http://www.italymagazine.com/featured-story/italy-blog-awards-2013-winners
The bottom line for me is that blogging technology provides a ready-made, well almost, avenue for creative expression. It’s kind of the next generation of “paper and pad’. Only we of the paper and pad generation had to find a way to take things to the next level. Now we have the “Publish” button.
Enjoy this beautiful day! And so, in spite of the ups and downs of the daily news – in all its old and and new forms, isn’t human ingenuity just the greatest?