Investment Emails

[Jack Miller]

Having come to understand the knowledge age paradigm shift that is underway a little better, I have moved my posting of investment information to Facebook.  If you want to receive my postings, you have several choices; you can read them on Facebook at your leisure, you can subscribe to them on Facebook so that each time one is sent you get an email notification or you can subscribe with an RSS Feed in order to include the postings on a home page or a reader, such as iGoogle or the Google Reader.  

Courtney and Jonathan are fans of the Google Reader.  They subscribe to blogs, notes and websites and let them accumulate on their Google Reader page.  On that page a summary list tells them how many articles they have not read from each source.  They can quickly scan the headlines and mark items as read if they do not want to read them at this time.  If they read something they really like, they are apt to click the share button which adds it to the reading list of friends and family members who have agreed to share with them.  Readers are a neat way to find the "good stuff".  For example, Jonathan shares articles enjoyable articles about the latest developments in regard to mini-computers and the many hand held computer-phone gadgets that are being designed.  

Of course, I am not the only one to realize that a communications shift of tectonic plate proportion is underway.  Huge investments are being made by media, software, hardware and internet companies to get a seat at the table.  Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Adobe, Sony, Google, Apple, Nokia, Intel and many other companies have shifted their strategies toward becoming a more important part of the Cloud Computing phenomenon.  The entire Internet is growing at 20% annual compounded rates and  "virtual worlds" are growing even faster!  

In the near future,  most people will spend the better part of their day in the virtual world.  Their TV programs, music, movies, work, church and contact with friends and family will frequently be filtered through their virtual world.  People will go from a face to face meeting with their boss to a face to face meeting with a vendor with the click of a button.  A second later, they will visit with their child at school or at home.  

The fear many folk have is that this new world will lead to a sterile, non personal environment.  The reality is that the efficiency of the virtual world adds to ones ability to make personal contact with others.  We are still going to eat with friends and family and we will still belong to things such as the church softball team.  We will simply know the members better.  The probability that we know the names of the wife and children of our boss or of the far away vendor will increase.  Our relationships will be strengthened.  The greatest commandment, to love God and our neighbor, requires us to build relationships.  I hope you will all join me at Facebook, which is one of the several fast growing virtual worlds.

Jack 

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in his good time he will honor you.  Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you.  I Peter 5:6-7