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(image from the cover of The Economist magazine)
Like most Americans, I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing and the rest of the day on 9-11-01. This year we observe the 10th anniversary of that tragic day when thousands of Americans lost their lives. I first wanted to recognize those who lost their lives that day and those since figting in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
Now, this is a communication blog, so what does this have to do with communication?
I was going to talk about how the conversations changed regarding terrorism, wars and United States intervening.
However, after reading this post by Brett Duncan at Marketing in Progress it really changed my thoughts.
Brett brings up the question of what would happen if the 9/11 attacks were attempted today. I think its an amazing question when you consider how much technology has changed. Cell phones, videos, texting and twitter are instantly posted on-line in live time.
Would it have helpd alert people? Would it have done anything?
I'm not sure. I just think it is an amazing question to ask. Brett agrees with me, stating:
I marvel at just how much more we would know because of these commonplace technologies that weren’t even available 10 years ago. I wonder how that day would have changed had they been available. I dare even wonder if that day would have even happened the way that it did.
Technology has changed so much in the way we communicate over the past ten years. While I've talked about the good and the bad that comes with it, I think most of us don't sit back and reflect on those changes and what it means for us as a species, as a nation and as invidivuals.
Its got me thinking about history and technology and how it has affected us, how it will in the future and the what ifs of the past. It's something that I probably will continue to look at because I think it is an excellent topic of discussion.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota is still a fairly small town. The population is about 156,000 with the surrounding metro area of about 235,000. While this is easily the largest city in South Dakota (with a population of around 800,000) it is still small compared to a lot of other cities.
There are clearly advantages to Sioux Falls still being a small town. The drive to work is usually quite short, there is not a lot of traffic, crime is very low and our educational system is top notch.
However, one of the down sides is that it takes a while for things to catch on here. One of those is co-working spaces.
As wikipedia tells us, "Coworking is a style of work which involves a shared working environment, sometimes an office, yet independent activity. Unlike in a typical office environment, those coworking are usually not employed by the same organization."
The most known (at least to me) is Regus. Regus offers themselves as the largest network of offices for people to work out of - and they advertise a lot on ESPN Radio, which is why I know them.
Citizen Space is another co-working space that is growing and expanding into different cities.
With this in mind, Josh Aberson of Green Acre Real Estate decided to set up Meso in Sioux Falls. Meso (short for Mesopotamia) is up and running and is offering to Sioux Falls the co-working experience that probably would not have reached us for a few more years without his doing.
I am excited about it because that is where I am now working out of. Communication is a big thing for me (which should be obvious to all of you) and the idea that I could work around other people from a variety of different industries was too much to miss out on. We'll be able to bounce ideas off of each other, give each other some ideas and offer a sometimes much needed different perspective since we come from different worlds.
I'm excited about the new space and hopefully it sets a new trend for Sioux Falls - that we don't have to wait forever for things to come our way. Sometimes we just have to bring it here ourselves!
Finally, I will say that this hopefully means that I will be posting more blog posts as well as starting some video posts! It's going to be a great fall and winter (as much as most of us don't want it to get here), so stay tuned!