What’s Time?
One thing I have begun to learn about my generation over the last couple of years, is that we have a vastly different view on relationships, romantic, work, life, or otherwise. I think this comes, most obviously, from our use of communication technology to stay in touch with each other. But, at a more abstract level, we don’t look at time, or geographical distance as an inhibitor for close personal relationships.
Case in point, an email string from a co-worker and friend this weekend went something like this:
Friend: Greetings from Beijing, Dave. Thanks for taking care of that so quickly!
Me: No problem! What are you doing in Beijing? (I had just seen her in a meeting like two days before)
Friend: Vacation - weekend trip from Tokyo where I am visiting my boyfriend who is here for the summer. I’ll be back on Monday. (Clarification: Meaning, she went on “vacation” from Tokyo, where she was already visiting her boyfriend who is there for the summer. And, is going to be back in California on Monday)
It’s a different world for our generation. Again, we see things less in units of time and geographical distance, and more in simply what it takes to “be” there with that person. Maybe online, maybe a simple flight to somewhere (the coasts, maybe Europe, or even Beijing), maybe on the phone. Time is irrelevant in a way. Relationships aren’t confined to geographic space, and more to the strongest connections created between people. For our parents, their world was confined (most of the time) to their hometown. Our generation is seemingly more and more, only confined to the world.
Last week, I was simultaneously talking to two co-workers whom I regularly collaborate with. One was in China, the other in Sweden. To me, I wouldn’t have known the better. Save, the one in Sweden informing me that he jaunted over there for the week. The other, I knew, was in Beijing. He helped me upgrade to first class for a flight I was taking the next morning (because he had domestic frequent flyer miles he wasn’t using due to his move to Beijing). Sweden friend helped me on a project I was working on with some information and quick brainstorming. All via instant messaging. What time it was didn’t matter, nor did the geographical space or location that each of us was in.
My thoughts on all of this are still becoming clear, with more and more conversations about it every day. What does this mean for the future of communication and collaboration technologies? Job choices? Living choices? Will we live anywhere, work anywhere, be with who we want to be with, no matter where they are? Will technology enable this? Or, inhibit it?
What a cool time to be part of it all 
Happy Sunday!
Written from The Grove - San Francisco, California
June 18th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I’ve definitely experienced some similar things thanks to technology. Years ago there would be no way for me to find out, apply and then obtain a job at my university in the states while spending so much time in Germany. Even though I’ve spent a year away from it all, I have found that keeping in touch, and even staying involved on the campus at home are really not too difficult. Thanks to VoIP, instant messaging, Facebook, and blogs and such, it’s been no problem to have some form of contact with friends, family, and the University in the states. I’ve even been able to conduct a bit of business when necessary.
I have realized, on account of this, that I am more willing to move back to Germany, or elsewhere for a prolonged period of time, because I know I can still be in contact with people close to me. I think it may mean that we see more international relationships come to form.
The one thing that I do question in the scheme of it all is language. I know in Germany, English already has a firm grip influencing the culture, advertising, and the Language. With international borders becoming more open, more people traveling and a need to communicate with one another effectively, English is being used even more world-wide. What does that mean for other languages, will we see them dwindle out? or change drastically?
Great topic, I just had to put my two cents in. It’s stuff I’ve thought about as well.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Yeah I agree with Sister (#2). After living in Europe for 2.5 years and making friends all over the world, I have realized how odd it is that I can sit in Montana working and still talk to my friend in Istanbul, Turkey. Not ever realizing that he is halfway across the ocean and that at the point we met eachother we were in opposite places (I Europe, he USA). Knowing that Globalization is common for our genneration, just makes me smile.
June 20th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Dave,
While I was in China a few weeks ago I knew a friend of mine was going to be in Shanghai around the same time. He was on a long trip through asia and had no phone. I had no phone. Niether of us new eachother’s email adresses. We both had myspace though. So I “myspaced” him and told him where I was at. The next day I got a new message from him with his hotel phone and room number. It turns out his hotel was less than a mile away. To make a long-story short we got connected via local phone calls and he was with more people I knew from San Jose. We all went out and had a blast getting crazy on the streets of Shanghai.
Moral of the story…I could not believe Myspace was my answer to communicating with a friend who I know in SJ while we were both in China.
The real moral of the story… Go to Shanghai, it is AMAZING.
June 30th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
[...] Then, later that week, JP wrote this blog after he took a look at one of my earlier posts talking about how to manage our generation (subsequently after Sean had taken a look at this one). And, he is right on the money. The world is evolving so rapidly through technology and the social connections it creates, that many firms and managers can’t keep up. Our generation connects, communicates, and moves about at ridiculously fast speeds. [...]