I wonder what it was like to be around when the automobile first really hit it big. Suddenly, there was a whole new world opened up for people, all based on this machine.
Infrastructure had to be built to use them on, and rules of use and enforcement of those rules had to be established. Automobile travel made lives easier and shortened distances between people. It also helped contribute to accidents, death and crime.
And through the years, businesses have been born or proliferated all because of cars. Highway construction, tires, insurance, repair, parts and accessories, security, sales, inspection, leasing, renting, radio stations, advertising, stereo equipment, oil and gas, restoration, towing, police and emergency services, wrecking and junk yards … I am sure I am missing more than a few.
And wireless spent its modern infancy in the car too.
Today cars are a part of most people’s daily lives, and I am sure that most drivers would say they can’t and wouldn’t do without their wheels.
People need their mobility.
I think that is the level of necessity the wireless industry hopes for itself. We are getting there, and no doubt there are some people who would give up drinking water if they could just keep their cellular phone, but the Internet seems to be at that level already.
It is everywhere, and every day it is more than it was before, and business is smiling. Suddenly there is this whole new world available to us all because of this “machine.” New companies, new careers, new opportunities, new possibilities, new challenges, new problems, new technologies, new stock speculations, new crimes … It is moving so rapidly you can hardly get your arms around it.
I can’t imagine life without my car, and I guess I can’t imagine life today, in the business world anyway, without the Internet. I think our ISP being down for an hour would be a bigger deal around the office than having the water shut off for the day. The Internet has simply become a necessity to operate and compete in today’s business world.
People thrive on communications … or should I say information.
Each day the lines between the Internet and the wireless world become more and more blurred. Wireless is where the communication and the mobility come together.
Later this month the dotcom world will make a big splash at the U.S. wireless industry’s largest trade show and those lines will blur a little further.
I wonder where on earth we will be and what history will say about it all a hundred years from now.
