We Really Do

I hung out with a couple of friends last night and we spent a fair amount of time finding interesting and obscure music tracks and videos and playing them for each other. We carry the collective musical creation of all of humankind in our pocket and any of it can be recalled and performed at any time.

This week, I started work on a new project.

I was able to access all the tools and documentation that I needed to learn a new computer language. I was able to become proficient with the new computer language and publish code for part of my new project for the world to see and use.

I found an Internet domain that I wanted for my new project, found the owner, negotiated the purchase, and transferred the money to him, all in the course of 2 hours. I also registered some associated domains and within minutes, those domains were active, pointing to the site's servers.

I needed some design help, so I posted a listing for my needs, then went out to lunch. By the time I got back from lunch, there were 20+ offers. I interviewed a couple of candidates and chose one. The next morning, the contractor produced 8 logo ideas and we worked on refining the logo and working on some initial CSS.

I needed a machine to run the service on the public Internet. Within 10 minutes, I had a machine provisioned and running and a database server running in the background.

I used tools to communicate via voice, text, and video with the various parties I worked with. I shared code... both publicly and privately with collaborators. I published a whole service over a few days for a few hundred dollars and some of my time.

It is an amazing world... one where the knowledge and art of the entire world is at our fingertips. We live in a world where we can find people with excellent skills and engage with them in business transactions. We can access almost limitless computing and communications tools. I'm feeling a sense of total awe this morning.

Oh... and let's not forget that I'm publishing my thoughts for anyone in the world to see and notifying a few thousand people (via Twitter) of the availability of the information... and if people find it interesting, they will share with others.