I guess the world is changing Internet Marketing for Internet Retail : The Preston Blog

I guess the world is changing

Filed under: personal |

When I was little (and I mean little), I liked to roller skate. Every year we would have a skating party for school so I would practice at home in my driveway so I didn’t make a fool of myself. As I got older roller skating stopped being cool for a guy, but there was a loophole: rollerblades. The only real difference between roller skates and rollerblades is that the wheels are in a straight line with rollerblades rather than having two in front and two in the back. We played street hockey on our rollerblades and though I don’t rollerblade on a regular basis, I enjoy rollerblading to this day.

Rollerblades were an evolution of the normal rollerskate. I realized, however, how much the world had changed a few weeks ago when my wife’s family was in town for a week. Jen and I took her little sister, Ashley, out to the Jordan River Bike Trail. My wife and I rode our mountain bikes while Ashley wore rollerblades. On our way back, Ashley said that she had recently tried the rollerblades with two wheels up front and two in the back. It took me a while to realize that she was talking about regular skates.

Being only 26 years old I don’t typically feel that old, but I have realized that a lot of the information that I take for granted, like the skate being the predecessor to the rollerblade, is not being passed on to the next generation. I doubt many young people have actually listened to a record player (I hardly remember them myself) and tapes seem just as antiquated these days. Things that I saw as the new thing fifteen years ago, such as rollerblades, have become the standard while outdated technology, such as the rollerskate, have been pushed aside.

So all of this got me thinking - in ten years the iPod Nano (which was announced last week) will seem hopelessly out of date and primitive. It is weird to think that some of the most cutting edge devices today will soon be replaced by faster, smaller technologies. It’s a good argument for investing in the things that really matter - strengthening my relationship with my wife, building a family, etc. It is also exciting from a business perspective because by nature of the evolution of technology opportunities will always exist in this world. We just can’t be content with the progress we have made - we will always progress.

3:38 pm