The Digital Boy and Girl Scouts

[fgoodwin 23]

The Digital Boy and Girl Scouts

 

http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=14427_0_14_0_C

 

What does it mean to "be prepared" in today's age of pervasive technology? Pip Coburn wonders if today's kids will be playing Ender's Game tomorrow.

 

Pip Coburn [Coburn Ventures] | POSTED: 03.23.06 @08:00

 

Last Friday morning I was a guest at the hip and Zen-like Clay gym near Union Square in Manhattan for an 8:30 am yoga class with my instructor Kristin. I came close to doing something really stupid, or at least, something with a potentially traumatic result.

 

Let's see if I can explain it. I wanted to put my street clothes in a locker, but the locker was this new-age combo lock thingamajiggy I had no idea how to activatewasn't intuitive, at least to me. So I returned to the receptionist and thought I heard her say...

 

"Pick any locker, type in a combo and hit the 'key' symbol to open it up, and when you close it use the same combo with the same 'key' symbol." In fact, that might be what she said....

 

What happened is I picked a locker, typed in a combo plus the "key" symbol and nothing happened. Wouldn't open. So I tried another locker. Nothing. So I tried another locker. Nothing. And....

 

I guess Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity, but I just figured I was picking locked lockers and needed to keep picking a new oneuntil eventually someone said "Hey, I think you are locking all the lockers...."

 

Seems I was supposed to find an open locker, put my stuff in, and then close it. There was no need to type in a code prior to trying to open it.... What would have happened if the guy hadn't stopped me? Other than my being proven insane somewhere along the line, they might have had all their lockers set to my code with me back in midtown and gone for the weekend. Well....

 

Way back whenever, my oldest brother Ted12 years older than mewas a Boy Scout of America, and my father Red was a troop leader, and my sister Diane was a Girl Scout of America, and my mother Birdie was a troop leader. All of these folks were seriously into this stuff. Practicing making fires by rubbing sticks together and all....

 

By the time my older brother Drewsix years my seniorcame along, he narrowly escaped the Boy Scouts. And I never came closeperhaps to the dismay, disillusionment and quiet suffering of my dad.

 

With three eight-year-olds of my own todayBailey, Tucker, and EamonI might just now be able to imagine my parents' desire for their kids to "be prepared," and how the Scouts fit into the Cold War period of the 1960s as much as Sean Connery did as 007. I can see how starting firescontrolled firesin the woods might be great fun for kids and provide a "feel-good" sense for parents.

 

Today, "being prepared" and starting fires with sticks in the woods don't seem to really go together. May still be fun and may still be lots of learning to be had and lots of cookies to sell, but "being prepared"? "Prepared" for what?

 

We might just need a new scout program: The Digital Scouts of the Planet.

 

So last week I had the following problems:

 

I nearly demolished the entire lock system at the Clay gym

I nearly accidentally erased this entire piece before sending it to my editor Nina

My XM satellite radio went on the fritz prior to our family journey to Niagara Falls

My iPod quit wanting to demonstrate its ability to play videos

My BlackBerry went on the fritzit was unwilling to transfer at "EDGE" speed, which was my entire reason to upgrade to the new 8700....

 

So Julian Underwood at our IT provider Lighthouse said, "Take the battery out of the BlackBerry for 60 seconds and then pop it back in. Seems to help."

 

This is one little IT tip that seemingly every BlackBerry user knows, is annoyed by for its kludginess, and yet thankful when it workswhich in this case it didn't. There are a gazillion of these little tips that allow one person to sail thru modern life while another sits listening to Barry Manilow's Can't Smile Without You with a pile of dis-used electronics strewn about the various corners of their life.

 

I got to thinking about how ill-prepared I really am for existing in society today. I thought that I am not prepared for modern Digital Life. Nor is my Eagle Scout brother Tedthe one who may or may not still remember how to successfully start a fire. I suspect not.

 

"Be prepared" is still important, even if the "be prepared" offered by the Boy Scouts isn't as immediately relevant as it once was.

 

Maybe we could use a new modern-age Digital Scouts of the Planet so that I can use all the digital stuff I have crammed into my life without help desks or manuals or yet another taunting remote control.

 

There might not be a Cold War anymore to prepare for, but there is plenty to be prepared for in this Digital Age and most of useven the most techie among usare confused.

 

I thought today of Ender's Game, the Sci-Fi classic by Orson Scott Card that my friend John Granholm turned me on to. In Ender's Game, a young boy age eight or nine or somethingnamed Enderquickly comes into command of the entire planet's armed forces. The elders recognize all the advantages that young children have in their thinking to make them the most effective generals.

 

The Digital Scouts will be 3585 years old, while the teachers will be the eight- or nine- or something-year-olds....

 

This is the Digital World and I am not a Native. I am in little position to "prepare" my eight-year-olds, but rather they will soon teach meI hope.

 

I'm not sure yet how to effectively organize the Digital Scouts of the Planet, and I am probably too old even for that task, but I do know that if we want to be prepared, we gotta stop rubbing sticks together and start thinking about fixing our BlackBerrys on the fly.

 

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Pip Coburn studies change for a living. June 2006 will see Penguin's publication of The Change Functionread the book to learn more about why certain technologies are adopted while others crash and burn. His company, Coburn Ventures, provides advisory services and puts its knowledge about "change" to work in the realm of technology, telecom, and media investing. At www.coburnventures.com, you may subscribe to Pip's Waypoints thought piece, the successor to The Weekly Global Tech Journey that Pip's group generated at UBS.