Techno Blues

Today at work we had a mandatory all day long "retreat," which was really just a strategic planning meeting in a flimsy disguise. The lab isn't bad as far as that sort of thing goes, but I really hate that kind of stuff. I'll never be a manger, at least not where I work now, because I can't say "strategize" with a straight face.

There's one guy on my team who's a brilliant programmer. He's in his late 20's, extremely energetic and loud, and a complete and total techno geek. Several of us were sitting around a table waiting for the festivities to begin and he starts showing us a game called Four Square on his iPhone that, apparently, takes either Facebook or Twitter (I can't remember which) to a new level. You "sign in" on your iPhone at various places you visit. The more you visit, the more you "own" that place. Eventually, and I can't believe I'm even wasting blog space on this, you become - and I'm not kidding - the "mayor" of the place you visit frequently. For example, say you go to your favorite Starbucks location five days a week and you "sign in" every time you go. The game logs your location and your friends see how often you visit this place. Eventually you become, in Four Square world, the "mayor" of that Starbucks. You build this entirely fictional world online based loosely on things in real life. And you share it with your 2,384 "friends" on Facebook.

Then he turned to me and he said, "Oh and there's this one that you'll like totally love..." He went on to describe how you can be a virtual farmer, raising virtual sheep which you virtually slaughter and virtually sell to all of your virtual friends.

I replied, "Why the hell would I love that? I like real farms. I don't need an iPhone and Facebook to fantasize about having a ranch."

Somewhat dejected, he immediately dove back into his virtual world via the iPhone. Later he was giving a presentation, and had an app for his iPhone that lets him control his Keynote presentation (Apple's answer to Power Point) remotely. The boss' boss happened to catch on to what he was doing and I heard him mutter, "I need more techie geeks like him."

[Sigh.]

Sad as it is, being completely absorbed by computers and all things virtual seems to be not just fashionable, but desirable. In fact, it was suggested more than once in our meetings today that we use our Facebook and Twitter accounts to help us network with each other. For those of us that don't partake in that, well, I guess it's adapt or perish.

So am I just old before my time? Am I just being a rebel? Am I just a stick in the mud? Have I become my father? I don't have a Facebook account and I'm only slightly aware of this thing called Twitter. But for everyone at work under 40, except for me as far as I can tell, Facebook and Twitter are an integral part of their lives - not just socially but for doing actual work. Sometimes I feel that gap widening between me and them. The older people react to Facebook pretty much like I do, with an eye roll and an upturned nose.

Considering the above, I'm thinking about trying out Facebook and Twitter, though I feel dirty for even typing that. I may be forced to soon anyway. We've already started our own Wiki. It's just like Wikipedia, but for our center to share projects, data and information. From what I know about them, I can see there could be a benefit to using them. I mean if I were introduced to email today would I treat it the same way? Would I dismiss it as a wasteful, new-fangled techno-fad? Sure it can be abused, but that doesn't mean it isn't a useful tool. I think about the crotchety old men I used to work with at my last job in Texas. They barely knew how to use the internet, and that's no joke. They refused to keep up with the technology, and as a result they all became obsolete office accessories.

God help me if I ever get excited about being a virtual farmer.