• Keeping it simple.
• Never knowing exactly what you want to be when you grow up.
• Still asking yourself what you want to be when you grow up when you’re 54.
• Enjoying every moment without knowing what you want to be when you grow up.
• Always learning.
• Getting more out of asking questions than giving answers.

How has technology changed the way you think of yourself?

• Mostly technology has helped me to realize that there are very few ideas that are truly unique. If I can reach people through a unique idea, that would be great, but if I could facilitate real productive and inspiring impact through collective manipulation of a “common” idea…. THAT would be unique.

Technolgy is the great enabler. Tech is changing our connections to the world. Tech is leveling the playing field. It allows me to do this at the last minute via a phone. It allows my mom to see her grandchildren thousands of miles away. Tech has altered society’s expectations of itself. It has altered our expectations of ourselves, our government, our employers/ees and our peers.

And this will now have to be continued because my life is in perpetual beta and other responsibilities have jumped to the top of the bug fix list! Until next time.

Because technology to a certain degree has made most people very efficient, now the non-technical skills that a person possesses are becoming much more valuable. This could be organizational skills, communication skills, or how others view an individual as being trustworthy, honest, capable, or responsible.

Relationships are becoming more important and the success of these relationships over a period of time. Most people don’t want to do business with people they don’t like, they will, but if given an option they won’t.

I think these are the major ways that society as a whole is changing because of technology.

VickyH

I believe that to live a “Life In Perpetual Beta” is somewhat of a lifestyle choice. It is acknowledging maybe only to yourself that human growth will happen and is expected. That it is perfectly normal to change, grow, and revise your opinions, views, and beliefs.

I know so many people who are Catholic because their parents were or who are social slaves to societal norms that it seems that they believe in nothing and have no point of view. If more people would realize that change is expected, inevitable event that WILL happen in their lives change wouldn’t seem like a dramatic, scary event.

I also feel that when you acknowledge change that occurs in your life or let change occur without trying to stifle your changing views, you are giving yourself a gift. A gift of acknowledging that you are growing, evolving, and moving forward. You cannot move forward if you stay in the same place, can you?

When you acknowledge your own growth, you are giving yourself permission to grow, to ask questions and seek answers. This process causes you to reevaluate at times, checking yourself asking yourself the hard questions that are many times not easy, but that allow people to know who they truly are and not what they believe themselves to be.

In software, to be in beta is a testing period. It is after a company has tested their software found as many problems as they can using test scenarios but knowing they can’t find every flaw, they release the software in beta to a small group of people to use that will report the problems they encounter so they can be fixed before the software is in general release.

Right now in business, small agile businesses have a great advantage over larger companies in their agility. They are able to implement a change or revision quickly, where large companies cannot.

I believe that “Life In Perpetual Beta” is the gift of knowing yourself well enough to know what you are really passionate about, not just what you like. To give yourself the gift of knowledge and lifelong learning to supplement your personal growth with others knowledge. To accept your mistakes and realize in advance that you will make them but not be so afraid of making those mistakes that it stifles your following your passions and dreams. That it is a gift that you give yourself that allows you to be who you truly are and not be what others expect or think you should be.

How has technology changed the way society behaves in general?

Our society, especially our younger generation is the ‘now’ generation. In almost everything we do there is an instantaneous reward of some kind. We have so many choices available to us, that what we aren’t getting from somewhere, we can usually go somewhere else and find what we want almost immediately. That’s why social media is so powerful, word of mouth, we want to know before we buy something that others think is great before we try it. We are bombarded with so many messages, communication, and marketing everyday that the choices are overwhelming.

In order to sift through all this media, all these messages, we are increasingly trusting those we know, and trust on a personal basis. That may not be an in-person relationship, but to those people we feel we know personally.

Another huge change is the way we communicate with each other. We use communication methods that are very close to instantaneous. From our cell phones which we usually carry all day, text messaging, instant messaging, blogs and comments, and email we are able to communicate at almost anytime, anywhere.

We also access information differently. We use to go and search for our information and we still do to some degree, but we also have much information ‘pushed’ to us. Examples of this could be RSS feeds, email newsletters, html links in email or on webpages, ability to attach documents in email, and the ability to share documents online are a few.