TNNW, October, 2008, Week 2: "Achieving Timelessness"

By Adam J. Kovitz

CEO, Founder & Publisher

There used to be a time when you had to be famous to achieve a certain timelessness. Why...fortune and fame might have meant that they would name buildings after you. Even our museums today honor those who have achieved a certain level of fame to be honored.

The coming of traditional media like newspapers, magazines, radio and television took this to a whole new level. Remember the show, "This is Your Life..." in which well-known celebrities would be honored in the span of a half hour. Their life stories would be told in front of millions of people while influential people from the honoree's past would surprise them onstage. Talk about having your life flash before your eyes!

With advances in networking and the "new" social media, we are seeing more evidence of this on a more personal level. Remember a few years ago when EACH ONE OF US were honored as Time Magazine's Person of the Year? The cover featured a mirror to show that we had finally "made the big time". The message was to honor the fact that new media has radically changed the status quo. It's no wonder, then that "reality" shows, which feature every day folk like you and me, MySpace, Facebook and YouTube are so popular. EVERYONE'S A STAR!!!

Getting back to the timeliness theme...I recently had my life literally flash before my eyes on Facebook (check out my profile if you would like to see as well) when not only did I connect to my current business contacts, friends and family, but also my childhood, high school and college friends as well. The comedy has and continues to ensue...

As you can imagine, I started getting "tagged" in pictures from my "young and impetuous" years. If you check out my photos you will see for yourself.

Of course, the inevitable happened as well...videos...

Yep...a video has now surfaced on Facebook with yours truly in it. Nothing major...nothing embarrassing (except of course my 80's hairdo). Just some quick banter with some high school friends. I'm sure this is just the beginning for me, and if it's happening to me, it must be happening to others out there...probably you as well.

Another thing that I found interesting is that an early Facebook friend of mine passed away last year, yet his profile is still there. His friends continue to memorialize him on his "wall". I'm still connected to him as well. His Facebook profile has become a monument to his life.

Being a futurist, I tend to read books, blog posts and articles from a wide variety of sources and disciplines. As I was pondering how my Facebook profile has been evolving into something of a museum exhibit, showing my life, I was reminded of some metaphysical/philosophical tidbit I came across once that talked about time being something that "doesn't truly exist". We think of time as a horizontal line moving ever forward into the future, but the writer postulated that time is more "vertical". Therefore, all time is happening now and the feeling of us moving through time is somewhat illusory.

So what?

What I find interesting is how social media, the internet and advances in human networking are allowing us to (re)connect in such ways to support such a theory. We can literally begin to view past, present and even future with more clarity than ever before!

Getting back to the more mundane I also find it coincidental that the biggest investment we make in our networking activities is not financial, but of our time.

So while here in the U.S. money might be tight for many of us, hopefully there is no shortage of time...we all have the same 24 hours a day as everyone else. The results we want to achieve depend solely upon how we choose to INVEST OUR TIME.

As always, I look forward to Networking with you...

- Adam
Forward/Share This Article With Colleagues And Social Media:

TNNW, October, 2008, Week 2: "Achieving Timelessness"