Ponies and People
250 years ago, our main method of communication was ponies and merchant ships. Back then the horses and vessels had names. Today, it’s our chatbots. Then and now, humans very much remain in the loop.
The old saying the more things change, the more they stay the same struck me yesterday when researching the main methods of communication circa 1776. Newspapers, broadsides, and pamphlets were read aloud in public spaces. Committees of correspondence allowed grassroots efforts to flourish in colonies to share intelligence, debate policies, and coordinate resistance. Ponies and vessels moved messages.
Google says, “Communication and decision-making relied on writing, printing, and face-to-face exchange.” And it did so by including references to George Washington’s Mount Vernon and EBSCO. Hah! Even the modern data version of a citation is present and accounted.
Today we print less but publish more. We still meet face-to-face. One if by land, two if by sea has been replaced by modern-day methods of code. But we are human and we still do the same thing. We just want machines to do it for us instead of our horses, our ink wells, and our printing presses. We still convene.
Quality data, information, and knowledge make the world a better place through commerce, education, innovation, and justice around the world. It’s why we at Outsell get up each morning to work with CEOs and their teams running firms with data, information, and knowledge at their core. We launched 30+ years ago when technology began making a huge impact on the way we create, share, and consume information. Today it’s only going faster. But we humans? We’re still in the loop. Here’s to the next 250. Happy Fourth of July!