Gotta love this film – 45 years ago, IBM was explaining how computers work, and trying to reassure people that computers would be important, but would not take over the world. The film is a little chauvinistic (mostly in the graphics), but it’s a great introduction to computer logic, and the information is spot on. ”These children are going to grow up into a world in which the most important technological factor will be the development and spread of computers, and yet already they are already mastering more than a computer can ever know – how to read, how to do sums, how to group things together, how to weigh up numbers and decide which is the larger, how to select the correct shapes to fill empty slots, and finally, how to write. These are the only things computers can do – anything more is done by the men and women who write the programs.” True to the film’s prognostication, this type of information about how computers work is part of the knowledge every elementary school now receives.
I found this video (interestingly, if you think about it) on YouTube, and it definitely got me thinking. With the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence, I wonder if we still feel that only the men and women who write computer programs are (versus the computer itself) capable of “thought”. With the current vogue of Intelligent Analytics, I marvel at the similarity (and yet the complexity) of the film’s example calculations to current “Smarter Planet” initiatives. And I wonder if we still believe “the development and spread of the computer” is the most significant technological issue of our children’s lives.
I had an interesting experience this week. I’m doing some account strategy work with my Latin American colleagues, and have been attending meetings on this subject mostly in Mexico, with some work back here in the US. Because the work also involves Brazilians (in addition to the Americans and Mexicans), and because a significant portion of the client opportunity is there, the team decided to have our next in-person session in Sao Paulo. The meetings were on-again / off-again, and got rescheduled a few times, so the logistics were difficult to plan. Finally, about 4 days ago, the decision was made to have our session on Monday. I made plans to attend, moved a few things on the calendar, and scheduled my travel.
Because it’s been years since I’ve been to Brazil, I needed to get a visa. It was Wednesday night when I finalized plans to attend the meetings. Turns out, even with an expediter, a Brazilian visa takes about 10 days, and I needed to leave on Sunday. Further, I was in a separate set of meetings in Dallas, where I had to remain until Thursday afternoon. Seemed a bit insurmountable – I had no idea how to do it, but , I was hopeful I could figure something out.
The Brazilian Consul General maintains a website through which tourists and business visitors can submit applications for visas. From my MacBook in my hotel room, following my last meeting on Wednesday, I filled out the multi-page online application, read through the comprehensive instructions and fee schedule, and captured an electronic image of the application checklist. The Brazilian Consulate serving Texas, Oklahoma, and several other states is located in Houston. The Consulate does not take phone calls regarding visas, and only takes appointments for in-person visits. There were no appointments available on Thursday or Friday via the online scheduling tool, so I corresponded via several email messages with a Consul representative who suggested I “keep trying, as sometimes people change their appointments.” On Thursday afternoon, a spot opened at 9:10 a.m. Friday, so I took it. The only thing left to do was to bring all of the required documentation with my physical self to the Brazilian Consulate.
I left Dallas at about 7pm on Thursday night, and drove home to Wimberley. On the way, I used my iPhone to locate an all-night Walgreen’s in Austin, where I suspected they’d be able to provide the necessary passport-style photos required for the visa application. I tapped one button from the map screen, and was connected to the store’s phone line. The clerk told me I’d have to come back during the day tomorrow, because no one there was skilled in passport photos and it was “tricky”. After some discussion, he agreed to check with his manager, who said to come on in and we’d give it a shot. Happy surprise – it’s as easy as having the store employee take a picture with their on-hand digital camera, plugging the camera into the customer-accessible kiosk, using the kiosk’s software to appropriately size and focus the image, and pressing the “print” button. 15 minutes and $7.99 later, I had passport photos.
Walgreen’s didn’t sell the Money Orders required by the Brazilian Consul for the two separate application fees, so I went across the street to the grocery store, but was told the Customer Service desk was closed for that type of thing until 8:00 the next morning. So far, batting .500 – not bad for baseball, somewhat less than good for last-minute travel.
I drove home to Wimberley. After the Austin errands, I arrived at about midnight. I unpacked from Dallas, caught a couple hours’ sleep, a cup of coffee, and a shower. I printed my Brazilian travel itinerary, grabbed my passport, and left the house at 4 a.m. Friday – headed for San Antonio. San Antonio, though out of the way, was where my colleague had printed and signed a “letter of introduction” from my company, as required by the visa process. The letter had to be printed on company letterhead and signed by an executive. A good friend and colleague on my team was with me in Dallas. His office, his assistant, and his IBM letterhead stationary is in San Antonio. Before he left Dallas on a plane Thursday afternoon, I had asked him for his help in generating the letter. He agreed, so I typed up the letter I needed him to generate, and sent it to him in an email. I got to the IBM office at 5 a.m. Friday, used my building keycard to get in the dormant office tower, and my IBM badge to get into the dark IBM offices. On Thursday night, as he arrived back in San Antonio, my colleague had printed the letter, made two copies, signed them, and placed them in a folder on his desk. What a guy. I grabbed the folder and headed back to the car, my average and my optimism increasing.
It takes about 3 hours to drive from San Antonio to Houston on a Sunday. On a Friday morning, with a 9:10 a.m. appointment, it was going to take at least three and a half. About an hour out of Houston, I addressed the last remaining piece of the documentation puzzle – the US Postal Service money orders required as the only form of payment accepted by the Brazilian Consul General. Via the iPhone map application, I found a post office about 30 minutes away from the Consulate, called them, and found they opened at 8:00 and took debit cards. I pulled in at 8:05, there was no line, and I walked out at 8:10 with both of the required money orders. I pulled in to the Consulate at 8:40, checked in with Security, and had time for a cup of coffee before my 9:10am appointment.
Feeling quite full of myself, and my blistering hitting streak, I sat down in front of the visa bureaucrat’s area. My confidence wavered a bit, as I read the sign stating, “This office does not issue same-day visas, even if your flight leaves YESTERDAY. Please do not insist.” I quickly looked away from the sign, so that I could try to feign innocence and ignorance if he pointed to the sign at any point in the conversation we were about to have. The clerk turned out to be a very pleasant person, though he gave a wry smile when I answered “Sunday” to his Friday morning question regarding my planned departure to Brazil. He said I’d need a new Business Introduction Letter, requesting urgency for the visa. As gently as I could, I pointed out the language in the letter that asked for expediency, given the suddenness with which the meetings were arranged. He asked a supervisor, who shrugged at him. He shrugged back, circled the language in the letter, and told me “no guarantees”, but to come back at 1pm for my visa. I went to Starbucks, picked up my third cup of coffee for the day, and sat down with the laptop. I fought the email beast, ran some calls, and updated a few folks via facebook on my still-hopeful plans for the coming week. Went back to the Consulate at 1 p.m. and picked up my visa.
Wow. What a whirlwind. Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston in 13 hours. Successful achievement of an objective. Still managed to do my day job.
This story could serve as an example for a number of themes – ”I tossed myself out to the Universe, and the Universe caught me”, ”People are nice to you if you’re nice to them”, “Think positively, act assertively” – but as I watched the above video, I wondered whether communication technology is now the most significant technological issue of our time. I firmly believe I would not have been able to do this even three years ago. This story was only possible because it was enabled by the wireless technology in my pocket and in my briefcase. We should all have questions regarding whether a visa should “really” be necessary, or whether we should still be using physical passports requiring stamps and glued-in visas, but the facts are that I needed to go to Brazil on a Sunday, the law required me to get a visa, and the only way to do it was in person. The only way to get done what I needed done was to keep moving, and the only way to keep moving was to do my work from four cities, the car, the coffee shop, and the highway.
I don’t use an “office”, other than the area in my house I’ve got set up for some speakers, a couple of computers, a work surface, and a pen cup. I travel a bit, and when I’m away from my home office, I work from the conference rooms and hallways of my customer, hotel rooms, airport departure lounges, taxi cabs, restaurants, and coffee shops. I couldn’t do all this without the communication technologies available today – and it’s only getting better. Faster networks, more capable devices, improved reliability, and a culture of connectivity are literally changing the face of work faster than we can generate the videos to explain it. All along the course of my perverse visa scavenger hunt, I was updating foursquare with the latest – my colleagues, friends, and family all knew what was happening. They gave me encouragement along the way, and because they already knew what was happening, we were able to talk about the things that mattered, rather than my trip.
I view the logical extension of the above video as an ever-onward quest for computing power, à la BlueGene and the nanotechnology push. Those technologies (and their successors) can be used to solve problems not yet even conceived – and I think the video really demonstrates that view. It seems to me that communication technology is a bit different – and though there’s probably a simplistic case to be made regarding the “everything you said is simply the spread of computers” – I think wireless communication (in all forms – including data, voice, and “sensing” technology – person-t0-person, machine-to-machine, etc.) is differentiable from the “development and spread of computers” contemplated by the video, and is perhaps now the greatest technological issue of our children’s future.
Our world continues to evolve, Moore’s law still applies, and our kids are growing up not knowing what it’s like to not be able to answer any question simply by wondering it, and asking the Universe to deliver the answer. They ask, and the Universe answers – via a path of communication technology enabled by some of our best and brightest minds. The video is absolutely correct that the men and women who figure this out, and who build the technology are the real heroes. I’m thrilled to be around them, as a part of the industry, and as a lucky consumer of the technology.
What do you think?
