As an avid technologist and high tech marketer, I often wonder what the working world will look like for my kids. I entered the workforce in 1995 after graduating from college. Email and the Internet were just starting to make considerable traction in most work environments.
I used to be concerned about limited bandwidth – remember 14.4 modems and AOL…Yikes! I remember my laptop at school was a Apple Powerbook with a 13.3 inch active matrix screen with a 256MB hard drive. It was the best you could buy.
It was a world of limited storage, limited memory and limited bandwidth. The “system” had to forget. It couldn’t remember everything because it was too expensive to remember everything.
So what happens when there is unlimited storage, unlimited memory and unlimited bandwidth? Well, this time has arrived. The “system” doesn’t forget, it can’t. It will cost more to delete than save information forever. In fact, this post will probably live into perpetuity.
I am not sure this will be a healthy trend for our kids. Kids do crazy things. Kids are doing crazy things on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. They need a system that forgets. What happens when I Google a new hire and I get material that may not represent the person they have become? Do I brush it off or take is seriously?
Thoughts? How are you addressing this with your teenager or young adult?
To Fatherhood and Beyond 
That’s a really interesting way to look at this. Back in the day the only real records were microfiche newspaper articles available at the public library. Random stunts, crazy acts, and petty opinions weren’t recorded there. I think the new permanent public record brought on by Facebook, Myspace, and blogs might force us all to be more tolerant. They remind us that people are shaped by their experiences, but they also can change.
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