What is the purpose of the Future Economy Council? That is a question that has been nagging me for several weeks now and I’m not sure I have a good answer. Does anyone? I doubt it but that’s okay. There are some things that we do know. Catawba County is hurting. There are a lot of people out of work and there doesn’t appear to be many new jobs on the horizon. We have lost a lot of our industrial base and the reality is, most of that will not be coming back. We must face that and look for new opportunities.
We are not alone in our economic woes, the world in general is hurting. Countries that depend on the US for leadership and for their economy, all suffer when the US has problems. They too are looking for new opportunities.
Add to that the fact that the world has had unprecedented change over the last thirty years. The personal computer and all the technological advances that came after it has left many wondering when all this change will subside. Again reality tells us that the pace of change will only continue to quicken as one invention helps fuel the next one. That next invention may be our opportunity.
Intermixed with this is a world of social networks, tweeting, blogging, and texting that many cannot comprehend. A world where many can blossom and grow while others fret about its dangers but secretly fear being left behind. A world where guns and suppression may not be as powerful as a 140 character message sent out using a service with a cute little bird as its brand. Another opportunity? Maybe?
So what is the purpose of the Future Economy Council? I’ve painted a picture that seems depressing and almost hopeless. The message is far from that. If we stop and look closely, there is hope and a ray of sunshine in everything discussed above. We need to look for the new opportunities and quit concentrating on how it use to be. That will never return but if we look to the future with optimism, we may find a future that is even better than the past.
Could that be the purpose of the Future Economy Council?
To learn more about the Future Economy Council visit http://project3p.blogspot.com/ .
Many of you have seen the news about Lucille Pitts retiring. For those of you who haven’t, Lucille retired a few weeks ago after serving Catawba County for 65 years. Most of us can’t imagine working for one employer for that long and even more amazing, most of us were not even born when Lucille came to work in 1944. That fact started me thinking about the technology and changes that Lucille had experienced during her employment with Catawba County.
Lucille worked in the Register of Deeds office and you can look at records from 1944 that were recorded in Lucille’s very neat handwriting. Through the years things progressed and records were scanned, digitized and everything transferred to electronic format. From writing to complete records delivered online, from interoffice mail to email, from turning on the lights in the morning to booting up a dozen or so workstations and connecting them to the network, Lucille did it all. Yes I hear she didn’t really like email to start with but she learned to use it and mastered what she needed to do her job.
So as Lucille worked away in the Register of Deeds office, how did the world change? The list below contains some of the inventions and technologies that came about during Lucille’s time with us. Some reflect major inventions, some minor but life changing and some are just for amusement. They are listed in chronological order and some are hyperlinked to give you more information. Enjoy the changes that occurred while Lucille served Catawba County. And for those folks that tell me the world is changing to fast and they can’t understand the new technology, trace the timeline, Lucille had already worked 50 years before she learned to use email. Unless you can break that record, you are still young enough to learn so dig into the new technology…….
The Lucille Pitts Technology Timeline 1944 - 2009
The kidney dialysis machine, Atomic Bomb, microwave oven , Polaroid Camera, Mobile phones invented, transistor, Tupperware seal , electric Guitar, Frisbee, Velcro, Wurlitzer jukebox, Cake mix, credit cards, UNIVAC 1, Super glue, Power steering, video tape recorder (VTR), Mr Potato Head, bar codes, diet soft drink, hydrogen bomb, Heart-lung Machine, Radial tires invented, musical synthesizer, black box - flight recorder, Transistor radio, the pill, Teflon pans, solar cells, McDonalds, Nuclear Submarine, Optic fiber, computer hard disk, hovercraft, Liquid Paper, Polio Vaccine, Fortran, Explorer I, computer modem, the laser, Hula Hoops, integrated circuit, pacemaker, Barbie Doll, microchip, halogen lamp, Valium, nondairy creamer, audio cassette, fiber-tip pen, Spacewar, silicone breast implants, video disk, Operating Systems, Acrylic paint, Permanent-press fabric, BASIC, Minicomputer, Astroturf, Soft contact lenses, NutraSweet, compact disk, Electronic Fuel, handheld calculator , Automatic Teller Machine, computer mouse, first computer with integrated circuits, RAM (random access memory), Moon Landing, arpanet (first internet), artificial heart, bar-code scanner, Optical Fiber, daisy-wheel printer, floppy disk, dot-matrix printer, food processor, liquid-crystal display (LCD), microprocessor, videocassette, Pong, word processor, Gene splicing, ethernet, disposable lighter, Barcode. post-it notes, liposuction, Microsoft, laser printer, push-through tab on a drink can, Magnetic resonance imaging, VisiCalc, artificial heart Jarvik-7, Gossamer Albatross, Cell phones, Cray supercomputer, Walkman, hepatitis-B vaccine, Space Shuttle, MS-DOS, IBM-PC, scanning tunneling microscope, Human growth hormone genetically engineered, PC named Times Man of the Year, Soft bifocal contact lens, virtual reality, CD-ROM, super-conductor, Synthetic skin, disposable camera, 3-D video, Disposable contact lenses, Graphic User Interface, Digital cellular phones, RU-486, Doppler radar, Prozac, genetically engineered animals, Indiglo nightlight, High-definition, Hubble Telescope, World Wide Web, Internet protocol, HTTP, WWW, HTML, digital answering, smart pill, Pentium processor, HIV protease, Java, DVD, Web TV, fuel cell, Viagra, Tekno Bubbles, Segway, Artificial liver, Self-cleaning windows iPod, Braille Glove, Wireless headsets, Mars Rover, virtual Keyboard, Breath strips, iTunes Music store, Digital guitar, hydrogen fuel-cell generator, camera phones, Prius, Infrared Fever Screening System, Glowing fish, Adidas 1, Translucent Concrete, Jawbone, GPS and more, YouTube, hypoallergenic cats, steam clothes dryers, Gorilla tape, iPhone, Ford/Microsoft Sync, Chevy Volt, $4 Gas, Camera pill, Blackberry Storm, Facebook, and Tweeting everywhere, not to mention the tanking economy, and last, a president holding press conferences on YouTube.
By the way, I’m not sure about Lucille and Twitter but rumor has it she was tweeting from the George Strait concert.
