Second post of Winter
Reflecting on the coming year - and what it may hold for us all.
I was just now reading something from the Marginalian on this last Saturday morning of 2024 and thinking back over my career. I often say that it’s been more of a careen than a career since I’ve followed my nose and taken the path of seemingly least resistance - from majoring in German as an undergraduate through taking a position at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. As I survey the current work going on here at the Harold B Gill Foundation, I realize that my interests have been many and varied but what has really made it all work is the desire to build the network of human beings that I call “Friends of Hal Gill” alongside “Fife and Drum Corps Fans” and the “Historic Trades Preservation Special Interest Group” - it’s a service I provide.
Amplifying the work is important and no network is much good without signals being passed between the nodes and that’s just how I see each of us; as nodes on a non-hierarchical network - no one of us better or worse than other, but different.
The ripple effects can go on forever once we have taken the action of processing the signals coming in - and we are becoming ever more closely connected as we go on. This is something that I perceived with wonder when I first got onto the Internet at the University of Pittsburgh in the fall of 1994 upon arriving at Graduate School. Five years later, I’d use it to find a job in Copenhagen, Denmark and then network through the Society for Technical Communication with the best and brightest of Europe to find the best solution for my company’s online help and technical documentation solution.
So it goes - and left foot in front of right, the last quarter century has passed by. The acceleration of Moore’s law continues. The next quarter century will still see further upheavals. It is going to be even more important for us to act on the highest principles. That brings me full-circle to the work being done by Maria Popova through the Marginalian in which she has published many articles including this one on “The Art of Asking” which riffs off of a TED talk by Amanda Palmer.
In doing this, I am also asking for your support. We together can do what we separately cannot - transform this world into something of which we can be proud and grateful to have constructed together. Thoughts this Saturday - Onwards!