We dispersed our cattle herd in the fall of 1981. I grabbed my second technology wave that year when with my mother's help I bought an Apple II+ and started writing a newsletter for the Canadian Angus Association.
A lot of people at the time said the best thing to do was to wait for computers to go down in price. Well except for the ones from Apple, computers are still going down in price twenty eight years later.
I am glad that I did not wait. I managed to sandwich a nearly twenty year career with Apple in there. I have often thought that there are only three outcomes with waves. You can ride them, jump and get a little lift as they come by, or get smashed by them.
Standing still and get smashed by a wave has never appealed to me. If you have ever been out in the ocean jumping the waves and got smashed by wave, it is something like going for a ride in a washing machine.
I have been riding the technology waves of social networking and blogging for five years now. There are still lots of people in denial about the importance of social networking to business. There are now as many paid blogger as lawyers. I am one of those paid blogger.
I am also a Realtor®, and I no longer believe in typical print advertising. There are a number of real estate agents in our firm which has four offices. No one can remember the last time that they got a call from someone responding to an ad in a real estate magazine or a newspaper.
The world has moved on and if you want to connect with potential clients and especially buyers, you need an online presence.
I actually think Twitter has huge potential, but I know of a number of agents who do not want to take the time to figure it out. They want things to stay the same. It is not going to happen.
Life is about change. We either adapt and move on, or we get left behind. I plan to keep moving forward. I am Ocracokewaves on Twitter. Join me in the adventure.
This article, 10 Ways To Be Useful on Twitter, is a good start and David Pogue's article, All You Need to Know about Twitter, fills in the rest of the story.
By the way, my first technology wave happened to be round balers. I was one of the first farmers in eastern Canada to use them in 1973. The provincial agriculture departments said they would never work. I was right, they were wrong.
