By Jayson Jarmon, CEO, LuxWorldwide.com
The Seattle area is recovering from a tempest of noteworthy proportions, one which left most of the area without power for a quite a time. Many are still out there in their freezing homes waiting for the eventual salvation of the public power utilities.
For those of you not in the Pacific Northwest, this was a real howler - huge conifers smashing through people's living rooms, exploding electric transformers discharging in the night, and the dark sullen eyes of people standing in line at the Home Depot for hours on end, unshaven, hungry, exhausted. Several people have died as a direct result of the storm.
It has been suggested by some of my comrades (Luddites, the lot of 'em) that power outages of this kind point to the inherent weakness of the Internet as an information management platform. True, the Internet, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the personal computer require electricity, but let's not take this too far. For those without power, there is no Internet access to be sure, but, for those without generators or sufficient battery power, neither is there television, lighting, radio, and, in many cases telephones. In fact, the two largest daily newspapers in Seattle ceased production on Friday until power could be restored to the printing presses.
The truth of the matter is that the information economy itself requires electricity, and in the event of basic system failure virtually all of our systems grind to a halt. My hunch is that if the power on the Eastside remains out for another 48 hours, it will revert to a Mad Max post-apocalyptic state with bands of hungry computer programmers wandering the streets in search of connectivity.
In spite of the winds, I stand firmly by my conviction that everything that can be digital, will be digital. In three days, this will all be forgotten and people will blithely begin downloading from iTunes again, as if it were a spring thaw. In truth, Al Gore, or no, the Internet was designed to work in the face of a nuclear holocaust, and a few powerless days isn't going to change that. So, gird thyself, have a cold Pop Tart out of the box, and spend a peaceful moment with a book. The rush of the world will be upon you again before you can say "extensible Internet solutions."
