Families Keeping Up with the Speed of Technology

Today my 83-year-old cousin and his wife visited my 94-year-old mother in her retirement complex outside of Chicago.  Mom lives in a gated community and my cousin had not been in this area for more than seven years.  We spoke cell-phone to cell-phone to "guide them in" to the parking lot and up the stairs to Mom's apartment.  

They brought with them a scrapbook of my cousin-in-law's artwork spanning a 30-year career.  During our time together we spoke of an unpublished children's book that my cousin-in-law wrote and illustrated.  I am a registered electronic publisher even though I'm not presently publishing books.  They told me that they still have an electronic version of the book that we can probably bring up-to-date with technology, then submit for electronic publishing.  It would be great to give the public access to a book that has been waiting for publication for more than 20 years.

When they left to drive to their home several hours away, they left an important piece of paper that had been in the scrapbook.  Within 30 minutes of their leaving--long before they will have realized that the piece of paper had been left behind--I had scanned the paper and sent it off to them via e-mail, including links to several of the things we had talked about during the visit.

They'll get the e-mail when they get home, have the links to follow-up on our conversation, and can print a new copy of the important paper before they miss a beat.

The good news is that my 83-year-old cousin is active on e-mail and is staying up with all the technology.  That certainly makes communication at the speed of technology much more achievable.

Facebook is the social networking site used by many of my family members.  It's another way for us to keep in touch.