The Remarkable World We Live In

This morning I woke to see another avalanche of emails descending on my inbox.

As usual, I scanned through to see if there was anything interesting…
Sure enough, there was and one in particular stood out.

It was from someone in the US who was asking for permission to use one of my images in a PowerPoint presentation she was preparing.

In our world of click and grab from the web this was a pleasant surprise.

I know I’ve grabbed images from other sites without asking. And, I bet you have too! Haven’t you…

I replied with a ‘Yes’.

And, as I wrote my reply it got me thinking…

I know I read about this stuff and talk about this to anyone who’ll listen and I still think the web is amazing. I think this example personalized a whole bunch of goings-on for me.

It brought home to me how the world has changed…

• From the other side of the planet, someone I don’t even know can contact me with a direct and personalized email. I can reply the same. We’re all just living a few clicks away from each other now!
• Even better, someone can view my work via my website – and most of the time, apart from an anonymous statistic on my web server, I’d never know. We don’t know who’s reading our blog, watching our videos or downloading our documents. We just don’t know what difference we make!
• I wonder how this person found my work? Was it Google? Did they search for an image? What words did she use? The web is such a colossal resource and the tools to find the needles in the haystack are equally spectacular!
• Using her email address I was able to track down her role as a member of the Library faculty at a US university. It shows what we can find out about others. For those still advocating privacy rights, a quick web search makes one realize that privacy is no longer yours! And, who cares…
• Finally, copyright may be dead – she could have just taken my image – and maybe politeness and permission isn’t.

What experiences have you had recently that have brought home how the web has changed the world? Share them by adding a comment…