That is the only thing on the post-it. “Zoom gremlins”.
This past week, I queued up all the pages I was going to share at a meeting I was leading. All the pages: the agenda, the minutes, the emails that I had received that were bullets on the agenda. ALL of it.
Only to have Zoom fail when I tried to start the meeting. I had to move to a different platform without all the pages I had prepared. There may be something to the gremlins in the machine.
As the world has been shifting more and more to online platforms, I think it is an excellent time to call out the pitfalls of the entire process.
There is the digital divide. Those who have access and those who don’t.
This is a huge hurdle. And one the government is trying to bridge with the new laws from last year. But it is a deep divide.
There is also a generational divide. Both my parents are active and engaged users of technology. But many older adults are unable to be active and present online.
There is the income disparity between those who can access technology and those who can’t because they are just trying to keep their heads above water. And make sure that they and their families are clothed and fed and have a roof over their head.
The earthquakes that shook Turkey and Syria this past week strengthen the argument. Lives, homes, and stuff were wiped out when the earth trembled. And now millions of people may be on the other side of the digital divide than they were 8 days ago.
All of it can be taken away in a breathless moment between then and now.
And those of us on the have it side of the divide must help those who do not have the technology, the Wi-fi, the electronics that make this new world that has been created through the use of the stuff that we have to engage with it.
After all, how would we cope if it all went away? In an instant.
Also why I don’t care any longer for superhero movies where the end battle destroys an entire city.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 