Yesterday, thanks to a Baby Bell conglomerate who shall remained unnamed, our office got an unintended retreat from our lifeline, the Internet.
For the first hour, sheer terror set in. No email, no Facebook, no Twitter, no website access – the very tools of our trade were literally inaccessible. By hour three, with a bevvy of IT and AT & T (whoops, spilled the beans) specialists working on our equipment like a fine-tuned team of neurosurgeons, panic had turned to acceptance.
Forced to work offline, some began writing, others reading printed materials and whitepapers long ago placed in the “Must Read” box. Though disconnected from the 21st century, we connected with each other, our clients and our industry by makeshift methods our grandparents would have thought customary.
Yet an inexplicable calm and sense of accomplishment filled the air, even into hour five. We had unintentionally yet successfully “unplugged” for the day. Instead of Armageddon, we experienced a temporary respite from the online hullabaloo. We caught our collective breaths, read about advancements in our industry, brainstormed aloud and on paper, and recollected (or for the youngers, learned) what it was like to be marketers in the pre-digital era.
The Internet is back up today. While we’re all ecstatic to have the trappings of our modern workspace back, our unintentional day of surrender taught us that an occasional day spent unwired can be a beneficial and even necessary experience.
In fact, we can’t wait to tell everyone on Facebook about it!
access. Sure, I’
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Let me get this straight. Blippy.com, a new social media darling, wants me to sign up, enter my credit card information, and help me announce to the world my each and every purchase. “Blippy is a fun and easy way to see and discuss what everyone is buying,” their slogan says. “Blippy provides transparency into normal everyday things.” Passive sharing, they call it.
