Down

Even one of the most popular bloggers in the world, Seth Godin, was obliged to email his subscribers yesterday to explain that his blog was “down” – a word that is now used to describe what happens when any internet-based service or application isn’t functioning.

Down – a word that tells me everything and nothing.

Ironic for me as the 7connections blog has been down for 10 days now whilst the team prepare our new web site for launch (hopefully next week but these things seem to be about as predictable as plumbers).

It had me thinking about the new race of High Priests and Priestesses – the people who know what to do when stuff goes down.

The technology behind that is as alien to me as quantum theory and yet I suddenly find 12 years of intellectual property (over 2,500 previous blog posts) and my current marketing activity and thought leadership in the hands of a team of Millennials, all of whom have been born since I started coaching dentists.

Don’t misunderstand me – I respect their talents and know that all will be well but it is rather like sitting in the passenger seat of a Flybe journey to Belfast and hoping that the pilot on the other side of that locked door knows what she is doing as the landing is aborted and we white knuckle climb to 10,000 feet in 60 seconds.

Technology is getting more complicated as it controls every function of our lives and we understand less each day about how it all works and integrates.

Our homes, offices and cars are collections of microchips. As are our hospitals, airports, stations, hotels and shopping malls.

We depend on our devices.

I’ve no doubt that Seth will be back today, hopefully I’ll be back as a business blogger next week.

Will there always be someone around to help when things go down?

Will we know what to do if there is no “up”?