At the speed of greased lightning…

Listed on October 25, 2013 in Blogs!

Greased lightning is a great expression implying something very fast indeed. Yesterday I had to update the operating software for my home computer. Despite having broadband the whole process took over 16 hours! That was in Dorset but hardly fast I hear you say. Increasingly, our lives are becoming dominated by this new technology and herein lies a paradox. According to American research, it seems that as we become more connected through our computers and smart phones, our desire and need to meet face-to-face increases. This is great news for us at Dillington. Twenty years ago I was asked about the challenge to our business from video conferencing. Of course, the connection speeds were really poor back then but I intuitively felt that talking to a camera is not the same as talking to a person. The qualitative differences are huge. Even with better cameras and computers nothing has fundamentally shifted me from my view despite the alleged improvements of connection speeds. This all brings me to a real positive development at Dillington. We now have a big fat fibre-optic cable connection to the internet operating at 100meg upload and download speeds. That is pretty close to the speed of greased lightning and much faster than anything that can come down telephone wire or up a fibre in your street. Laptops, iBooks, iPads, smart phones, you name it, the connection can handle it. This is excellent, of course, but it doesn’t replace the authentic experience of our personal relationships. That said, together, they suddenly make so many things possible.