Conference coverage Of tweets and avatars : Has technology enslaved you?

Shortly before he died in 1995, my father questioned the increasing dominance of cell phones in our lives. “You think these new toys will liberate you,” he told a crowded room of employee communicators. “But in reality, they have made slaves of you all. They have handcuffed you to your jobs, and they have robbed you of that old-fashioned concept once known as deliberation.”

I thought of Dad last week as we closed our annual Web Content Management Conference on Friday. If the founder of Lawrence Ragan Communications were alive today—if Lou Gehrig’s disease had not robbed him of witnessing the greatest evolution of communication technology in history—what words would Larry have pounded out on his Royal typewriter?

Living on the edge