Looking back, my adolescence seems like a halcyon time, devoid of mobile phones and status updates. Heading into the big city was an adventure into the unknown, and even something as mundane as meeting up with friends was fraught with uncertainty and excitement.
Like many geeks in the UK, the Tower Bridge Twitter account was one of the first Twitter Mashups I'd seen. It was also the point where I realised that Twitter was more than just a simple communication tool; it was a powerful and scriptable platform.
There are a handful of people who follow me on Twitter who continually moan about the way I use the service. Some complain when I tweet about what I've eaten, who I've met or what I've done that day. Others complain when I use Gowalla or Foursquare to announce my location or post a stream of consciousness on a topic that is currently bugging me.
One of the problems of working in the knowledge economy is the constant need to keep abreast of current trends and thinking. This would be fine if you worked in a mature industry or one with a limited number of books, papers and conferences appearing each year. However in the knowledge economy of the web, more information is being published every day than could be consumed in a year. What's more, that pace is increasing.
After trying to convince us that we're "funding terrorism":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wssfl22Hhp4, "equating us to petty thieves":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5SmrHNWhak and "calling us cheapskates":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TbqBPmInjQ, the UK film and TV industry have decided to take "a more positive response":http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/07/anti-piracy-campaign-bill-filesharing. I'm surprised it's taken them so long to realise "people see the weakness in their arguments":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBJRoPgex8E and that "their actions may actually be having the reverse affect":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRVHUbrbEUA.
I remember reading a story once about an octogenarian discussing her most prized possessions with a researcher. She shows the researcher an iron that's been going for over 40 years and explains how she had to scrimp and save to buy the product and how it ended up out living even her husband. Quizzed on why she spent so much money on the iron she said "I'm too poor to buy cheap!" Too poor to buy cheap. That simple phase really resonated with me and has stuck with me ever since. Cheap is quick. Cheap is dirty. Cheap is disposable. Cheap breaks. Cheap costs money. It costs money to fix, it costs money to replace. Cheap seems like a good idea at the time but cheap fails when you most need it. Cheap is flimsy and unsatisfying. Cheap is inefficient. Cheap gets in your way. Cheap costs you time and it costs you customers. Cheap always cost you more in the end. That's why I can't afford to buy cheap. Can you?