Someone in the Westcliffe Community asked me to talk about the Philosophy of using Internet Technology to support the Community Here are some Thoughts about using the Internet and computers as tools in your Community.
The Internet is moving toward giving us access to all of Man's Knowledge and can be considered a wise and respected Mentor of sorts. Whether you are looking for Ideas to make your commercial endeavor more succesfull, continuing your Scientific Research or simply using the Internet to learn better ways to train your Dog; the Internet contains a wealth of Knowledge.
Before we were able to offer general access to the Internet we mostly depended on people, books and other resources physically in our Community to help figure out what to do in our day to day lives. If someone or some book in the Community did not have the information we were looking for, we were limited in what we were able to accomplish.
With the Internet, we can access Knowledge electronically stored by people all over the world, many of who are considered experts in their fields. We encourage people to use the search engines of the Internet to find information. If the search engines lead you to a Website that has a lot of information on the subject you are interested in, but you still have some questions; contact the Webmaster who is designing and constructing the Website and ask some questions. He or she (the Webmaster) will most likely have the answer in the form of Knowledge stored in their own Minds or from their own personal reference library.
For the Websites we construct, we have a lifetime of Knowledge on certain subjects and a personal reference library of over 2000 books in our home office. We also have a network of personal contacts who are interested in the subject areas of my Websites as additional resources. Many of the Webmasters on the Internet are similar repositories of Knowledge on the subjects they are interested in.
On a second note. I think of the computers themselves as gifts from the Computer Science Community. Like any gift, it is each person's choice how to use them.
Here is how we use our computers. We spend most of our time thinking through and planning out our projects. We then use the electronic tools on our computers to quickly document our Thoughts. You document your Thoughts using Computer Aided Design Software, Scheduling Software, Word Proccessing Software and many other categories of Software; but no matter what you are thinking about, the software is mostly helping to document and Communicate your Thoughts.
Once the Thoughts are electronically documented. Read over your documented plans or designs and think some more about your plan. Communicate your Ideas to other people and encourage them to make suggestions. It is easy to modify your Ideas since they are all stored electronically and easily changed. This is our prototyping approach to the strategic plan you are now reading.
Since the computer allows you to do some things quickly, you have more time to think and plan before you actually do something. United States President Abraham Lincoln once told us that if he had a tree to cut down he usually spent 80% of his time sharpening his axe and 20% of his time cutting down the tree.
So use the computers to give yourself more time to think before you do something.
Another way we use the computer is to magnify how much we can get done each day. We believe that by using the electronic tools on our computers, one person can do the work of 2 - 5 people. If one person can do the work of even two people by using the computer, then one person can get eight hours of work done in four hours. In other words, I can get an entire days work done in 1/2 a day which gives me 1/2 of each day to do other things like spending time hiking in the mountains with family and friends.
So you can have time outside of the pursuit of financial goals.
Members of the Computer Science community such as ourselves are encouraging people like yourself to use the power of the electronic computer to to a better job of designing and planning your projects before implementation, Communicating more often with others and giving yourself more time to have Fun each day.
The technology of the Internet also allows us to Communicate on a higher level than many of us have every experienced. Sounds, color images, text, full motion videos can be Communicated at the speed of light to any person on Earth who has a connection to the Internet. It is my Understanding that 50% of the people who are connected to the Internet use it to send and recieve electronic mail.
The ease of Communicating via the Internet saves you time each day and encourages more Communication between people. More Communication means greater Understanding.