A friend of mine, Chip Noon, from Rochester NH Main Street, sent me a direct Tweet today asking if I had seen "this" The Growing Debate over Twitter and Social Media on the Loyalty Truth.Com website. I didn't and immediately click to read the article.... An interesting, two-sided, argument that focused on "two key objections: (1) That the social media are yet unproven as a selling tool; and (2) that there is great potential to waste time on them.”
Hummm, I thought out loud, to myself... It reminded me, IN THEORY, of something I had read almost 20 years ago to this very day, March 6, 1989. I'd like to re-type it for you here to remind all of us:
A friend of mine, Chip Noon, from Rochester NH Main Street, sent me a direct Tweet today asking if I had seen "this" The Growing Debate over Twitter and Social Media on the Loyalty Truth.Com website. I didn't and immediately click to read the article.... An interesting, two-sided, argument that focused on "two key objections: (1) That the social media are yet unproven as a selling tool; and (2) that there is great potential to waste time on them.”
Hummm, I thought out loud, to myself... It reminded me, IN THEORY, of something I had read almost 20 years ago to this very day, March 6, 1989. I'd like to re-type it for you here to remind all of us:
THE RESISTANCE TO CHANGE IS NOT A NEW HUMAN TRAIT. THE FOLLOWING LETTER IS REAL AND SUGGESTS THAT IN OUR SOCIETY SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE.
Dear President Jackson:
The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as railroads. The federal government must preserve the canals for the following reasons:
ONE. If canal boats are supplanted by railroads, serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, innkeepers, repairmen, and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed in growing hay for horses.
TWO. Boat builders would suffer and towline, ship and harness makers would be left destitute.
THREE. Canal boats are absolutely essential to the defense of the United States. In the even of the expected trouble with England, the Erie Canal would be the only means by which we could move the supplies so vital to waging modern war.
For the above mentioned reasons, the government should crate an Interstate Commerce Commission to protect the American people from the evils of railroads and to preserve the canals to posterity.
As you well know, Mr. President, railroad carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by engines which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should move at such breakneck speed.
Signed --
Martin Van Buren
Governor of New York