You hear so many people whining today that the world is so cold and aloof and impersonal and people no longer relate– and oh God what happened to Mayberry RFD?

To hear them recount it, there is a monster at work here. It is called the Internet and it is driving people apart. No one even knows what emotions are. Instead of talking to each other, writing to each other, they hide behind email. It is a bloodless, forbidden planet. A far cry from the good old days.

But were they really so good?
I write a bunch of blogs that fly out in cyberspace to all kinds of perfect strangers. None are hand written. None of the envelopes are embossed with melted candle wax. None even have envelopes.

What a cold bastard I am. What a frozen electronic world I communicate in.
Just ask the prisoners of the “Good Old Days.” They’ll tell you.

But then, just for the sake of fair and balanced, you will have to ask someone else. Actually, thousands of others. They are the human beings who read my electronic musings and who write back the most personal, sensitive, revealing, heartfelt, vulnerable responses one could imagine writing - not only to a perfect stranger - but to a deep and loyal friend for life.

And I think I know why. When people communicate electronically, they (not all, but many) feel more comfortable than doing it the way it was done in the Good Old Days.

Remember this when it comes to pitches and stories and letters to media contacts and by-line stories. Except for a few clingers to the sides of the Titanic, no one cares how the message is communicated.

They just care about the message.

That will never go out of style.

Mark Stevens
CEO