By Mike Wilson
Yesterday I got an email from a Swedish Ag journalist who is writing a book and needed help. She was planning a trip to America to interview sources, and needed new leads for potential interviews. No problem, I replied. I forwarded her questions to my colleagues, Ag journalists working in offices from California to Virginia.
Within 24 hours I had seven great leads for her book.
While this may seem like nothing out of the ordinary, I still find myself marveling at this connective power of the IFAJ. It is something we should never take for granted. In less than a day IFAJ members were able to plug in to each other and use our vast and growing network to help a fellow journalist complete her task. This kind of global networking happens more and more frequently today.
Without today’s technology, would we bother to help and connect with each other? Are we better at connecting with each other, simply because we can? Or would we do so even without the miracle of email?
The incredible advances we have made connecting people around the world is nothing less than astounding. In 1997, the fastest computer in the world took up three rooms and could do 1 trillion calculations per second; today it is the size of your thumbnail. The Iphone today has more computational power than the entire U.S. Air Defense command did in 1965.
IFAJ’s founders wrote letters to each other. That was “networking.” Years ago we published a printed newsletter four times a year and relied on bulk shipping around the world to get the mailings to our members a week or two later. Today we publish online once a month, right to your email inbox, or through a simple click at the IFAJ website – and in three languages, no less. We send out instant alerts to make sure you know about contest deadlines or other important events. IFAJ executives regularly Skype with each other.
What’s next? Online professional development seminars, live access to annual Congress? Holograms, straight out of Star Wars? The lines between what’s possible and what’s not blur every day.
Even so, technology is only a tool. We have chosen to network with each other and not let language or distance stop us. Why?
There is no doubt we have all evolved, simply due to globalization. I can access the rest of the world much easier today. The world’s borders seem much less formidable compared to a generation ago. Walls have come down, and in most cases, have been replaced by bridges. I think IFAJ has helped build some of those bridges. With IFAJ’s new global mandate, we will be building bridges in places we never dreamed of 10 years ago.
We are all linked by a common curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, a desire to become better at what we do. We want to learn more about each other. That’s human nature.
It’s an exciting time to be involved in this profession. And it’s a great time to reach out to fellow journalists around the world.