Dear Grandma

*My Grandmother passed away a few years ago, but while she was alive she worked for NASA and helped design the lunar rover.  That's the basis of this post.*

Remember when you were placed on the team that would help design the lunar rover?  The facility was centered in Long Island, NY, but none of the engineers lived there.  Everyone had to pack up their lives and move, some from as far away as California.

Now imagine no one was able to move.  How would you have communicated with everyone?  You could use the phone, but that would make it impossible to show diagrams.  You could have used the postal service, but then you would have to wait days for your letters to arrive and then even longer to get a response.  And even then you could only communicate with one person at a time, which could easily lead to a breakdown of communication.  What a waste of time and resources.

Now imagine that there was a system that allowed to you share those plans wirelessly with the entire team at the same time.  Imagine that each engineer could make a change, which would be reflected immediately for everyone to see.  Imagine a phone system that allowed you to talk with the entire team while those changes were being made.  You would have the benefit of discussing problems and solving them together, instantly.

That is Web 2.0.  It is a system that allows people from all around the world to share ideas and pictures and conversations with as many people, or as little, as they would like.  It removes the need to relocate dozens of people.  It would allow you to talk with other scientists from around the world  to improve your design.  It would let you stay in your small Pennsylvania town without having to move to NY.

Now think about its other applications.  It would be easier to talk with your grandchildren and see long lost high school friends.  It would let you rediscover those old movies you loved to watch, and it would even provide some background information you may not have known.