Join me on the dock

So yesterday I sat on the edge of a dock on a beautiful lake in Northern Ontario. The roar of my siblings enjoying wakeboarding filled the lake.  I was on vacation with my family, but was seated, laptop open, feet dangling in the water, trying to attract whatever I could of the nearest cellular signal.

With my mobile internet stick attached to my laptop I had found the perfect spot to get one bar of service.  As I was catching up on my Google Buzz, I noticed a friend from Orlando had re-tweeted a mutual Singaporean friend’s tweet about Ken Blanchard’s “Leading at a Higher Level” available *free* for a limited time for Amazon Kindle.

I clicked the link and was re-directed to Amazon where I clicked the 1-click purchase option and was informed that the book had now been delivered to my Kindle.

Just a few years ago, none of this was possible or didn’t even exist.  Think about it.

• I’m surfing the web on my laptop from a connection via a SIM card.
• My computing device is small enough (and battery powered) to sit in my lap on a dock.
• I’m tracking with my friends in the US and Asia.
• There’s a social network inside my inbox.
• No one paid my friends to promote Blanchard or the Kindle.
• My friends were actually posting to a different social network (one that I wasn’t tracking with while on vacation) but their recommendation still made it into one of my streams.
• I can buy things (in this case free) with the press of one button.
• I buying things with one interface, that will be consumed with another (actually, I’ll be able to consume the book with my laptop, phone, tablet and Kindle).

The world is now very small and it’s definitely mobile.  If you don’t think the world has changed, just join me on the dock next time I’m on vacation.