A lot went on during the last couple days and I have some time to reflect it. I’m writing from my iPhone, which makes writing a post take longer, and sometimes alters the way I write.

First, I was intimidated, initially, in moving my blog to a new hosting env as WordPress does not accept an import file over a few megabytes and my blog, when it’s content was exported, created a 25 megabyte file to import.

Thought I’d have to hire a programmer to handle the file import, since I did not know how to do it, but then, I searched Google with the right phrase and found a blog post written by a programmer, who had a similar issue a few years ago, about a visual basic program the programmer wrote that solved my problem, as well.

I can’t tell you how many times I faced a problem I solved by using a program or utility someone else wrote; by leveraging the work of another I was able to accomplish much more than I could alone. This idea, leveraging the work of others, gives me confidence to take on new challanges, because I know, somewhere, someone has dealt with the same issue, and offen there is a solution, if you know how to find it.

But, the ability to leverage the work of others, and build upon it, has only been possible in the last 10 years, and has accelerated even more, in the last 2-3 years, with the acceptance of Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed). While Web 2.0 didn’t invent Social Networking, it made possible, the leveraging of social connections, virtually, and, as a by product, made information a commodity.

As a result, many industries are being recreated on the fly, including Newspapers, Job Search, Politics, Banking, Healthcare, The Military, Film and Cinema, Art, Public Relations and Education, just to name a few in the top of my mind.

In almost every industry or career, what your father or mother did, a generation ago, or even, what you did, 5 to 10 years ago, no longer works as something you can do now, without major modifications, and in some cases, what you did 10 years ago is obsolete, today, or in the near future.

In fact, the ability to leverage thoughts and ideas the already exist, and build something new and useful to a community of followers, may be the skill set most needed, today.

Till about 10 years ago, things were much different. In the mid 1990′s the Internet, and Search Engines in particular, made sharing ideas, inventions, programs and thoughts easier.

Thinking about the pace of innovation in ancient times, grandfathers and great grandsons might be practicing the same trade, with little that changed, in say, a hundred years, with ship building, metel works, writing, the arts, both painting and music, politics, mores, etc.

But, With the arrival of the industral revolution, things have been speeding up, faster and faster; now, industries and careers are shifting every couple years, and the average person changes careers several times in their working life.

I’ve often thought about religious, cultural institutions, wondered if the conflicts we’re seeing, particularly in the United States (ie, between the Religious Right and Liberal Left) are really about ways of reacting to dramatic change in our lives.

Part of human nature, often termed, the reptilian brain, likes to hold on to the familar, even when it makes no sense, anymore. The other extreme, Liberal Left, embrases new concepts that aren’t yet proven. Somehow, the challange now, is harnessing the reptilian brain to maintain some level of stability and balance, while embrasing new thoughts and ideas, through the Internet, which can then be absorbed, leveraged, and built upon, much as I used Visual Basic program to split up and import a large WordPress file last week.

Just another series of thoughts on a hot, muggy August Sunday.