Greg Cook, EA, CPA

Imagine 80 million "Baby Boomers" in America reaching retirement age, and the workforce that will replace them (known as Generation X) consists of 40 million people that grew up surfing and gaming on the internet, one hand on a keyboard while they had a cell phone in the other hand texting their friends. I had to laugh just now because my spell checker did not recognize "texting" as a word. I think there is a button or link I can click to tell the software to add it to the dictionary. Ah yes, right click, add to dictionary.

With such a transition in routine day-to-day activities by people, things are changing at a very rapid rate. Technology will change our lives even more in the near term, I'm sure of it. My wife and I built a new home recently and I acted as my own contractor. One of the things I found frustrating was the fact that almost all of the workers were carrying and using cell phones constantly. I just know that they could have been more productive on my job if they all had left those cell phones in their vehicles.

In the last five years or so I have witnessed the breakup of marriages because one spouse met someone on the internet. I realized that if people will actually meet and choose a "life partner" on the internet, they will surely find and select a tax advisor on here as well. I began devoting a lot of effort to our company website.

By the time we finished construction of our new home (it took 15 months to build) I knew that I had to get out of the office more. Life was changing around me without my noticing it. Everyone seemed to have a cell phone in their hand, on their belt or attached to their ear constantly. These aren't just phones, they are cameras, video recorders, email and internet devices. Throughout the construction period I found myself dependent on my cell phone, which prior to that time spent most of it's life in the console of my Porsche.

During my "decision making process" of whether I should link to myspace and facebook, and begin tweeting our tax news to twitter, I had to overcome a feeling deep inside me that said "this just doesn't seem professional". It took a little while, but eventually I came to the realization that it was just "old school" mentality to feel that way. Technology is only worthwhile when you take full advantage of what it has to offer as a tool.

Nothing has surprised me more, than the facebook experience. When I first registered, I was amazed that facebook presented me with a long list of people that I might know. I quickly learned that the list of people popped up because they had my email address in their list of contacts on their email program. Then facebook automatically brought up a list of people I attended high school with. If you enter your high school and the year you graduated, facebook will find others that entered the same information in their profile. I really was surprised to learn that this little online community of high school friends existed out there.

What are the benefits of social networking?

Connecting with people is the short answer.