I bought stock in CISCO not long ago for a few reasons. To begin with, they are too good at what they do and amazingly healthy financially for the stock to be so cheap. I also like their sector and the growth trends they play into. But this post is not about investing. It's about something much more significant than that.
CISCO's slogan is "We are the human network." Think about that concept -- and what am amazing time this is! Never before in the world have human beings been so connected. Through our connectedness "human capital," (ideas, opinions, hearts, minds, prayers, song, inspiration, and every other form of human energy) can move to virtually any settled place on the planet in literally seconds. What are the implications, positive as well as negative?!
Personally, I believe we are experiencing another "Age of Man" an extraordinary period for human culture no less significant than the Golden Age. But what is culture? For that explanation I am going to borrow the following two paragraphs from Wikipedia, one of the recent examples of the cultural explosion I speak of:
When the concept first emerged in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, it connoted a process of cultivation or improvement, as in agriculture or horticulture. In the nineteenth century, it came to refer first to the betterment or refinement of the individual, especially through education, and then to the fulfillment of national aspirations or ideals. In the mid-nineteenth century, some scientists used the term "culture" to refer to a universal human capacity. For the German nonpositivist sociologist, Georg Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history".[3]
In the twentieth century, "culture" emerged as a concept central to anthropology, encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human genetics. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively.
I believe civilization is experiencing a new dawn of sorts, as significant to mankind as science, medicine, democracy, and the industrial revolution. The human network, powered in part by CISCO, and also Intel, Facebook, and Google, Microsoft, Verizon, iPad, and others, is changing everything by connecting us and raising the performance of our communications, and access to one another and information. What does it mean?
It means innovations that will solve some of the worlds greatest problems such as energy, and cures to diseases. It means justice for some who would not have it. It means a handicapped person who would otherwise be trapped and lonely having a network of friends around the world. It means poor children in poor schools being able to take learning into their own hands so they can rise up and over the walls of poverty. It also means that my wife's experience with breast cancer can inspire others while providing her with the cathartic outlet the returns invaluable support. And it means that a nation, even a world of people can send their prayers to a young congress woman fighting for her life from gunshots in a Tuscon hospital bed.
Jan. 2011