Source: http://corporatetocut.com/
So, the pressure is on! I am the first (o.k., maybe the third or fourth) to admit that I’m old-school. I started my working life back when we actually used IBM Selectric® typewriters and “White-Out.®” It was 3-4 years after I started at my first publishing job that I set eyes on my first desktop computer.
I’ve learned a lot since then – about publishing and about the wonderful electronic world that rapidly took over so much of our business and personal activities and the ways in which we communicate and relate to each other in the two decades (sigh!) since my first hesitant taps on my computer keyboard. I’ve gone from telex to fax to email. And, as we close in on the end of the first decade of the 21st century, my amazing staff of internet savvy, social networking mavens, have now gotten me blogging!
And gotten me thinking… do any of us in this “transitional’ generation ever stop to just think how far we’ve come in such a (relatively) short time? Or are we just too busy trying to keep up and keep ahead to stop and smell those proverbial roses, and marvel at how far we’ve come and what a wonder this brave new world can be, if we use it well?
JPS just celebrated our 120th anniversary year. The organization began as a means to help new Jewish immigrants to America find their way in their own brave new world, while still keeping hold of their Jewish heritage. By publishing the Jewish Bible in English translation, the Jewish Publication Society of America gave our grandparents and great-grandparents a way to assimilate to their new country, while keeping hold of what bound them together as Jews. The “People of the Book” would continue to be just that, but the Book would be in the new language of their new land of opportunity.
Now, 120 years later, JPS is able to share the Jewish Bible, as well as the many important books we’ve published since, in the blink of an eye or the stroke of a key, to all of those far-flung places that our families came from so many years ago. We can send bibles to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to Jewish congregations in Ghana or Nigeria – and then post pictures of those JPS Mitzvah Project recipients within moments of receiving them via email.
We can let people across the country and around the world know the moment we publish a new book, via a blog posting or a news flash sent out via RSS feed. We can announce new awards we are proud to receive or an upcoming author event, through dozens of listservs, author websites, our own JPS site, and through online newspaper and broadcast media calendars – for starters.
The possibilities are truly astounding and endless, and really link us, in the best possible ways, to each other and our global community.
I’ve learned the lingo of the online world, I can upload web content using the most basic of html code, I can now even proudly say that I have blogged. But please, I beg of you, do NOT try to make me Tweet!
-Laurie
