by Rimmer Mulder
I have always used my visits to the United States also for orientation on our profession, journalism. New trends and developments in the media world usually first occur in America. For much longer than in the Netherlands, journalism has been the subject of scientific research there. Consequently, for the curious professional there is always something new to learn.
This is how in 2008 I ended up on a study mission to the West Coast. For days we were welcomed as an international group by companies, researchers and other scientists working on what was changing in the world of print media, radio, television, advertising and communication as a result of digitalization.
Highlights were visits to Microsoft and Google. There it inevitably dawned on us that totally different times had arrived for good. Companies that had grown from nothing to global players within a few decades. It left us in awe. And then to realize that the revolution had only just begun.
Yet thinking back on that tour, one particular incident at Microsoft comes to mind first. Everyone has experienced it. A speaker presses the button to start the powerpoint presentation but nothing at all happens on the screen behind him. Press it again, again no movement. Then someone from the audience comes to the rescue, performs some actions and lo and behold, the screen fills with the first sheet.
Exactly that happened that Monday morning at Microsoft at the first presentation to the international gathering. It even took two helpers to get the powerpoint going. There was something reassuring about it. For no matter how advanced the technology, it is still human work.
* Rimmer Mulder is former editor-in-chief of the Leeuwarder Courant.
