Forgive a tech veteran’s nostalgia, but today I was reminded of how technology, over time, changes the world bit by bit (sorry, no pun intended).

Back in early 1984, Steve Jobs released a new personal computer, the Macintosh, a “computer for the rest of us.” Talk back then throughout the industry, and later throughout the world, was that the power of personal computing would “democratize” the power of information.

Even earlier, in the 1970’s, the academic and military world began sharing information through the Internet, before the interface Mosaic, in the 1990s, brought us the World Wide Web, the Internet for the rest of us.

Today, in 2011, a little Chinese child abducted from his parents 3 years ago and set to begging on the streets for his new “father”, was found by the Chinese police through a micro-blog set up for just this purpose. This is in contemporary China, a country holding much suspicion and control over allowing Internet access and the “democratization of the power of information” to its people.

There is a reading in the iChing about Water, one of the basic elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water). The reading is entitled “The Abyss” because water trickles down and around all obstacles in its natural order, seeking its ultimate destination.

Technology anytime anywhere, electronic knowledge sharing, the Internet – these are all our new element, our new Water, trickling down over time, around all obstacles, to the vision first crafted not so long ago – knowledge for the rest of us, for all of us.