Half a million babies are born prematurely in the United States every year.  In fact, one of my granddaughters was born five weeks premature. As doctors and parents make decisions about life-saving care in the first hours of a premature infants life, they must grapple with profound ethical and scientific questions: Who should be saved? How aggressively should doctors try to salvage the life of a premature baby, who may be severely neurologically and physically impaired? What will that child’s quality of life be like after millions of dollars are spent saving her? As a specialist in high-risk obstetrics, Dr. Adam Wolfberg explores those profound questions at the beginning of life from the font lines of the Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

That said, Apple is trading just over $500 per share and its market cap is somewhere around $468 Billion. A little research will show that it has dangerously close to $100 Billion in cash and marketable securities and, hasn’t really had a bad quarter in the recent memory of man or beast. iDevice sales are off the charts and the company (for the moment) seems to be doing everything right. So, is Apple worth $500 per share?

If I were a financial analyst, I’d tell you that it’s probably cheap (trading at just over 14 times its earnings for the past four quarters). But that’s not the whole story. Talk to a true financial professional about accounting practices and dig deep into how Apple accounts for its sales – you may be surprised at what you learn.

Of course, Apple may be underpriced because the market lacks confidence in the future. Or, it could be that the Street thinks that Apple is about face super stiff competition from a CE industry that is “mad as hell” about being brutalized by nice folks in Cupertino.

All of this begs for the question, “How high can Apple share prices go?”

According to some of my friends, the sky is the limit. My cynical New York financial friends say, “What goes up, must come down.” Emails and txt messages from readers suggest that, “Apple can do no wrong.”

It’s the last point that gives me pause. Apple could easily screw up the iPad 3 or the iPhone 5. AppleTV (whatever it ends up being at launch) may not be awesome. There are, in fact, an infinite number of ways that Apple could fall from grace. It should also be noted that Samsung, LG and the Android camp are not exactly asleep at the wheel.

If I had to guess what forces will most impact Apple, I would have to seriously discount competition as a factor. Apple is extremely aware of what other manufacturers and software vendors are bringing to market, and it is unlikely to be caught by surprise.

If anything negatively impacts Apple, it will be an unforced error. This may be caused by any number of things: abject arrogance comes to mind. But, it is also possible that the patent/trademark lawsuit games that Apple likes to participate in may also get out of hand.

All in, if I was a betting man (and I’m not), and someone asked me straight up “What’s going to happen with Apple?” My best guess would be that it is an unstoppable force of nature, and that no amount of financial analysis or market research is likely to yield any usable intelligence — accounting practices notwithstanding, $500 per share seems like a fair price for a company that has literally changed the world.

Gary Carter

In mid-summer 1986, the New York Mets were about 20 games ahead. Jerry Della Femina called and asked me to write a song and produce a music video for the team. It was the kind of idea that Jerry was famous for – create and produce not only a song and music video, but create a half-hour “making of” video so the whole thing could be packaged for home video release. Of course, everything hinged on the Mets continued success.

When the Mets winning streak put them 27 games ahead, everyone in New York knew the 1986 Mets had a chance to take it all the way. I got the green light and, along with Greg Smith and Hal Hackady, wrote “Let’s Go Mets!”

Everything was awesome. The agency liked the song, the video storyboard was approved and even Mets management thought it was a “toe-tapper.” (Not my words.) There was only one thing left to do … play it for the team.

Time was extremely tight and, so we took the train to Pittsburgh to play the song and explain the team’s role in the music video. With boom box in hand, we got to the locker room and, we got schooled fast – baseball players who think they have a shot at getting to the World Series don’t want to think about anything but baseball before an away game.

Gary Carter was the first person to walk up to me and ask me what was going on. We spoke for about five minutes and then he and Keith Hernandez got everyone’s attention.

It’s hard to describe how instantly likable Gary Carter was. He had a unique ability to make everyone he spoke to feel like they were the most important thing in his world — a truly remarkable attribute. Some people thought it was a parlor trick, but years of infrequent, but substantial conversations with Gary proved to me it was not.

In 1987, Gary (along with Mookie Wilson and Roger McDowell) starred in a kids video that I also wrote and produced for Jerry called, “Think Big.” It wasn’t anywhere near as successful as “Let’s Go Mets!” but while we were on location shooting Gary and I really got to know each other. At that time, before Google and Wikipedia, I did not know that Gary was a Football player. I found out during a game of touch football with cast and crew during a lunch break. Gary had the arm of an NFL quarterback – he told us some great stories about his high school sports career and his love of both football and baseball.

His smile was infectious, his laugh was genuine and he was a true gentleman in every respect. And, not for nothing, he let me use his game glove to catch while we were shooting Roger McDowell pitching. I’m not sure I can adequately describe how it felt for a Long Island kid to catch Roger McDowell with Gary Carter’s game glove while Gary “took over” as director.

“Let’s Go Mets!” became the “official theme song” of the World Champion 1986 New York Mets and the video went Platinum. It kicked off a pretty good time in my career as a composer/producer and writer/director – but the true gift of 1986 was meeting and getting to know Gary Carter. Some will remember Gary as an All-Star, power-hitter who set the stage for the Mets to become champions; I’ll remember him as friend who left us too soon. Gary, RIP.

NY Emmy

New York, NY — Thursday, February 16, 2012. The 55th Annual New York Emmy Awards nominations were held this morning at the studios of CUNY-TV. Shelly Palmer was nominated for two New York Emmy Awards for WNYW Fox 5′s Shelly Palmer Digital Living. Mr. Palmer has six previous Emmy nominations.

Shelly Palmer Digital Living received both Emmy nominations in the category Business/Consumer: Program/Special.

The 55th Annual New York Emmy Awards will be presented at a Black Tie Gala on Sunday, April 1, 2012 at The Marriott Marquis in Times Square. For additional information, visit www.nyemmys.org.

Click below to watch the nominated episodes.

Shelly Palmer Digital Living Episode #3 – June 10, 2011

Watch the newest episode of Shelly Palmer Digital Living . Join Shelly Palmer as he shows off awesome gift ideas for Dads and grads. Original airdate: June 10, 2011

Shelly Palmer Digital Living Episode #2 – May 13, 2011

Watch the newest episode of Shelly Palmer Digital Living online. Join Shelly Palmer as he shows off some of the coolest new ways that technology affects the way we do life. Original airdate: May 13, 2011

Outlook 2011

Back in April 2011 I wrote a scathing review of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac.  I was specifically distressed by the highly touted addition of Microsoft Outlook, because after careful testing, I could reach only one conclusion: it sucks.  My solution for the total suckage of Outlook for Mac 2011 was to run Microsoft Office for Windows 2010 on the Macs around my office using a program called Parallels that (in simple terms) allows you to run Windows and Windows compatible programs on your Mac.

This sub-optimal solution became even more sub-optimal as we added more people to Microsoft Exchange.  So, some intrepid souls decided to try something radical … they used Apple Mail, iCal and Address Book to interface with Microsoft Exchange.  Low and behold … praise be to Jobs … it worked.  There were happy Mac Fanboys all over the office singing the praises of Cupertino and loving the fact that Apple was in the business of doing business.

Hallelujah, Apple got its enterprise on.  Time for Snow Leopard sock puppets! We were all thinking about making the switch.  But … just as quickly as we had fallen in love with the Apple Mail/Microsoft Exchange solution, came the End of Fanboy Days … OSX Lion 10.7.x.

There are many wonderful things I can say about Apple’s OSX Lion operating system, but compatibility with Microsoft Exchange isn’t on the list.

All of our new MacBook Air computers came with OSX Lion 10.7.x preinstalled.  As I am fond of saying, my MacBook Air is simply the finest computer I have ever owned … except for one small issue … iCal under Lion is incompatible with Microsoft Exchange.  A few minutes Googling the error message confirmed our worst fears – Apple knows about the bug and has done nothing to fix it.

The issue is subtle, but it is a deal breaker.  Under certain conditions, you can’t send and receive meeting requests and get the title of the meeting to show up in iCal.  You get a blank meeting.  When it happens the first time, you assume that you have done something wrong.  After a few more times, you ask your system admin what’s up.  By the 10^th time you lose your meeting info, you type the issue into Google … that’s when the enormity of the situation hits you.  You’ve just opted into a workflow that is completely useless for the doing of business with 92% of the business world.  Want a list of compatibly issues; just search for your favorite flavor – it’s not pretty.

To say that we did everything to solve this would be to understate the issue.  No eclectic techno-geeky trick was left untried.  Bribes to friends at Apple, calls out to hackers, even a FB plea to Fanboys around the world … all to no avail. :(

The ultimate solution is so sad, I have named it the End of Fanboy Days.  We are now the proud owners of a bunch of 17″ HP ProBook 4730s running Microsoft Office Professional over Windows 7 Professional.  HP’s Value Added Reseller (VAR) channel rocks!  If you ever need a bunch of computers that are sturdy, built for business, free of bloatware and ready to use when you get them, call your favorite HP VAR.  Talk about flawless integration with Microsoft Exchange — everything works so perfectly, it’s sinful!

I still carry my MacBook Air.  For me, it is still the ultimate computer in the galaxy.  I don’t mind having the crippled Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 running on this computer because I don’t do any administrative functions with it.  But, if I didn’t have an executive admin and an administrative assistant who keep my calendar, I would have to choose between crippled Outlook functions or non-functional appointment compatibility in iCal.  Two unacceptable options.

If you don’t use your computer for business and don’t have to have a computer that is 100% Microsoft Exchange compatible, nothing here really concerns you.  However, if you are truly trying to use a Mac running OSX Lion 10.7.x as a business tool to interoperate in Microsoft Exchange environment … sadly, it is truly the End of Fanboy Days.

This is why I am very excited about this new book Abundance – The Future is Better Than You Think, written by my friend Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, X PRIZE Foundation Chairman/CEO, and Steven Kotler, Science Journalist.

Abundance is a powerful antidote to today’s dark pessimism. Peter and Steven present a convincing case that the world has been getting better at an accelerating rate over the last few decades. There are abundant stories and hard facts in the book to support the case that our future is better than we think.

Anyone who enjoys technology will love the extensive tour of the latest in exponential technologies, DIY innovation, Techno-philanthropy, and more. Have you considered that the free apps we take for granted today on our smart phones (GPS mapping, video conferencing, digital and video cameras, full sets of library and encyclopedia, etc.) would have cost more than $1 million dollars, affordable only to the richest, 20 years ago? And those poorest citizens of the world, who used to be called the bottom billion, are now the “Rising Billion” because of accessibility to technology? Masai warriors in Kenya now have cell phones that give them better access to mobile communication and information than USA presidents 15 years ago.

So there you have it. If you want some good news (great news actually), read Abundance. If you want to help change the world’s conversation from its current pessimism about scarcity to Abundance, share the book with your friends.

You can visit Peter and Steven’s website www.AbundanceTheBook.com, where you can pre-order Abundance by February 13 and get thank-you gifts (free access to Singularity University’s video library packed with graduate training on exponential technologies, AI, Robotics, Synthetic Biology, Neuroscience, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, etc., The Transcendent Man documentary, and more.) But, before you do, check out this excerpt from Chapter 1.

OUR GRANDEST CHALLENGE

The Lesson of Aluminum

Gaius Plinius Cecilius Secundus, known as Pliny the Elder, was born in Italy in the year 23. He was a naval and army commander in the early Roman Empire, later an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, best known for his Naturalis Historia, a thirty-seven-volume encyclopedia describing, well, everything there was to describe. His opus includes a book on cosmology, another on farming, a third on magic. It took him four volumes to cover world geography, nine for flora and fauna, and another nine for medicine. In one of his later volumes, Earth, book XXXV, Pliny tells the story of a goldsmith who brought an unusual dinner plate to the court of Emperor Tiberius.

The plate was a stunner, made from a new metal, very light, shiny, almost as bright as silver. The goldsmith claimed he’d extracted it from plain clay, using a secret technique, the formula known only to himself and the gods. Tiberius, though, was a little concerned. The emperor was one of Rome’s great generals, a warmonger who conquered most of what is now Europe and amassed a fortune of gold and silver along the way. He was also a financial expert who knew the value of his treasure would seriously decline if people suddenly had access to a shiny new metal rarer than gold. “Therefore,” recounts Pliny, “instead of giving the goldsmith the regard expected, he ordered him to be beheaded.”

This shiny new metal was aluminum, and that beheading marked its loss to the world for nearly two millennia. It next reappeared during the early 1800s but was still rare enough to be considered the most valuable metal in the world. Napoléon III himself threw a banquet for the king of Siam where the honored guests were given aluminum utensils, while the others had to make do with gold.

Aluminum’s rarity comes down to chemistry. Technically, behind oxygen and silicon, it’s the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, making up 8.3 percent of the weight of the world. Today it’s cheap, ubiquitous, and used with a throwaway mind-set, but—as Napoléon’s banquet demonstrates—this wasn’t always the case. Because of aluminum’s high affinity for oxygen, it never appears in nature as a pure metal. Instead it’s found tightly bound as oxides and silicates in a claylike material called bauxite.

While bauxite is 52 percent aluminum, separating out the pure metal ore was a complex and difficult task. But between 1825 and 1845, Hans Christian Oersted and Frederick Wohler discovered that heating anhydrous aluminum chloride with potassium amalgam and then distilling away the mercury left a residue of pure aluminum. In 1854 Henri Sainte-Claire Deville created the first commercial process for extraction, driving down the price by 90 percent. Yet the metal was still costly and in short supply.

It was the creation of a new breakthrough technology known as electrolysis, discovered independently and almost simultaneously in 1886 by American chemist Charles Martin Hall and Frenchman Paul Héroult, that changed everything. The Hall-Héroult process, as it is now known, uses electricity to liberate aluminum from bauxite. Suddenly everyone on the planet had access to ridiculous amounts of cheap, light, pliable metal.

Save the beheading, there’s nothing too unusual in this story. History’s littered with tales of once rare resources made plentiful by innovation. The reason is pretty straightforward: scarcity is often contextual. Imagine a giant orange tree packed with fruit. If I pluck all the oranges from the lower branches, I am effectively out of accessible fruit. From my limited perspective, oranges are now scarce. But once someone invents a piece of technology called a ladder, I’ve suddenly got new reach. Problem solved. Technology is a resource-liberating mechanism. It can make the once scarce the now abundant.

I also acknowledge “Technology is good” is an optimistic point of view. I am, by nature, an optimist. I believe in lifelong learning and I aspire daily to the joy of striving to realize things that exist in our imaginations. It may be one of our higher callings; it is certainly one of mine.

So, I am usually one of the guys who says things like, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Which is my way of acknowledging that firearms are simply tools to help us throw rocks faster and more accurately and, if you need to throw a rock, it’s probably better to throw it faster and more accurately.

This argument can be extended to less emotional subjects like the Sony Betamax case or the more recent (though seemingly ancient) Grokster case. Both of which ended up with the court deciding that, and I’m paraphrasing: “Technology good … people bad.”

“If God intended us to fly, he’d have given us wings.” Yep. I totally agree. God (please use your politically correct deity, this article is not about science vs. religion) gave us brains that saw birds and imagined what it would be like to fly. The same deity gave us thumbs, manual dexterity and the ability to create tools that enabled us to have wings. We fly because we are genetically gifted to do so. (You can decide how those genetic gifts were bestowed, like I said, it is not the point of this writing.)

The point is, that technology is woven into the fabric of our lives and it, in every case, in every civilization (past and present) defines how we interact, how we live, how we work … it literally defines everything about us, including the epochs and ages of our past.

The reason for my huge pro-technology buildup is that I am about to write something that is so out of character, so remarkably against one of my strongest personal axioms, I have to talk myself into writing it …

Google is about to go too far.

On March 1, 2012, Google will consolidate the privacy policies for 60 of its products creating the singularly most significant database of the Information Age. The aggregation of these data will empower Google to correlate and contextualize our thoughts, aspirations, actions, physical locations and the timelines for the basic processes of the doing of life.

I don’t think any single thought about the aggregation of data or the use of technology has ever made me as uncomfortable as this announcement. On its best day, with every ounce of technology the US Government could muster, it could not know a fraction as much about any of us as Google does now. But now is not what I’m worried about. I’m not even worried about this decade. At the current rate of technological change, taking into consideration the amount of information we are creating about ourselves, and adding in the computational power that will be available in about a decade, Google will equal Skynet circa 2022.

This is a guess, of course, it could be sooner – but it won’t be later. What do I mean by Skynet. First of all, get your Terminator lore together, but then just imagine a database that could automatically determine what you are most likely going to have for dinner after your bowling league Tuesday night, where you are going to have it, who it will be with, whether you are feeling good or have a cold, if you and your wife are fighting, how your day was at work, what you are thinking about buying, who is helping you with your decisions about it, what chronic illnesses you are dealing with, what meds you are on, etc, etc, etc. And this isn’t even the scary stuff.

What scares me is the advance of analytical tools and the existence of yet-uninvented ways to manipulate data for good and, inadvertently, for bad. I’m not worried about bad people doing bad things. That is the nature of our world and, generally, it is easy to identify bad people who do bad things. I’m worried about the good intentions that pave the road to hell. I can’t speculate about how our near-term-future, data-dependent culture will be negatively affected by the law of unintended consequences. That’s because so many of the vocations and avocations that will be impacted have also yet to be invented. I just know that there are at least as many ways for things to go wrong, as there are for things to go right.

The sky is not falling and this is not a sensationalistic FUD-mongering exercise (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt). It is an admonition that the time has come for learned colleagues to start a Socratic discourse about what parts of the Genie need to stay in the bottle, and what parts can be let out. Imperfect metaphor? I don’t think so.

This is a very complex problem and we are going to need very simple ways to describe it. Skynet can’t win – at least not in the world I want to live in. Let’s get ahead of this while it’s still just the subject of the occasional rhetorical blog post – because, no matter what anyone tells you, the world of big data is never going away.

This week, it’s been very hard to be online without seeing the acronyms SOPA and PIPA. Both are pieces of legislation being proposed by Congress, created with the hope of finally bringing some sort of regulation for copyright infringement to the web. The proposed bills look to stop websites from spreading copyrighted material or selling counterfeit items. More than that, the laws would affect websites like YouTube, where users often post content that violates the rules in the terms of service. If one of these videos slipped through the cracks, technically the government could require ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and search engines to block the site – which is not really a workable, or even reasonable, solution.

The bill currently being debated in the House of Representatives is SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Spearheaded by Republican Representative Lamar Smith, the proposed legislation has come under fierce scrutiny from tech industry monoliths like Google and Facebook, as well as security experts who think it’s technically disastrous. PIPA, the Protect IP Act, is the Senate’s even weaker version of the bill, which has already lost support from at least 18 Senators.  I’d like to think that the online protests had something to do with the recent Senatorial distancing.

“You’re destroying the Internet!” versus “We need to stop these digital thieves and protect intellectual property by passing a sweeping law!” played out for a while mostly outside of the public eye until some of the biggest websites put the issue front and center. Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla, Wired and Reddit were among the sites that used their valuable digital real estate to protest, what they consider, egregiously ignorant legislation. These protests seem to have been effective. Google announced that it acquired over 8 million unique signatures on its SOPA/PIPA petition, just from a link on its homepage. Wikipedia directed over 7 million people to their local representatives so they could express their opposition to the legislation. But what exactly is being opposed?

One of the controversial provisions would give the government broad power to make service providers block websites at the DNS (Domain Name System) level. Many agree that this would not only be ineffective, it could pose potential security issues. If legislation is to be passed to regulate content on the Internet, much greater technical foresight will be required.

A less technical provision that is ruffling feathers would make the maximum penalty for streaming or downloading copyrighted content, five years in prison. Most reasonable people would agree that a mother caught illegally downloading a torrent of Josh Groban’s Christmas album probably should not face the possibility of five years in jail.

As flawed as the language and provisions of SOPA and PIPA are, there is one part of both bills that make absolute sense: stealing content is wrong.  Sadly, there is a fairly large group of people who believe everything on the Internet should be free. Hacktivists routinely cripple websites of businesses, organizations and even governments that oppose the idyllic “free web.”  While I completely understand how post-Napster digital natives have come to believe that stealing copyrighted material (and depriving rightsholders of the value of their intellectual property) is OK. I violently disagree with their thesis.

This puts me in a very strange position – I am aligned with people seeking the same short term result I am seeking – these bills, as written, must not become law.  However, after SOPA and PIPA are defeated, we are going to have to figure out how to reconcile the fact that “we the people” who respect copyrights, and “we the people” that don’t, are going to have to work together to solve this problem.  It won’t be easy.  In fact, it may never happen.

Which begs for the question, “How should intellectual property rights be protected?”  Unfortunately, the technological answer is far, far easier than the political one.  Before we can protect content creators, we need to agree that content needs to be protected.  Considering the passionate beliefs on both sides, I’m not optimistic.

I like to say that there are only two kinds of people, and two kinds of devices: connected and not connected – apparently, that’s how the Consumer Electronics (CE) industry sees the world as well. But here’s the thing: hidden under the excitement of cloud-connected devices is the reality that the industry is changing, and changing fast.

If you know anything about the CE industry, you know that interoperability is not something big electronics firms are fond of. For years, Sony refused to use industry compatible SD cards in favor of its Sony Memory Stick. It even used an obscure type of Firewire connector, just to promote the sales and non-interoperability of its video and still cameras. Not to single out Sony, almost every CE company has its own proprietary ecosystem. And all of them hope you will choose their way of thinking if you want to interface with their gear.

This is not a consumer-friendly strategy, but some “old school” businesspeople believe it is the right way to do business. At one time, it may have been a good idea, but it’s over. Cloud storage, 3G, 4G, WiFi, h.264, .mp3 and other very common consumer standards have wrenched control away from big CE companies and handed it to consumers. Which begs for the question, can you market a successful closed system in 2012 and beyond? I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

If you walked around the show floor, one of the key takeaways would have been silos and unique proprietary systems are not making the cut. The consumers have won, and won big.

What was interesting at the show? Intel chips have enabled a new class of personal computers called Ultrabooks. They are all MacBook Air look-alikes, but they run Windows and they are inexpensive by comparison. This is going to be one of the big stories of the year. They are really going to sell and, I humbly submit, give tablets a real run for their money. Of course, the same technology will find its way into tablets and the arms race will continue. The winner … you! Consumers will benefit in every way. Faster, smaller, thinner and more connected personal computing experiences.

I also liked LG’s 55″ OLED TV. The picture is indescribably gorgeous and it’s about 4 millimeters thin. No price or specific delivery date, but look for it by the end of the year.

Samsung debuted a series of big, flat screen TVs that have motion sensing and voice recognition built in. Think of it as an Xbox Kinect without any extra boxes or cables. The demo was fun, but it’s not ready for prime time.

Samsung also showed off the Samsung Galaxy Note a 5.3″ Android phone/tablet crossover. Lots of people liked the size, some said it was too big, others said it was too small. Where’s Goldilocks when you really need her.

The most remarkable thing about International CES 2012 was the number of people doing business. There were fantastic parties, everyone had an optimistic, upbeat attitude about the future and the general consensus was that things are turning around.

Of course, it’s not business as usual, everyone is trying to figure out how to be more like Apple. From operating systems to hardware, almost every pitch included some reference to iDevices, iTunes or the iTunes store – and everyone is playing catch-up. This was not 2 million square feet of Apple Fanboys, this was a town full of electronics professionals wondering how they missed the mark and what they could do about it.

Lastly, if you’re wondering if Microsoft will be missed at next year’s show? The short answer is no. CES is not about any one manufacturer; it’s about an industry. Kudos to the CEA for putting on an amazing exhibition that included the best of the best in every category – this year was truly awesome!

This is the third article in an ad hoc trilogy inspired by feedback from a remarkably diverse group of individuals. My first article, “Are You Employable In 2012?” recounts an experience I had trying to hire an administrative assistant. It’s full of helpful hints about starting a career in the 21^st century. The second article was an impromptu follow-on instigated by a bunch of 50-somethings who espoused prideful ignorance of modern communication entitled, “Attack Of The Pridefully Ignorant.” The thesis of the article is that we (all of us) need to stop questioning the necessity for digitally literacy and accept that “digital,” in the broadest sense of the word, is not going away. I gave a few simple tips about how easy it can be enter the world of social media, and ended with a paragraph about the need to add new digital skills to your professional tool belt. Not a comprehensive list of ways to become more digitally literate, but a good way to start.

I don’t think I have ever written a piece that received more attention – both positive and negative.

I try to limit my weekly writings to about a thousand words, so – first and foremost – let me say, I cannot cover this topic completely here. I do a pretty good job explaining my position in my latest book, Overcoming The Digital Divide: How To Use Social Media And Digital Tools To Reinvent Yourself And Your Career. It’s available on Amazon.com (both Kindleand Paperback) and wherever fine books are sold.

So, without further fanfare, here is my response to the thousands of emails, tweets and comments regarding “Attack Of The Pridefully Ignorant.”

Digital communication is here to stay. Intel says that today, there are just over two billion people connected to the Internet. It is projecting three billion by the end of 2015 and hopes the world gets to four billion by the end of 2020. Intel has a selfish reason for this prediction; it makes the chips for the billions of devices that will support this connectivity.

ComScore says as of November, total U.S. iPhone users grew to 26 million and total Android users grew to 42.9 million. That number is trending upward at a fierce pace.

Although it’s hard to find one definitive source, the general consensus is that, worldwide, there are approximately five billion feature phones, 500 million smart phones and 60 million tablets and e-readers. And, of course, these numbers are trending up too.

One hundred percent of these devices are digital. And, while it’s true that some of the radio signals that are used with these devices are analog, there are computers doing all of the heavy lifting. So, for all intents and purposes, the world of communication is 100% digital. Which begs the question, “Why would anyone even suggest that digital literacy is an unimportant skill in the 21^st century?”

Did Tiger Woods know that he was making a digital audio recording on a remote server? That bit of digital illiteracy cost him a lot. Did Eliot Spitzer know that a wire transfer was actually a digital file transfer and that, while private, it was not anonymous? Obviously not – that lack of digital knowledge cost him big as well. How about Anthony Weiner’s and Brett Favre’s experience with digital photos? Their collective lack of knowledge about simple digital file transfers yielded unfortunate consequences too.

Do you know how well your online presence matches your offline presence? When I Google you, will I find what you would expect me to find? How do you look on LinkedIn? Do you actually believe that there is a hiring manager in the connected world that will not check you out on Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn before considering you for a position? The reasons to become digitally literate are endless.

I am not advocating digital communication over in-person connections. In fact, I’m not advocating anything other than that the “pridefully ignorant anti-21^st century communications tools group” should consider that they don’t know what they don’t know.

These are early days. Social media is in its infancy and we have no way of knowing whether Facebook or Twitter or any one of the other 500 popular social networks will be around in a few years. What we do know is that while some people are using social media for egocasting, others are community organizing and still others are overthrowing governments. Same tools, different applications.

I’m going to resist all temptation to respond to any individual comment or email about my pridefully ignorant experience. The comments, including the most derogatory, simply prove my point. My thanks to all of you for surprising me this week, I was truly shocked that so many people spent their valuable time telling me how stupid and brainwashed I am about the need for digital literacy.

I will leave you with this one thought. There was a significant conversation going on about you in a place you know nothing about, care nothing about and don’t believe exists … like I said, you don’t know what you don’t know.