“For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.” – Psalm 62:5
As the Daily Word reminds us “Life emerges from within, in perfect order. On the branch of a cherry tree, swelling buds are ready to burst into blossom in perfect order. In much the same way, I am growing and emerging into what I am created to be. I am filled with life and great expectations! Each life experience is an occasion for me to learn and grow, to discover that which is within me, ready to bloom. With gratitude, I bless the countless opportunities I have to grow in health, relationships, and spiritual awareness, and to express myself more fully and completely. Through me, God’s perfect order finds expression”.
Today I reflect on the lyrics of the song which appeared in a John Denver album and which were written by Pat and Victoria Garvey. The selected lyrics “To grow old is to change, To change is to be new, To be new is to be young again”. The name of the song “Today is the first day of the rest of my life”.
As the years have gone by, I have changed, I have renewed myself and this spiritual renewal makes me young again. By any of the traditional definitions of middle age I certainly do not qualify but not yet willing to accept that I am an old age person, no matter what others may think. Why? Because I have been blessed with inspiration to stay fit and age gracefully. I just do not feel old and hence I am pursuing my dreams.
My most recent dream was the launching of my new business brand “Nothing Beats Business Success” – www.nothingbeatsbusiness.com. A news release was sent out on Friday night launch the brand. I was as excited as a pig in mud. I said to myself and all those willing to hear “Today is the first day of the rest of my life”.
When I awoke on Saturday morning to go on my early morning walk I had already received responses of best wishes on the launch from Barbados’ Ambassador to China, a representative of the Guyana Diaspora in New York, the head of a leading public relations firm in New York, a consultant environmentalist in Ottawa as well as an invitation to talk on the “Caribbean Forum” Internet radio show in the US about my latest venture. This was all possible as a result of the power of the information superhighway.
Earlier in the week, again as a result of the power of the Internet, I had a very pleasant surprise from Guyanese Dr. Joseph Butchey who now resides in Ontario, Canada. Joe and I were students at UWI, Mona in the early 1960s when we both played cricket on the university’s cricket team. We have not been in contact for more than 50 years and somehow he received my weekly column via email. Even though we had not been in contact with each other over the years, our exchange in correspondence revealed that there was a third party pool of persons from that era who were “colleagues in touch” with us both.
This brought back memories of the 1960 to 1963 era and caused me to reflect on the whereabouts of our other colleagues. One immediate result of this reflection was the fact that many of our then contemporaries have now passed which makes me more resolved to stay fit, age gracefully and make a contribution for the rest of my life.
How the communications process has been transformed! I remember as a boy scout in the 1950s we would work towards our Semaphore badge. The Semaphore flag system is an alphabet signalling system based on the waving of a pair of hand-held flags in a particular pattern. Then there was the Morse code badge. Morse code is a method of transmitting text information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment.
Then there was electrical telegraph, wireless telegraphy, telegram, cablegram and telex. Let us not forget the air letter form which was the economical way of communicating with friends and relatives through the postal service when we were at university in the 1960s. Today, the grandchildren and great grandchildren have iPhone, iPad, iPod and Tablets as standard book bag equipment for playing games and as a multi-purpose communications tool. A further manifestation of the power of the information superhighway.
Then there is social media marketing which is an attempt to use social media, e.g. Facebook and Twitter, to persuade consumers that one’s company’s products/services satisfy their needs, at a profit. This is all facilitated by the Internet.
Public Relations has always been a dominant and valuable marketing communications tool. Not only can it increase public awareness for a company, it can also shift an established perspective through effective communications.
These days the Internet has stepped in to become a viable source of news reaching large amounts of consumers each day. It is encouraging therefore to see our local newspapers having more of robust online presence and leveraging the benefits of the information superhighway.
(Dr. Basil Springer GCM is Change-Engine Consultant, Caribbean Business Enterprise Trust Inc. – CBET – Columns are archived at www.cbetmodel.org and www.nothingbeatsbusiness.com).