The Electronic Age

When The Mister started his own farming operation about 30 years ago, he followed in his father's footsteps when it came to communications. He kept in touch with his employees by radio; each vehicle was outfitted with one, and there was one in the small office, as well. They used the code handed down from his father's generation - "Ten-Seven at home" meant The Mister was off the air at the specified location, and "Ten-Eight" meant he was again available on the radio. As a matter of fact, those early radios had two frequencies, so The Mister could switch over and talk to the Morrison Brothers Ranch office or his father or uncle or their employees. This was especially helpful the day that he had a trailer jack-knife on him and flip his truck on its side in a ditch; he had plenty of help in mere moments because of the radio.

The next innovation was "the mobile phone" or "cellular" - a long way to describe a portable telephone as big as a briefcase. They were insanely expensive, of course; I was not allowed to share his number with just anyone, lest we have to pay the per-minute charge for incoming calls. And even I was not allowed to call him "just because"; there needed to be a specific, important reason. "It's time for lunch, and I made enchiladas", was important enough, but not "where are you and when do you think you'll be home?"

Somewhere along the line, with California's help, we dropped the -ular and started calling them "cells" and the phones themselves began shrinking, and the prices dropped enough that even I had one (used only in case of flat tires and the like), and now we think nothing of using them to catch up with the latest news of our kids, and they have great ring-tones and games and internet connections, and sports scores...

I could go through a similar process with our computers - oh, how we prized that Cromemco that could keep track of every cotton bale! and had less computing power than most of today's wristwatches and all of today's cell phones - but you've been there, too, and you know what I mean.

It's important to keep up with the media in communication, like using instant messaging to "chat" with one of my offspring, or text-messaging to do the same, or even like using a blog to communicate with my neighbors. I see that even the stereotyped accountants are stepping out of their dimly lit offices and looking through their black-rimmed glasses at new ways of communicating. Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has an article about Ernst and Young recruiting young accountants through Facebook:

Ernst & Young LLP needs more than 5,500 college recruits for internships and entry-level jobs in North America this year. So it is trying to reach them in their natural habitat: a social-networking Web site.

The accounting firm is among a growing number of employers experimenting with newer forms of Internet recruiting to attract tech-savvy young people. Some are creating pages on social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Others have started recruiting-oriented blogs.

These approaches supplement older forms of online recruiting, such as posting job openings and descriptions on job boards such as Monster. Recruiters have joined networking sites such as LinkedIn as individuals to search members' résumés, post jobs and contact candidates.

Ernst & Young went a step further. In July it launched a page on Facebook with information and discussion boards aimed at college students; the company paid an undisclosed fee. Employers seek "new ways to reach out to the college audience," says Dan Black, director of campus recruiting for the Americas at Ernst & Young. The approach poses risks as well as rewards. Companies that solicit public feedback are likely to get negative as well as positive comments. The sites can also connect detractors who otherwise wouldn't have met. What's more, employers must continually update their sites to attract visitors.

Still, recruiting consultants and a growing number of employers think the advantages outweigh the risks.

"It's a very good thing for communicating with potential job seekers," says Mark Mehler, a co-founder of CareerXroads, a consulting firm that advises on staffing strategies. "You're reaching the student in their lair."

Now that's innovative, and smart, in my opinion.

So if Morrison Ranch wanted to carry on the tradition set by the forefathers of being on the cutting edge of technology, I wonder how that might look. Oh yes, a web portal for residents to use to communicate with each other! Coming February 3rd....