How Companies Succeed in Social Business: Case Studies and Lessons from Adobe, Cisco, Unisys, and 18 More Brands

9. From Modems to iPhones: A Digital Life Journey

Jerome Pineau, Director of Social Strategy Consulting, Lithium

Understanding Social the Hard Way: By Doing It

Do you know what this is (see Figure 9.1)? Neither will anyone in another 10 years at most. But in 1986, this 300-baud modem was my life line and, at times, my bread and butter. Even before my first job, I surfed IRC. I hung out on various special interest bulletin boards (BBS) until the wee hours of the night. Early on, I joined a small, exclusive, poorly understood community of programmers and computer geeks. When Prodigy came out, I signed up immediately. And for years, I lived on AOL, CompuServe, and ICQ instant messenger.

Figure 9.1 The Hayes 300-baud Smartmodem came out in 1981. ...