Back in the day, when I used to ride the subway, there was a billboard ad that read “if u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb wth hi pay”

It was an ad for a court stenography school – the original “instant messaging”.

Unfortunately, the “instant message” has taken over our culture. I somehow think that our use of language reflacts our use – and abuse – of time.

As an elder in the graphic arts, who has watched the evolution of even the simplest devices – rotary phones to pushbutton, slow turning fax machines that took nearly twenty minutes a page to machines that now transmit and print a page every few seconds, snail mail to email to instant messaging – I’ve also seen a lack of patience and lack of tendency to think projects thru to completion amongst my younger peers. I know that I’ll catch heck for this – but I find myself saying more to others as well as to myself to “slow down” and consider the consequences of the shortcuts we’re taking.

Or as we say in our industry, there never seems to be enough time to do it right, but always time to do it again.

Speed over content, delivery over quality, etc.

- Jeff Kopito

PS – Heck, I’m guilty of it too. When I was searching for a domain name for a web coding service I developed, I settled on Webasx – a shortened name for Web Basics.
Eck – I still have to spell it out for everyone and no one seems to prounounce it correctly, Except for those youngsters that surround me…