eDave

I have just finished doing a series of lectures, via webinar, for an organization that provides state wide training. I'm not particularly comfortable with all the technical stuff and every time I had to present I had to figure out how to connect my bluetooth headset to my phone. Every time I had to slowly work through how to connect computer and phone to the network, turn my camera on, and the be set and ready, on time, to do the presentation.

It's a different kind of phenomenon training this way. I wasn't able to see my audience and there wasn't much discussion but I was able to feel them there, oddly, and feel them listening. I sat there in my office chair at home, lecturing to sites all over a state that's far away and to which travel would have be complex. It was, in the end, kind of a wonderful experience.

I like the idea, as a teacher or as a trainer, of having the opportunity to share information and insight and maybe even spark some debate or discussion afterwards. I also like that I feel a future here that technology may be able to make me a part of. It's no secret that travelling with a wheelchair and other equipment that makes it possible for me to get, comfortably from one place to another, can be difficult. While, now, I can still do all that, and, now, I still enjoy doing all that. There may become a time where that is more difficult.

My future, in my mind, does not think of retirement. I don't know how you retire from a 'cause' or from a 'mission.' So, when this series was all over. When I realized that I was able to set it up and then deliver the training - I thought maybe, just maybe, I'm going to get to do what I like to do even when I need a different way to do it.

I've got several trips lined up over the next year or so and I'm thrilled about that. I like meeting people, I like learning from my audiences, I like seeing new ways of doing things. And now, maybe, just maybe, I can like doing that for a very, very, very, long time.