Recently, I have experienced the duality of one's "place in the world" - my company moved office locations, the Wikileaks fiasco has been unfolding, and my mail hold with the USPS has not been "un-held". All of which has left me wondering, what will the future hold for us as we become less rooted to a single "address" and gravitate towards a fluid "where I'm at now" lifestyle?
Due to some major serendipity, my company (Nuxeo) recently moved offices from Burlington, MA to the Cambridge Innovation Center. From the time that the ink dried on the new lease to the time that I had my "Nerd Girls Rule" button propped on my fancy, new desk was a mere five days (and that included the Thanksgiving weekend). With 5 more minutes, all of our systems, website, invoices etc had the correct address for us....it was like magic. It proved to me the fluidity of a physical address - and how little it mattered in its permanence in cyberspace. It changed with us, real-time.
During this same time period, the Wikileaks scandal broke wide-open - and despite their hosting provider and others essentially shutting them down (initially), Wikileaks still exists. They transitioned to a new address - and have kept plugging away at digital anarchy. In cases like this, does a physical address make any difference? The short answer is no - if Julien Assange has a laptop and Wifi, he can keep perpetuating this attack on the world. Again, the lack of permanence - and what it means to the public (and law enforcement) proved itself.
So what does this translate to for a sole person? Let me tell you a story.
Since the Thanksgiving weekend, I have been desperately trying to get my home mail delivered (it was on hold with the USPS due to extensive travel). Despite the somewhat digital-friendly form that allowed me to place the hold, somehow the system (or more likely, the people within the system) have not resumed the mail service since I've been back.
You may wonder why getting my mail is so important - it is because I get one bill that requires me to pay by check. Yes, a check in 2010. I've been a digital payer of bills for many years now - and since I've changed physical addresses about 15 times in the past 15 years, it comes in pretty handy (again, that fluidity thing). I don't have to worry about if the mail got to the vendor, I know exactly when it posts, and heck, it saves me 34 cents with every single bill. Except for one.
In America, "A person may have more than one house or live in multiple locations, but has only one domicile. A domicile is a permanent residence - the place where a person returns to even though s/he may temporarily reside elsewhere."
Between Google and my GPS, I think that the US Government has a pretty good idea where I can be reached at any given time. So why do I need to have a single address - versus a "where I'm at now" location and lifestyle? Will going fully digital force a "1984" Big Brother act (or any other movie reference) on us? Or will it free us from the constraints of four walls and a physical address?
Ponder away my fellow Nerds.
