Trip Report, Part 2

The cool innovations I heard about in the U.S. were mostly new ways that Americans, consummate joiners that we are, have figured out to hook up with the like-minded. For better or worse, networking really is boldly going where no network has gone before.

So many people mentioned facebook in casual conversation that I began to suspect I was about the least hip person on the planet because I hadn’t signed up. That suspicion was confirmed when I got an invitation to join from my nearly 80-year-old uncle.

Websites like caringbridge.org and patientslikeme.com sent their founders to the health communication conference I attended in Atlanta. The connections people make with these tools help them heal.

So if my impression is correct that the country needs to pull out of a slump, then, as the saying goes, we have the technology. Whether its uses will ultimately unite or divide is another question.