Whoever said history is simply the prelude was certainly right.  What an amazing time to be alive.  While I could point to the U.S. Presidential election fiasco of 2000 as evidence, or the on-again, off-again, on-again nature of Middle Eastern crises, or even the punishment the equity markets have taken in light of such events, such things are not nearly so important as the events of this past week in Prague and Madrid, the two most recent cities I've had the joy to address.  It never ceases to amaze me; the capacity of modern Magicians in this Network Age.

I'm in a business class lounge in Madrid, awaiting my return trip home.  The Sun Technology Days tour (or Sun TechDays, as they're called this year) hit Prague earlier in the week.  A few of us then flew down to Madrid for another event addressing developers. This is my third trip to Madrid in the past two years - and the developer audiences keep getting bigger each time.  There's an amazing uptake of Java in the community here, and the spirit keeps growing.  And by coincidence, the more Java we give away, the bigger the bottom line at Sun.

I think I called Liz every night on this particular trip.  We're moving soon, so we have much to discuss - not to mention the fact that I miss the hell out of her every time I travel.  So we try and make up for it with a nightly call.  One of these days I'm hoping we can take one of these trips together.  In the mean time, there is the phone.

In addition to the telephone, which seems to be available in just about every hotel room in the world, there is also the television.  I can't remember the last time I stayed in a hotel that didn't have CNN, which seems to be almost as ubiquitous as the telephone now.  I habitually turn the television to CNN whenever I'm abroad, but especially this trip, with such a fascinating election  aftermath in the U.S. taking place.  So this trip, I've been watching CNN even as I call Liz.  And since we're twin news junkies, she would invariably be watching CNN as well; the soundtrack to our lives.  Having grown up in the 1960's, having watched the very first satellite broadcast between Europe and America on television, having witnessed  the nascent broadcast network triad explode into a cacophony of cable, having actively participated in the IT industry, which is the very enabler of globalization, I am still amazed that Liz and I can speak on the phone as we watch the very same story unfold on CNN.  Simultaneously.  I was in Prague, she was in Manhattan.  I was in Madrid, she was in Manhattan.  I could be just about anywhere, as could she, and we could speak as we share the same news program in real time.  To me, that is amazing.  By Liz's reckoning, there was a discernible delay of about 1 second, which we could hear over the phone, between her rendering of CNN and mine.  About 1 second -- light-speed round trip to the stationary bird hovering in the Clarke belt and forwarded via coax to hotel rooms around the world.

In the end, it probably doesn't matter who wins the U.S. Presidential election of 2000.  I'd taken the trouble of suggesting we ought to draft Colin Powell for President, posting the idea on this web site for a few days.  But I've taken that off now.  I might as well have suggested drafting me for president.  It probably doesn't matter much at all.  Because it's not so much what the president of the United States does or doesn't do in this age of Magic.  It's what the Magicians do.  The Magicians provide the ephemeralizing change agents that are reshaping processes, increasing productivity and creating wealth world wide.  It's software in the Network Age that has to power to provide meaningful, life altering change; not the President.  Arguably, the position is more decorative than functional any more, although I'm sure having one's finger "on the button," as it were, still represents something of which we should be wary.  And to the extent that we look to the Presidential "bully pulpit" for guidance, the entire world is curious as to which of the two contenders will emerge the victor.  But in this age of Magic, the entire world will know as soon as the courts (laughably) decide because of the ubiquity of CNN.  With any luck, Liz and I will be watching together at home when they do.  And either way, I'm sure we'll get a good laugh at the outcome.  Perhaps, in the end, that is the true value after all.