A Gopher by Any Other Name...

As a former destination marketing exec, I can't help but applaud the Chamber of Commerce and their affiliates over in Punxutawney, Pennsylvania for pulling off another successful Groundhog Day celebration. The event took place earlier this week when hundreds of people gathered to watch Punxutawney Phil announce his verdict regarding the season's end.

Six more weeks of winter, so say his handlers who proclaim that the immortal gopher- he's been prognosticating for well over 120 years- saw his shadow, and therefore the rest of us are doomed to suffer a month and more of cloudy skies. That is really unfortunate since the landscape, both economic and atmospheric, isn't looking so great right now and it would have been nice to hear some good news.

The upside...athough we may have to wait for blue skies, they are right around the corner. I'm hoping that with the help of an $825 million stimulus package, that's true of our economy too.

Another Famous Gopher
This morning, I ran across an article by USA Today describing how and in what capacity different generations use online technology. I can't speak for everyone else, but based on my own experience, I thought the writer was spot on.

As a Generation X'er, I remember when my peers were afraid to do anything online. That was before we all got hooked on Ebay and threw caution to the wind. Now, I have to instill a fair amount of discipline to stop myself from checking email at red lights. Talking on the phone, texting and driving... It's a bit much, don't you think?

Reading the article was a stark reminder of how far we've come and how fast. It brought to mind another Gopher, a search and retrieval protocol created in the early 1990's by my alma mater, the University of Minnesota. This was before a lot of our students were even born so I realize that was a long, long time ago.

To summarize, it's possible that Gopher could have given the World Wide Web a run for its money, but in 1993 administrators began charging for its services, thus stopping its expansion cold. I was hoping they would hang in there for a time. I was hoping for something more... interesting. Perhaps something akin to the VHS-BetaMax wars of the 80's, or the more current DVD -vs- Blue Ray, Mac vs PC saga... Now from a marketer's perspective, that would have been a battle that fun to watch!

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