Thinking about Dustin Hoffman
I’m sitting here on the plane watching The Graduate, a movie I’m surprised I’ve never seen before. There, on the big (little) screen up front is Mr. Magorium’s Emporium, a movie I’m glad I’ve never seen before. Same Dustin Hoffman, of course, separated by forty years or so.
It’s unusual to be able to watch someone’s career develop over that long a period of time.
But now, in the age of blogs and a million channels and the social graph, I wonder how unusual that really is. I had coffee at a party with Soledad O’Brien ten years ago and now I see her on TV announcing election results. I started reading Rich’s startup blog a few years ago, reading Tom Peters twenty five (!) years ago and emailing with some of my colleagues almost as long ago. (I think my first email with Guy Kawasaki was in 1987).
You’re going to be on people’s radar a lot longer than you think, longer than you’re going to be at your current job and longer than you might want. The web doesn’t forget.