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On his return from a vacation in Canada, a US attorney was asked by his dad, who barely finished elementary school, if he visited ‘Ottawa’, Canada’s capital? The attorney said no, that he didn’t visit the city. He didn’t tell his dad the whole truth; he had never heard of the city. Also a few months ago, a reporter conducted an impromptu interview in Harvard where he asked some students to name the capital of Canada. Only a Canadian student knew the answer. It appears Ottawa is not the only obscure capital. Miss USA made headlines recently when she couldn’t name the capital of her home state, Nevada.

Growing up, we were made to ‘cram’ our heads with Nigeria’s 30 states (now 36) and their capitals. A day in school would be incomplete without a chant of: Abia-Umuahia! Adamawa-Yola! Akwa Ibom – Uyo!…Yobe, Damaturu! Before GSM became popular, it was common to know up to twenty phone numbers by heart; it saved one the inconvenience of reaching for crumpled papers to make a call. Likewise, people had to pay attention when going to unfamiliar places or they would miss their way going back home. Now, Google, phone contacts and GPS do all the work for us.

Many of our parents could not afford dictionaries when they went to elementary schools. They compiled vocabularies in their notebooks and made time to visit the library (if they had one) to find their meanings. When I went to school, I too kept a ‘Words and Meaning’ book but it didn’t take a trip to the library to find their meanings; I had a dictionary. With smartphones and Microsoft Word’s synonym feature, I doubt that my little niece has need to maintain a vocabulary book. A click of the button will give her what she needs anytime, anywhere. With Auto correct, I don’t know if she would bother committing spellings to memory.

Could the ease with which we get knowledge make us value it less than our parents did? Severally, during episodes of Frank Edoho’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire my dad earned my respect when he got the correct answers to questions I, with a University education, had never encountered. Sometimes, I need a dictionary to find the meaning of some words he uses. I guess people who waited days and walked miles to find the meaning of ‘Lackadaisical’ are less likely to forget it than those who google it with smartphones.

Certainly, Google makes life easier. Technology does help us concentrate on more important things. It also enables us accomplish more tasks in less time. With a technology like Google, we work more efficiently with increased productivity. I can imagine how much more difficult it would have been to, for example, blog before the internet era. With Google, I simply take care of the substance of my writing and rely on technology to fill in the details; Wikipedia saves me from having to dust volumes of encyclopedia. The analogy can be applied to all areas of life. Truth is that the concerns being raised about this internet age must have been raised too when calculators were invented. If it is any consolation, a popular scientist(?) was reputed to not have known his phone number by heart. He said he needed his brain for other things.

However handy technology comes in making life easier for us, we must realize that there are still occasions when Google cannot come to the rescue. Job applicants still get asked current affairs in interviews and law students still have to commit hundreds of cases to memory to pass law school.

That said, we will make more effort to know our trivia if we can commit to memory (pun intended) the saying that knowledge is power. Still not convinced? Ask Jeopardy's Ken Jennings (US) and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire‘s Aroma Ufodike (Nigeria) and they will tell you that knowledge is also money.

On a lighter note, there is a hilarious scenario I see in the future. When Google’s self driven cars are finally produced in commercial quantities, I can see them impeding traffic (a ‘dulling’ I absolutely welcome) to the frustration of humans who seem to be programmed to habitually exceed posted speed limits. It will be fun to watch humans honk irritably at the robots which won’t give a damn because they (the driverless cars) are bereft of emotion and common sense.

Finally, having judged (I did) the subjects at the beginning of this article, let’s see how we will fare ourselves. Depending on whether you are in Africa or North America, do let me know in the comments section the capital of Cameroon or Mexico. As for me, I just googled to find the answers.

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As the euphoria that met the deal between Facebook and WhatsApp gradually ebbs, it is time to reflect on the deal and what it  portends for large corporations, and what lessons employers, the workforce, job seekers and budding entrepreneurs can learn from Jan Koum’s tale of grass to grace. 

1. Doomsday Looms for Corporations

With a service that allows users to exchange free instant messages and pictures, phone service providers must be bracing for the impact the popularity of WhatsApp will have on their bottom line. This is not the first time, and it will not be the last, that a small company has emerged with a free service that competes with a service hitherto provided by bigger companies at exorbitant prices to consumers. There is Google Voice which some households have used to replace their house phones. There is WebMD  stopping people from going to their doctor’s to check out that red spot on the neck, not to mention attorneys who are losing their clients to websites  peddling legal forms and advice.

Although it is obvious that some of the free services mentioned cannot compare to those traditional businesses and professional providers, there is panic in various industries and businesses are adjusting by buying their competitions and changing their business models so that they will continue to be relevant by offering affordable services to their customers. However, given how much innovation the internet has brought, time will come when traditional businesses, as we know them, will lose their relevance and be forced to close up shop(s).

2. Chance Favors the Prepared

Often, when news like the one of the Facebook-WhatsApp deal breaks, we are inclined to think of how fortunate and lucky the beneficiary of what we like to believe is a windfall is. However, it is much more than luck. It is reward for years of hard work and perseverance. In this article Forbes gives us insight into the many hurdles Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s owner, had to jump to get where he is today.  Born in a small village near Ukraine, Jan faced hardship growing up and at 16, migrated to the United States where he and his mother lived on government assistance collecting food stamps. Remembering his roots, Jan signed his contract with Facebook in a building in Mountain view California where he once stood in line to collect his welfare. I know these rag-to- riches tale are becoming all too common but they go to show that the lion was once a cub and that it takes persistence to reach our goals. 

Stories like this teach us that success is more like 90% hard work and 10% luck. Without hard work, one will have nothing to give in exchange  for an opportunity when it presents itself.

3. For Some Professions, the Nerdier, the Better

The third lesson is that sometimes the most talented people do not know how to market themselves. Jan Koum, who is known to avoid the press and from all indication appears to be reserved, once applied for a job at Facebook and was rejected. While I do not know why Facebook didn’t offer him the job, it is apparent he didn’t market himself ‘good enough’ for Facebook to take notice of his capabilities. Getting a job requires the skills of a salesman because you have to effectively sell yourself to prospective employers before you can land that highly coveted job. In today’s economy, even with an impressive resume and  credentials, talented but socially inept people may find it hard to get a job because employers fail to see beyond the weak handshake, lack of eye contact and slumped shoulders. The truth however is that for some professions, introverts, who by the way  are more likely to display these body languages, fare better than their counterparts on the job. It is common knowledge that most computer geeks, writers, scientists and many people whose job requires some creativity are introverted and may not be able to impress employers during job interviews. While one cannot ignore that there are some jobs, like customer service jobs, that require  people who are friendly and people-oriented, employers should know when a job doesn’t require social skills and give candidates who lack them but know their stuff a chance.

4. Courage to Budding Entrepreneurs

It is easy to get discouraged after months and sometimes years of tens of job applications that don’t get even as much an acknowledgement. Also, self-doubt usually  set in, and job seekers may tend to think that they are no good. But sometimes, disappointment paves way for greater things. In fact, most great people were forced to greatness by harsh circumstances. When left with no prospects, we are more inclined to work harder than when we are in the midst of comfort and wealth. Jan developed his App during his period of unemployment. He didn’t give up. Is it not ironic that Facebook which was reluctant to offer him a job that may not have paid six figures now excitedly gave $19 billion dollars to him. Had Facebook hired Jan and he developed the App as their employee, what we know as WhatsApp may have been yet another feature on Facebook and Jan might not have received any personal credits, not to mention billions, for having developed it.

Having watched people I know go from being unemployed to building successful businesses, I have learnt that if we set our minds to it, we too can build something out of nothing and even become employers ourselves. And when we do, who knows who will come knocking at our doors?

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Every profession has one: the dental hygienist who scowls while cleaning a patient’s teeth and prattles on about the patient’s bad breath  once at the nurses’ station; the nursery school teacher who chatters about a child’s unkempt hair; and the female bank teller who wonders aloud how a bank customer with so little money in his savings account has the audacity to proposition her.

In “Acetone and Acid Tones”, Anh Do, writing for Los Angeles Times, told a story of her visit to a salon where some Vietnamese salon workers gave their unvarnished opinions of their patrons while varnishing their clients’ nails. The nail technicians gossiped about  how a client who had revealed his toe nails was actually dirty despite his neat appearance; marveled that  a lady who drove a Mercedes yet haggled for a better price could be so cheap ; and pointed out that a lady with a calloused hands was holding an expensive purse. They spoke in their native language unaware that the author, whose ‘rough’ hands they noticed and labelled a gambler’s hands, understood Vietnamese. While reading the article, I reflected on  how vulnerable people are when they go to the gynecologist for a pap smear, confide in a tax attorney that the sister  they claimed as dependent in their tax return is in fact living with an uncle, or make those confessions to a priest that their family and friends do not know about.

After musing on the subject, I felt a certain relief knowing that attorneys vow to ‘hold inviolate the confidences’ of their clients; that doctors promise that ‘all that may come to their knowledge in the exercise of their profession which ought not to be spread abroad, they will keep secret and will never reveal’; and that it is a crime for a catholic priest to betray a penitent by word or in any other manner or for any reasons. But for this rein on these professions, the very essence of their calling will be destroyed.

Knowing that I do not have to worry about my physician, my attorney or my confessor saying a little too much, my musings turned on my subway sandwich artisan. With the advent of sophisticated mobile phones with camera and video recording features, I have had to cringe severally at things people post online. There was the subway artisan who posted a picture of a sub he made for a regular customer  who prefers rather messy subs. And there was the waitress who lost her job for posting online the receipt containing the signature of a patron who wrote on the receipt that she wouldn’t tip. Similar stories abound.

While I understand that it will be hard to mandate every worker keep mute about what they see in their line of work, it is important that employers teach their clients of that dignifying art of silence. One shouldn’t resist ordering a subway sandwich with all the vegetables on it for fear that the artisan will spread a story of how greedy he was. Nor should one engage a cleaning agency to come to his house only to overhear them idle chat about how the bathroom they are hired to clean make them want to puke.

I do not know if Anh Do continues to visit that salon. But I am sure that not all the patrons will take it in their stride if they knew that the very people they trust to enhance their looks leave them with a social scar. Many of us are indeed sensitive. It is not much to ask that people who render service to the public do so with quiet dedication. Or is it?