Can the Internet Change Your Life? An Oregon Perspective
While the Internet has been around for a number of years, it
has definitely become mainstream culture in the last couple of years. In
Oregon, this has wrought some interesting if not outright unusual changes.
Multnomah County in the Northwest corner of the state is the smallest county
with the greatest population. The reason that it is so much more populated is
the simple fact that most of the rest of the state is remote, either suited for
growing wheat, corn, cattle, or bison.
That part which not suited for either metropolitan living or large-scale
farming is wilderness. Oregon has numerous mountains, valleys, rivers and
lakes. When I grew up in Central Oregon, you could drive outside of town about
five minutes, pull the car to the side of the road, turn off the engine and
headlights and be completely cutoff from the encroachment of civilization. The
stars shone brightly and the coyotes howled.
It really isn't that different today. Without the connection of telephone wire
and computer modem, many people are as completely cut off from society as
people living at the North Pole. In the city, we live with computers as a
technology nicety. We could get by without one, but who would want to? In the more
remote parts of the state, it's more than just a "nice to have."
Government
As part of my recent survey of Oregon cities and counties
(see my article, the ABCs of Oregon), I discovered that nearly all of the
county governments (30 of 36) have a web presence of their own. They are all
represented on the National Association of Counties website. Many of the 30, actually
conduct business on their site or at least post current events, meeting
announcements, and council decisions. Many of the larger cities are also web
savvy and schools are nearly all ahead of the game.
Business
While not many of us are going to become "dot-com"
millionaires, Oregon is home to several high-tech companies that are leading
the way to newer and better lives for all of us. Hewlett Packard has a large
presence in Corvallis and Tektronix (one of the technology pioneers) is located
in Beaverton.
People
One of the ways folks are reaping the benefits of the
internet is through online games and contests. One of the recent entrants into
the web portal business is www.iwon.com where you can easily find that in the
last year 25 people from Oregon have won in either their daily, weekly or
monthly drawings. While Oregon only has 1.2% of the adult U.S. population, they've had 1.5% of the winners.
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