The 100 Years Club Installment #118: 22 Bots & Bodies

I was recently telling someone that I started on social media in 2005, two years after I started my brand marketing consultancy and the year Facebook fell into the hands of adults and business people.

That got me thinking about what else has happened in the past two decades since I left corporate life and how it has changed how we live and work.

It puts things into perspective. Some of the gadgets and practices we can’t live without were invented just in the past two decades, and technology innovation is accelerating and proliferating.

1. 2003: The first camera phones hit the market (and I started theONswitch)
2. 2004: Facebook launched
3. 2005: YouTube was born
4. 2006: Twitter (originally called Twittr) emerged and Google acquired YouTube
5. 2007: The Amazon Kindle revolutionized reading
6. 2008: Hulu hit our screens
7. 2009: The smart thermostat made its debut
8. 2010: Apple introduced the iPad tablet
9. 2011: Siri started talking
10. 2012: 3D printing and drones became mainstream
11. 2013: Chromecast changed our TV-watching experience
12. 2014: The Selfie Stick debuted
13. 2015: We began wearing Apple Watches
14. 2016: AR and VR became the rage
15. 2017: 5G (and I wrote a book about AI)
16. 2018: Telehealth transformed the healthcare world
17. 2019: Smart home technologies abound
18. 2020: Quantum computing becomes a reality
19. 2021: Google Maps Live View helped us see where we’re going
20. 2022: The humanoid robot appeared
21. 2023: A new record was set for business start-ups
22. 2024: Canva Magic Studio turns everyone into an AI designer. (The image in this blog was created using it BTW.)

Pretty impressive list of inventions and changes, right?

We realize that many technologies we take for granted today are still in their infancy. Most of them make some aspects of our lives easier and simpler (including #12, which is kinda narcissistic but can enable us to capture more meaningful memories with friends and families).

I like to perform an exercise that also involves listing where I was and what I was doing during those years.

I learned how to apply most of those 22 innovations, but many “human” things also occurred during those 2+ decades.

• My daughters finished college, started careers, and married, and I became a grandmother (3x).
• The recession hit my company hard, but it rose from its ashes in a whole new form.
• I got divorced, moved three times, and wound up in AZ.
• My brother, mother, and two close friends died, and I broke bones twice (and recovered). Heartbreaks also heal, and memories are eternal (especially with the help of Google Photos).
• I helped hundreds of clients of all sizes, published ten books, launched a personal brand, and started this blog and a podcast.

As we age, dwelling on the past can often keep us from moving forward OR

It can give us perspective on where we’ve been, what we’ve done, who helped us along the way, and how to prep for the next 22.

My April theme is “Spring Cleaning,” Now is a great time to reflect on the past quarter of 2025 (and perhaps even the past 88 quarters) and decide what still serves us well, what we need to learn, and where to go next (and which devices and apps we’ll take with us).

Change (personal and technological)  is inevitable.

What you do about it is YOUR choice.