I originally wrote and published this post way back in March, before the Translator site had even launched. Subsequently, it never got tweeted or spread, because we were busy writing new stuff that got sent out into the digital ether. But this being the first day of school, I thought it would be a good time to give this story its due. The post is about my memorable experience at Milwaukee College Preparatory School as a guest speaker during career day.

It’s interesting to see what has changed in the last five months. The iPad isn’t new, and is beginning to show up in schools. In fact, my alma mater Racine St. Catherine’s (yeah, St. Kate’s) is using them this fall. I’ve also seen some of the wonderful things Spreenkler and Romke de haan have done to foster community development, getting kids involved in digital projects.

Of course, the one thing that hasn’t changed is change: the constant, daily evolution and increasing pervasiveness of digital. It’s an ever-expanding, never-ending story. For all of us working in the business, that makes every day the first day of school.

Recently I had the privilege (I do not use that term lightly) to speak to three different groups of students at Milwaukee College Preparatory school. The students ranged from third graders to eighth graders, and my talk was part of the “Career Day” the school puts on each year. The topic of my presentation was—surprise—careers in digital. As part of it, I covered the incredible innovation we have witnessed in the last ten years. What took me a bit off guard was how pervasive digital has actually become—the sheer reality is staggering. Sure, we talk about it, tweet about it, and blog about it. But until I actually went and gave a presentation to kids who have never lived with anything else, I really didn’t understand the magnitude the things we do have on our culture.