• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 6, 2009

Sometimes the most analog of things can prove so vexing, even in the digital world. That proved the case this morning, when some of the academic world’s top digital media gurus were stymied in their effort to get to this morning’s session of iDMAa 09’s conference on the campus of Ball State University. The analog devil in this case, proved to be the campus shuttle bus that was supposed to convey the delegates from their hotels to the David Letterman Building on the BSU campus.

“It’s unbelievable, that with all the media technology that we have at our disposal, we still can’t connect with the rest of the conference,” one agitated professor said to me in the lobby of the Lees Inn in Muncie.”

“Yeah, unfortunately, we still have to live in the real world,” I replied.

“I hate that,” he retorted.

When some BSU campus vans showed up to shuttle us, There was plenty of talk among the tardy professors about the virtues of virtual reality, and the Matrix. One suggested that the shuttle bus incident was due to a “glitch in the program.” Another suggested that at any moment, we’d see an identical van with alternate universe versions of ourselves coming at us from the other direction.”

“Yeah, but they’ll have smiles on their faces,” I noted.

What would Neo do?