President's Message WWW.CAINE.ORG THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN' W hen I was a teenage boy living on our family farm in rural Maine I would get to work at the local gas station in Castine for my summer job by hitching a ride with one of our neighbors in the morning in his old green GMC pickup truck. Getting home was not as easy as my neighbor's schedule sometimes differed from mine at the end of the day. The eight-mile trek was too far to walk so out would come my trusty right hand thumb for a quick hitchhike home. I would get picked up almost immediately and would make it back to the farm in short order. In those days I never thought anything of the safety of hitchhiking and neither did my folks. Fast forward to present day and it is a different world. We live with closedcircuit television cameras and other electronic monitoring devices as well as GPS tracking on vehicles. With life safety first and foremost, buildings are equipped with fire alarm systems that don't simply go off but contact the managing agent and local fire department. Many buildings have 24-hour concierge, as well as sophisticated cameras, monitoring systems, and building-specific software to document every vendor visit and resident issue that may arise. While some may feel this society is becoming too much like "Big Brother is watching you," the reality is our information age has transformed into a technology age that will only continue to grow as the need for personal safety and overall documented accountability change. And with all the new technology come other issues that we as an industry must keep in focus. This month's issue has a number of great articles that touch on some of these many points. We hope you find these articles help while negotiating this delicate balance. Sincerely, Nicholas B. Boit 2019 CAI-NE Chapter President 2 CONDOMEDIA June 2019