Our world may be undergoing the largest fundamental change since the advent of the printing press over 400 years ago. Guttenberg’s invention brought stunning changes in governments, science, commerce and the arts. The ability to produce large quantities of printed material provided information to a large chunk of humanity who quickly created and demanded change. Today we are in the midst of an information revolution: PCs, the Internet, mobile technology and social media are major forces for global change.

Only 20 years ago home PCs and mobile phones were a rare luxury, a laptop virtually unheard of. Only five years ago the iPad did not exist and Facebook was a fraction of what it now is. The Arab Spring brought fundamental change in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and the world, largely driven by Twitter and other new communication means. Our last 25 years saw the fall of the Berlin Wall, the emergence Dubai from desert sands, change in China, Russia, India, Latin America and the US that we could have barely dreamed of.

In school we learned the proper format of a “business letter”, typed papers with a name and address in the upper corner. Less than a generation later, people may well go years without seeing a physical letter. Yet, we can be sure, they will daily use email, text message and social media interaction. Business courses of tomorrow will spend as much effort on social media interaction as we spent learning letter formats. Many jobs people will have in coming years have not yet even been invented.

Opportunity arises from this change and the interconnected and global nature of our world. It is easier than it has ever been to communicate with people globally, travel and conduct global business. One does not need to be a wise veteran to remember days when overseas phone calls often required operator assistance, a one second delay, and a need to pause and wait for your caller to complete sentences because two people speaking at once would cause a silence break. With this easy global interaction comes both challenges and opportunities that stem from both old and new technology.

Today’s professional must master the tools of social media and everything that goes with it. Many learned to write by completing assignments of long writing samples, yet in today’s world, selling or putting together a major deal is as likely to be done in three sentence blocks via Blackberry. Several major global business leaders I know have not looked at desktop email or printed letters in years. Today’s senior professionals took courses in public speaking yet are in a world where YouTube skills can be equally or more valuable.

So have today’s youth have inherited the world and will soon run circles around those of us who’ve been working hard for a decade or three? Not so fast. Our changing world requires adaptation to new skills for seasoned professionals but also necessitates new entrants learning some old school basics.

New professionals are typically very proficient with text, email and social media communication but often need improvement on core skills. Face to face meetings have been the most successful means of communication forever and will be for our lifetime. Today few universities emphasize the importance of face to face communication despite it being a major factor in determining success in virtually any field. Those who grew up texting also sometimes suffer from an inability to communicate clearly in those instances when 140 characters or five sentences is not enough. If you are old school, go new, if new, go old school.

We live in exciting times, an amazing and changing world. Perhaps the greatest area of opportunity for us all comes from the ability to use global connections to increase understanding. With understanding of course comes increased success in business, academics or whatever your pursuit. Knowing ones customer, student or constituent, especially those across the globe, is easier than ever. I spend half of each year in the Middle East, a region that is massively misunderstood. Thirty years ago the number of American and European professionals who visited China was a fraction of today.

Across the globe we have more solid connection and cooperation. Combining skills, face to face bridge building and the staggering power of today’s new communication tools provides us the opportunity to make strides in medicine, science, business and diplomacy that the world had never before seen. Beyond your publication in a leading journal or closing major deal, this connection and understanding may well be the greatest tool to solve big problems, increase discovery and create world peace. Whether new to a career or a seasoned veteran, understanding this change presents amazing opportunity for us all. Let’s enjoy the ride.

Bruce Fenton (www.brucefenton.com) is the Founder and Managing Director of Atlantic Financial Inc., a global investment firm which focuses on advisory work in emerging markets such as the Middle East. He can be reached at www.facebook.com/brucefentonpage