As the information revolution continues in full swing, with Apple recently taking a page from Microsoft by suing its way into total domination of a portion of the business – nice move, Apple – I guess I'd kind of had stronger hopes for humankind than all of this electronic democratization has produced.

Not unlike the wildly unpleasant experience one gets while driving the nation's road-rage-infected highways – motorists now mimicking the early days of the Morton Downey Jr. show as a matter of course – I continue to be astounded how the promise of an interconnected online world has gone off the rails, so quickly.

This is of particular interest to professionals in the retirement planning community, not just all 330 million of us in the country with keyboards on the smartphones in our pockets. Your job, your reputation, your ability to liaise with bigger clients and larger contracts and more influential people – continues to ride on your ability to be civil when you type.