It’s not exactly news that newspapers are, like the rest of the world connected by the internet, changing. When I started my first internship at a newspaper in 1982, the internet didn’t even exist. But today, it is in the hands of everyone. In fact, I recently read that more people on the planet have access to smartphones than have access to clean water. It seems absurd and immoral, but it is economic and social reality.

My own newspaper recently hired a new publisher, one who is far more comfortable with technology than her predecessor, one who is aggressively pushing for our product to be part of the 21st century game plan.

In furtherance of this strategy, the newsroom staff and I all just received Apple’s iPhone 6s, the latest iteration of the iPhone product. It is a powerful tool that lets us keep in touch with each other and the wired world, and also contribute to our online product instantly, from almost any location in our coverage area.

Honestly, I am very excited about this development. In the past, we often didn’t have a reliable way to communicate from the field, and it was implied that we should use our own phones (and their service costs) to communicate and contribute. Our new publisher clearly recognizes how unfair this was, and the first remedy, these iPhones, are now in our hands.

The learning curve for using a sophisticated tool like this is variable depending on how one wishes to use it, but I intend to learn everything I can about it, and milk it for all its potential. I want to put it to work for us.