Wow. Talk about overload. Go away on vacation for a week and the mountain of information that I need to scale to get back to normal is just ridiculous. I am sure you all can relate.
To be honest with you, as I spent the past two days trying in vain to dig out it got me thinking. How did we reach this place and who should I blame for all this mess?
I think it is the tech industry itself. The race for the coolest, the fastest, and the niftiest has created a monster that needs to be controlled.
Let’s be honest. For the past several years – the industry has been focused on giving me shiny and new things that offer the promise of a different way to interact with content or information in one form or another. But different doesn’t mean better. And it sure doesn’t mean easier. At least not to me.
Take for example one of the latest hot topics in the software world: Software As A Service – better known as SAAS. No apps to download. Accessible over the Internet. New features can be rolled out faster than ever before. Sounds great, right? Well sort of.
The question is who benefits from this technology innovation? So far… the IT department and few others. At the end of the day — these crazy-cool software apps loaded with Web 2.0 buzzwords don’t make it any easier for me to fill out an expense report or file a performance review for someone on my staff.
All I am saying is that different isn’t better. It is just different.
What needs to happen is for someone in the tech industry to step up and offer something that helps the knowledge worker – the everyday Joe. Not the IT department.
What we need now are technologies to make MY life easier. In fact there are several products on the market today that can help us all manage information easier. The thing is, only a few users know how to leverage the products out there to their fullest capability.
To me – the vendors that get back to the basics – helping me become more productive – are the one that will capitalize on a huge problem and a huge market opportunity.
You got this one right. It the shiny thing as mentioned by one of the IBM research guys. The problem is if you don’t have it or don’t use it, you are believed to be old fashioned or not tech savvy. I don’t care. I’m sorry if I’m a baby boomer and hate to use cell phones. I can’t understand most words my kids say to me when they call. I would rather surf the net or e-mail someone that use a cell phone. I’m not incompetent, I just want to spend my time where I want to spend my time without being thought of as some old hag.
Just yesterday I spent 2 1/2 hours working with EDS on a glitch in printing something. They are still working on a solution. Later in the day for my MBA course, I had to get the tech from a supplier company on the old fashion phone involved as their e-books don’t download to my PC correctly. I could have spent less time running out to a store to pick up a book than to get it off my PC. Technology, we are told is great, but when it doesn’t work overload is created.
Susan, your kids call people on their phones? My sister is 17 and she basically carries around a device that texts people that also happens to be a phone.
I did tech support for a few years and it ruined me for phones. I basically dread them. Too bad conference calls are as big of a part of business as email.
Josh, Oh yes a few calls. They text and IM and do a great job of keeping in touch with all their old friends (facebook,etc.O. I hardly ever use my phone at work. I’d rather e-mail people. Gladly, I’m not in more than 2 conference calls a week.