The tipping point

Is it time for a pause?

Here we go again.  More new “stuff”.  This time from Google.  A browser of all things… It comes complete with a comic book.

Personally, I wonder if the tech industry really gets it. Instead of developing something new, what consumers and knowledge workers want is a set of tools to help us deal with all the information that is bogging us down and preventing us from doing the jobs we were hired to do in the first place. 

Now, granted, I haven’t played with the new Google browser. Maybe this is the answer.  Maybe Google has crafted something exceptionally useful.  Time will tell.  But I tell you this, consumers and knowledge workers are thirsty for anything to help solve the pain.

Want proof?  Check out this story that appeared last week in Computerworld.

Two things jumped out at me in this story.

  1. Information overload is personally impacting CIOs.
  2. Even the top tech wizards at corporations around the country are forced to create an information management system built out of freeware, shareware, bailing wire and chewing gum.

I don’t know about your company, but the folks in our IT department here at Xerox aren’t fans of employees ad hoc downloading widgets from no-named companies to their work computers.

There are several analysts that are starting to sound the battle cry for corporations worldwide.  One is Jonathan Spira, a head analyst at Basex, and another is David Newman at Gartner. I loved what Newman said in the Computerworld story… “I don’t think we understand how bad it’s going to get, especially as more young people come into the workplace…We can’t put our head in the sand about this.”

Given the fact, that Google is one of the companies that have joined with Xerox to create the Information Overload Research Group, maybe they are starting to figure out that consumers want something to make their lives simpler, not more complicated.   

Let’s hope so…

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