When did it become backward to be simplicity? Every day we are faced with the marketing frenzy to get the latest, and greatest...not because it's better because it does more "stuff" and of course we always want to be able to do more! Or do we?
Over the last number of months I've been hearing more and more about the
One Laptop per child organization and their development of a $100 laptop. I'm not going to get into the details of this program or computer, but it begs the question of how much that we have sitting in our home and on our computer has many components that we needed to have when we bought it, because it sounded "cool" but realistically we never use it!
Same thing with mobile technology -- we use it for emailing and calling and maybe there are some "heavy users" but most of us listened to the sales pitch and said "yes" to a whole bunch of stuff we don't need.
I remember years ago when I was sitting in a room with engineers from the company I was with and the engineers from the suppliers. There was a desire to get down to a significantly less costly cable set-top box. As I sat there listening to the engineers speak about what the consumer needed on this box it was obvious that the ones who like the toys, shouldn't be making assumptions about the user. In one instance the supplier indicated the ability to lower the cost if some of the buttons were removed from the front of the box. Our engineers said "No...our customers expect the buttons to be there." To which I said "there are buttons on the box now?" You see if my technology doesn't work , I don't go looking to fix it...I just call the support desk!
Needless to say I was viewed as if I had just blasphemed the world of technology and was seen as a dinosaur, who was soon to be extinct.
I'm not saying technology isn't great. I love it. But the question becomes is with new laptops, software etc. being launched daily -- is it really required?
I think all of us should take a step back, forget about the marketing hype and actually ask ourselves (and our corporations) is this something we need and is it truly going to enhance our performance, or do we just want to show off our new toys to our friends?
Over the last number of months I've been hearing more and more about the
One Laptop per child organization and their development of a $100 laptop. I'm not going to get into the details of this program or computer, but it begs the question of how much that we have sitting in our home and on our computer has many components that we needed to have when we bought it, because it sounded "cool" but realistically we never use it!Same thing with mobile technology -- we use it for emailing and calling and maybe there are some "heavy users" but most of us listened to the sales pitch and said "yes" to a whole bunch of stuff we don't need.
I remember years ago when I was sitting in a room with engineers from the company I was with and the engineers from the suppliers. There was a desire to get down to a significantly less costly cable set-top box. As I sat there listening to the engineers speak about what the consumer needed on this box it was obvious that the ones who like the toys, shouldn't be making assumptions about the user. In one instance the supplier indicated the ability to lower the cost if some of the buttons were removed from the front of the box. Our engineers said "No...our customers expect the buttons to be there." To which I said "there are buttons on the box now?" You see if my technology doesn't work , I don't go looking to fix it...I just call the support desk!
Needless to say I was viewed as if I had just blasphemed the world of technology and was seen as a dinosaur, who was soon to be extinct.
I'm not saying technology isn't great. I love it. But the question becomes is with new laptops, software etc. being launched daily -- is it really required?
I think all of us should take a step back, forget about the marketing hype and actually ask ourselves (and our corporations) is this something we need and is it truly going to enhance our performance, or do we just want to show off our new toys to our friends?
2 comments:
Many years ago, in the dark ages when the Internet was emerging into the graphical wonderland it has since become, I sat in a meeting where the techie powers-that-be were planning on how to implement email throughout a seven thousand person organization.
There was already a VAX network installed and many people had access to email via the Vaxen but not everyone in the organization had access or an email account and the techies agreed, it didn't make sense to put a lot of expensive VT-220 terminals on people's desks because those same people were in the process of having IBM PCs placed on their desks and there wouldn't be any room left to work.
After an endless uproar about the latest and greatest, best possible email solution, the genius techies and their VP had pretty well decided to purchase, install and configure Lotus Notes on 7,000 desks.
From a previous assignment, I was aware of how 'well' Lotus Notes worked (hey, everybody's got Lotus Notes these days, right?) and I was also acutely aware of how breathtakingly expensive it would be to purchase the licenses, implement, configure and maintain such a system, not to mention yearly tithes to Lotus and endless updates.
It wasn't an experience I looked forward to repeating, especially on such a grand scale.
Still, Lotus Notes was 'hot' and 'cool' and 'cutting edge', so of course it was the best solution, even though it was going to cost about the same as purchasing - lock, stock and barrel - one of the smaller countries in the world, like the Barbados or Tahiti.
In desperation, I explained there was this thing called the Internet, which had been around for awhile and it now had a graphical interface and we could easily and relatively inexpensively install one Server and one domain, which could easily serve 7,000 people and as a bonus, communicate with the entire world.
On the other hand, Lotus Notes would require hundreds of Servers and would NOT communicate with the rest of the world. This is the point where I always get that "What are you, an alien?" look and no-one says anything for an uncomfortable, several minutes.
Recently I noticed the organization does finally have Internet email access.
I often wonder if they figured out a way to filter those Internet email accounts through the Lotus Notes they purchased and installed - or if they just added a Server?
Patricia ... I like the KISS principle and you hit a couple of hot buttons from my experience.
1. Techies do OFTEN make assumptions about what their audience would like ... and when they do ask for input they ask people with a similar outlook to themselves. Strange that the answer is so similar to their own.
2. Companies often spend a ton of money on items that bring little value ... which means there is less money for the vital components of the organization. How many companies have state of the art presentation facilities that are only used very occasionally? How many employees have expensive PDAs that they use as a phone and to play games? etc. etc. Wouldn't it be nice to take some of that type of budget and apply it to employee retention ... or better yet, to buy great consulting services from you or me? :-)
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