Tag Archives: technology

Oct16

Friday Miscellany

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Friday Miscellany

It has been a long and somewhat crazy week – between issues – like dishwasher replacement in my apartment and co-workers out with the flu – yet I have had a little time to wander through some of my favorite spots on the net and catch up on some reading.

First I have to applaud R. Bazinet’s “Accidental Technologist” blog – his latest post can be found here, he is an accomplished technologist, and an excellent writer…  and he has a great customer issue (complaint) tracker called CustomerFu – check it out.

Also, I spent some time on SocialMedian which I admit is occasionally a “guilty pleasure” because not all of what I clip is related to my work.  And Venturebeat, Techcrunch, Slashdot , Mashable and ReadWriteWeb are always good too.

And I spent a great deal of time this week troubleshooting for IE8 users, since our application was built before IE8 was being generally adopted, we (like MANY other applications) have had some users who have issues.  That is always a challenging exercise – from both the customer’s standpoint and the tech support standpoint… it is not easy to get people to update their browser settings.  The general sentiment is embodied by the quote from one person as “I don’t care that IE8 is the issue – make it work or I will go do something else.”   That is from the non-tech users.  The tech-savvy will usually assume it is the new browser and sometimes research and fix on their own.  We live in a world of extremes… I am hoping that we are helping to create a happy medium with our support and our tool.

A gal can hope… :-)

Oct6

Not the Target Market

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Not the Target Market

Recently I came across a blog posting about Web 2.0 advising people, that this technology isn’t going to go away and that if the audience’s excuse for not getting with the program was that they didn’t feel they were “the target market”, that they should get over it. 

Now, I am a lover of technology (I hear the “No Duh” out there).   I want the latest gadgets and play with things to learn them before resorting to opening the manual – and to be honest I have only a passing interest in target markets – but this one statement caught my attention and I have been pondering it for a day or so… it stuck with me so much that I am writing to share my thoughts on this concept.

First – where technology is concerned, I believe the “target market” is slim… we “early adopters” pave the way for mainstreaming technology and an “early adopter” in this field is either a young person or a seasoned tech person – there is a very narrow available demographic with the mindset to embrace the tech changes and nuances. 

Second – once something is mainstreamed it is no longer leading edge, and the people who use it just want it to work – they don’t really care why or how it works nor do they want to do much to make it work. 

Third – technology changes. If you wait long enough (and the wait time is getting shorter and shorter) something better, faster, simpler-appearing will show up.  It is the nature of the beast. 

What doesn’t change, as much, is the demographics of the people in the Target  Markets – the market segments may inflate or deflate but the specifics are fairly steady.  What does this mean?  Basically, if a person declares that they are not in the target market – take them at their word.  Which is really good manners anyway…

Aug6

Another day in Tech Paradise

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Another day in Tech Paradise

Twitter….down again…. Facebook also seems to be having server issues.
Oh no – its the end of the world as we know it… or maybe it is just another Thursday in Tech  Paradise.

Even the least technical of my circle of friends will pace and froth at the mouth (metaphorically of course) when the internet sites they depend on are not available, or heaven forbid, hacked.  We rely on this media more than previous generations relied on Newspapers and Radio.  We rely on it more than Television.  And we are in denial about how much we rely on technology.  Because if we had to admit how much we don’t know about how it all works, we might have some responsibility in learning more and becoming more actively involved in the utilitarian aspect of the internet and its ancillary services…oh, yeah, can I get an “Amen Brother”!

Apr22

Always something else

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Always something else

Part of the challenge with being ‘technical’  (even for us Technical Generalists) is that there is always something new, or some new twist on something old, or some new possibility to consider.  I never feel as though I have mastered any “space” or “vertical” or “vector” because just as soon as I think I have something down cold, it changes.   Two months ago I could talk about Twitter and Tweeting and might have been talking like the adults in  Charlie Brown cartoon “Mwah Mwah Mwah Blah”.  Now Oprah is twittering and the technocenti are aghast that now Twitter might become the playground of ” soccer mom’s”.  Puh-lease.  For Oprah impact on Twitter go to this story on Mashable:  http://mashable.com/2009/04/21/oprah-impact-on-twitter/

For people who have been struggling out there to learn Flash Animation, there is a beta software-as-a-service (SAAS) model out, called Xtranormal.com – currently it is free to try, but will have a subscription.  Their tag is  “if you can type, you can make movies” … the interface is fairly intuitive and yes, I am addicted to making short movies with it (at least for the moment).  Do I need to know Flash? Nope.  Would I have a better movie if I did it from scratch with Flash, probably but it would take more time than I have to give it… this new generation tool allows me to get creative without having to spend the bandwidth to train first – so I sacrifice some quality in order to get instant gratification.

My point is, that if you focus your attention too long in one area, the rest of the picture will change dramatically.  The successful people I observe around me… they are masters (or mistresses) of being able to zoom in, sample, extrapolate, digest the concept, and zoom out again.  Speed readers with comprehension for technology or really for any growth area.  There will always be the need for total saturation experts in an area… but the need will be shorter in duration, because the “something else” occurs faster and faster as technology is evolving faster. 

Ready, set… Go!

Dec28

What do we understand of our technology?

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What do we understand of our technology?

In the cartoon “Futurama”, the character Fry, a 20th century man who wakes up in the future, when confronted by a breakdown in the spaceship’s technology screams “Fix it Fix it Fix it” to all within ear shot.  Part of the humor depicted in this cartoon (yes, at 51 I admit to watching cartoons) is that the character has no clue how anything works, and therefore takes all of the “new technology” of the future in stride – happy in his ignorance. 

I think that is particularly insightful, because I am surrounded by people who neither understand the technology nor appreciate all that went into its workings – they use it, and if it breaks or doesn’t behave the way they want it to – they scream (or at least raise their voices) and say “Fix it Fix it Fix it”. 

They don’t accept responsibility for understanding – they just want it to work.  They don’t understand how their cars work, their plumbing, their electricity, let alone their computers.  It is a willing ignorance – many are lured into thinking that someone else (usually in a lower social position) will be therepair person, and make it all work.  Or if they foray into the realm of trying to fix it themselves, rather than actually taking the time to learn about the thing, they duct tape or come up with a workaround that will, in the long run, cause more problems or cost more money. But hey, it is the instant gratification that is all important, not the understanding…isn’t it?

When someone like me tries to explain the inner workings of some problem, I generally am either talked over, ignored, or worse humored – because usually if they spend the excruciating time to listen to me drone on, I will probably fix their problem for them for free.  When I ask them why they don’t want to understand their computer or their email – I invariably get the answer that I am “technical” and so somehow magically understand these things, and they are not (and this is usually said with a tone of superiority, I might add… as though being technical is some sort of genetic disease that just happened to be useful this one time and otherwise shouldn’t be mentioned).

Ah well, a curmudgeonly disposition accompanies being technical today… Fiddle-deedee, tomorrow is another day!