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Monday, May 6, 2013

Appropriate Technology

Last week I was telling a story about how many years ago, before internet, I got my first fax machine. I told my clients the number.

One sent a question using the fax. I was doing something else.

About ten minutes later I got a phone call. He had sent the question, where was the answer?

The point of the story had been how new technology changed people’s expectations.

Until last week. When I was told I should have said, “It’s not an answering machine, it’s a fax machine!”

Missed opportunity.

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3 comments:

David Oppenheimer said...


Expectations change as technology evolves but we must not lose sight of the human and personal element here. I worked with a guy who steadfastly refused to communicate on the phone. He was all about email and text. We had a tight deadline and I needed to get resolution on a key issue but he would not pick up the phone. Our exchange via text got heated. "WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" he texted. "I WANT TO TALK TO YOU FOR TWO FREAKING MINUTES, NOT TEXT ALL DAY!" I replied.
I've also watched two friends nearly lose it with each other over the fact that one was a face-to-face communicator and the other was an email communicator.
So I guess my point is that expectations change much faster than people.

Unknown said...

New technology takes a bit of time to adopt and use correctly.

Remember when voice mail was introduced and the typical message was "Call Me" instead of sharing information or outlining what issue needed to be discussed.

Oops, that still goes on today...sometime adoption of technology does not evolve to best use of that technology.

Great post!

Thoughthebrowser said...

Re-looking at the post after reading of both of your comments, I am reminded, "It's not the length of the wand but the magic of the magician!
Thank you!