Pop-tech vs Communication & Contemporary Risk Takers - Consultants

The basis of the individual digital divide is essentially someone who is informed by the desire to change, improve, learn verses people who have the desire to retire or retreat from thinking – the writing that most concerns me is the idea of “pop-tech” (IMs - instant messaging, chat, blogs, games/joysticks, wireless communications such as RFID, smart phones, etc), which I personally find idiotic, because it is such old fashioned thinking. It is part of an older paradigm that does not significantly comprehend communication at its root. Worse yet thinking that any part of communicaton is "pop-tech" is in fact what caused a significant delay at software firms in building technical communication tools based on such significant innovations as email.

When will people get the idea that people are important, not machines?

The idea that email is unimportant held software development firms up for more than ten years, nearly twenty years, in putting the investment and processing power into email that as a tool it deserved. Two years ago more value in seats for first class email tools were sold at software firms than for any other product. This success was much more about customer demand that any planning or extrapolation at “The Factory" as my friends there call one giant software firm, referring to it’s decreasing ability to pivot and change based on end users' needs and wants. But who cares? Such a large company will keep going by the sheer weight of it's existing value and profit and it is not going to fold anytime soon.

However at this late date, it should be easy for anyone in a technical consulting role to recognize that technical culture has revolutionized the very idea of communication. This is evident even in American comedy, which I won’t go into here. Consultants should have been able, even in 2004, to recognize new software tools such as chat, IM, wikis, wireless etc as having intrinsic value if only for technical exploration into new tools, the effort behind development which should be guided by questions, a strong desire to know what really works for people, and not any foggy old fashioned notions of pop-thisness or pop-thatness. Why? Because “popular” means accepted or high enjoyment factors, and that equates one way or another directly to economic benefit – directly this means money. Let’s just say “Popular & technical = money” and that is where one should invest massively.

The key missing idea in the “pop-tech” writings is that technology is its infancy – still is, will be for a long time, certainly throughout my lifetime. Any new thing we create in the technical scheme of things should be considered just that, a baby’s toy, no matter what it is used for now.

Who was it that said that work must be hard, continuously performed the same way, and no fun? It’s almost that pre- and post- Second World War era tainted the national consciousness to believe that we must all be farmers and toil long under the hot sun to add value. The hippies of the 60’s could said to be a reaction to the conformity of the 1950’s bedroom communities, urban fecundity and desire to get ahead in life and make their place in life better for their own children, with little or no consideration of the rest of the world. It’s as if culturally we were sold an ideal, which was reflected and reified by television and the nation’s leadership speaking to this standard of behavior as they themselves as individuals veered far away from it, and the national character completely changed under foot.

What is wrong with America's national character that we don’t believe in leisure time or at least open time without fixed hours if we can enable "always on" communications and work flows?

Exposing information about the way things really are seems to make a difference in terms of information gathering and wisdom, such as the Vietnam television coverage. As a young person I was so very glad the war ended, for many reasons, not the least of which was I did not have to watch bloody dying people on TV as I ate dinner any more. There is no question in my mind that this is why Mr. Bush did not permit live coverage of the Iraq war, because the truth would have barred the dirty, ugly, and banal realities. These realities of the War people of the US are not really prepared to personally accept as part of their access to oil and the things the petrodollar allows them to enjoy in their gas guzzling SVUs and anything made of plastic.

So as my reader you may wonder what does combat and communication have to do with a view of technology? What is this author ranting about – this ranting is about communication. Communication intrinsically bares reality, or one’s perception of it. And that is not only new, and different, but dangerous. Characterizing such technologies as “pop-tech”, writers using this terminology have distinguished themselves little between their document and a page on which is written “this page left intentionally blank.” All they demonstrate is that they have little or no understanding of the bigger picture.

Technical tools that allow distant persons to communicate without any moderation in between is radically new in this world, and I argue it is not only good for commerce but for the effects of peace. But for now, just consider the effects of a single ‘pop-tech’ toy, the joystick, on the effective training of the military in virtual environments such as aircraft, etc, the value add of the joystick is already well understood. Where does the joystick come from in technology? Joysticks come from aircraft to games and back around again through technology fitting it better to the educational and use need through virtual realities. Games are pop-tech, well, aren’t they? No, maybe not.

On the other hand, Outsell writers in another piece seem to understand a different basic change in how people consider their work – with the cleverly reasoned writing entitled ‘Dude, What Happened to My Company? The Changing Nature of Work” in the Characteristics of Old and New Enterprises, in terms of Old and New roles for real people. Some of those characteristics in new are effectively how I live – Decentralized, virtual, “flat” mobile, instead of Centralized, hierarchical, static – free agents verses ‘careers’, now this is useful information, and also radically true.

But even companies which are fairly far ahead in their use of technology can be said to have set their slider bar back into the past as far as their commitment to encouraging their current employees to step over the line into those new flexible working characteristics. In fact it is almost as if each new person they add as a full timer causes someone or some conservative mechanisms at “The Factory" to go, “Whoa, better lock this cog in the machine down, and force them to follow the tried and true working patterns of the past.”

I can only hope the sentiment and advice I have received regarding the importance and value of human capital, and its relationship to product planning, management and maintenance of systems can be communicated effectively up and down the chain at the Factory. Could my next step be to begin writing proposals for floater groups to compete within The Factory with those cogs outside tThe Factory that supply bodies at a premium?

It costs larger companies approximately 60K each year to find people like me – after a long time working for the same firm is it worth it? Don’t these companies know and trust their consultants already? Couldn’t they just pay us to find our own jobs within the company and add more value, by far, than what we cost? Pay me a retainer of an additional $59K to find my own job every year and save a thousand dollars. Have me dream up and build new products. There have to be legions of people in my same situation that form a valuable vendor class that larger firms loose money on rediscovering every year – people they should employ, and help them discover and structure their work at these same firms instead of leaving it to others outside of the larger company.

To me this adds up to mean that someone at the Factory’s management does not understand the value of communication, or the reality of ubiquitous computing power, any more than the “pop-tech” writers did about technology in general. Maybe it is hard to understand. Maybe you have to be steeped in communication technology and willing to take chances in the ways that only free-lance consultants ever will.

In the news, have you tried Paypal's moble pay system? Sweet! The setup alone is slick slick slick - it is so SJP - Sweet Japanese Princess - my cohorts term for cutting edge usefulness and fun! SJP refers to the Western marketplace's interest in how Japanese schoolgirls are using technical advancements. http://www.paypal.com