What would you do if your computer crashed? How about if your smartphone ran out of juice? The microwave blew a fuse? Or if, God forbid, you lost your Internet connection?
What would we do? Some of us (yes – me too) can’t keep our fingers off our mobile devices and start getting the shakes if we sit in a meeting where they are prohibited. I added the microwave scenario because I have a friend who has never, ever turned on the burner on his stove – and has lived in the same place for years.
So what would you do? How would you cope? Get work done? Eat? …
I am serious – think about what you do – at work, at home, at play – and how you would get stuff done if you had to do it without today’s tech. Clearly – someone once managed!
Think about business – eBay – could it exist without the Web? I say, yes. Amazon? Think hard on that one.
How about your personal relationships – how would they fare? In fact, think twice about those.
I am no Luddite – I think of myself as more a bleeding-edge toy type – but I do believe that we need to stop every once in a while and ask the question seriously – and with passion – so that we don’t lose touch with the basics – the way things work – the primal drivers of our lives.
Listen:
If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.
Seems to me – we need to grab the oars occasionally just to stay real…
What do you think? I’m busy rowing.
You ask for leaving a Reply, but via e-mail??… Ja!
I have to write some oarletter but I don´t have your adress.
Excelent proverb!
Cheers.
I’m interested to hear how eBay would work without the Internet. The best I can come up with is a QVC-type TV channel with phone-in bids.
David the question has some humor when you pose it. If YOUR computer or phone fatally crashed, power cord was lost, or application was corrupted…..YOU would have a replacement here in Seattle within minutes, and have!
While VIPs get immediate service, at the speed and demand of our business, IT must produce replacements quickly, for all.
So the answer to the question: ‘find IT Dept; put pressure on them to solve’
The broader pragmatic possibility seen often is: partial outage.
PC is dead, email works on phone; ISP has problem, switch to Guest network. Exchange server has a reboot required, wait ten minutes. Printer is down, install the drivers of the one down the hall.
It is these small, but frustrating bumps in the computing productivity road that almost every knowledge worker has to navigate, especially magnified when on the road or working at home office for an extended time.
For catastrophic network issues: No VIP status matters , only prior budgeted and prior engineered redundancy.
I have seen occasional relief in the eyes of those who had to give up their devices for repair, like a gift, a break from the heads-down computing grind. A walk to the bank to renew all perspective, the simple clarity that life is not entirely contained within a 14″ laptop monitor.
I would read and think. Quietly. No distractions. That would be nice.
When I lose Internet connectivity, I like to pick up my phone and call clients, co-workers and other agency partners. I don’t do that enough. Losing your Internet connection can actually be very liberating.
One way to grab the oars / stay real is to follow the advice of Dr. Andrew Weil and take a ‘news fast’ from time to time — unplug from all news/info sources and grab one week of blissful ignorance each year. The constant bombardment of information has given many of us a case of adult-onset ADD, and I have to jab myself with a fork during dinner to keep from checking why my smartphone just buzzed. Which is why I’m leaving my laptop and Treo behind when I fly to Mexico for vacation tomorrow. I’m taking the Zune in order to have tunes by the beach but hope the radio fails to pick up an NPR signal…I’ll surely get bored and try.
I don’t think we should be rue the new technology that makes our lives and businesses more efficient (if, perhaps, a little more stressful). We increasingly make our living from the exploitation of these new consumer behaviours on behalf of our clients after all.
I personally love jacking into the constant information flow that is our digital environment in business now – of course it’s great to unplug, but honestly, how long does self-imposed disconnection last before you start searching out the nearest PC for a dose of the good stuff huh?
To answer the question you posed:
Q: “What would you do if your computer crashed?”
A: Pray I’d saved my files to the network prior to that event and that IT had run the back-up the night before
JW
First off — ALL HAIL IT!!! Damn id be lost without our superior tech — and trust me they keep me going around the world!! So Greg I am humbled!!!!!! As for e-bay — flea markets have been around forever — think the Agora — E-bay has created an efficiency — but the only compoenent it could not do withoiyt is a delivery service — Postal or other — think on that!
I do unplug one day a week. As a Sabbath observer I turn on no TV; use no internet; dont answer or talk on the phone; drive in a car — etc etc — I do read; spend time with my family; walk; hang with friends; smell the flowers if you will — so I am 24/6 not 7 and I find it liberating.
And yes Jon — Id pray that I saved my files too!!!
I think the worse scenario in this case apples the US. Nothing personal, but I think American people tend to be more dependant on IT and “easy type of life” than anyone else in the world. A power cut would not disappoint someone in India for sure, same as a fused microwave would not do much to the person here in Russia. It is all about people’s behaviour for looking at things.
I would say a Russian manager would check his computer by himself first rather than calling IT straight away, a cook would switch-off the microwave and use his pan to make the dish … etc.
What is a worse thing: a cut in the internet connection that is affecting a giant like Amazon or a lack of skills that is affecting customers using Amazon’s online services when their own Internet connection is down? A company would be more than happy to re-structure in order to save the business, but will its customers be willing to do the same thing for them? I doubt.
Well, some of the truth is in Into the Wild mentioned by David before. It shows how fragile we are exposed to non tech or non IT world. What is most important? Knowledge I think. No matter if on CD, RAM or paper (best in mind). When they switch the internet off, the first place for me to go would be the Castle Library.
Dear Parkin, You stole my thunder! I work and live in India and I was going to say, if all the above happened, well, we’d have another normal day. In fact, on weekends, I and many like me, have no requirement of any such technologies. We have other problems
But so much for being flip, the point about being prepared to row, row your own boat (gently down the stream?) is a valid one. Thanks!
Again I am humbled — this time by India and the other places in the world where life goes on…..in the end its much like all those apocalyptic movies — the Mad Max genre — the beauty is we adapt and thrive…or at least we have the ability too..
Again I am humbled — this time by India and the other places in the world where life goes on…..in the end its much like all those apocalyptic movies — the Mad Max genre — the beauty is we adapt and thrive…or at least we have the ability too..