Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Tufnel-ization of America

Several people have suggested that November 11, 2011 be designated as "Nigel Tufnel" day, which makes complete sense for those of you who know what I'm talking about. Personally, I love the idea, but I think it's too late. Our country has already been Tufnel-ized.

Just last night, I was watching a basketball game. During a timeout, I was treated to commercials hawking movies and phone service. The movies, of course, relentlessly pointed out that they were in THREE-D, not that flat, pathetic two-d of your grandparent's ilk. And the phone service was FOUR-G, not that slow, pathetic 3G that your parents are probably saddled with.

Have we, as a nation, become so stupid that subtler differentiation plays are lost on us? Or are we all now so enslaved to software that we only understand "upgrades"? Do we accept, on faith, that something is better than its predecessor simply because it's "one louder"? At the risk of mixing my metaphors, there's something Orwellian about this and we should all remember to look behind the curtains.

Monday, November 8, 2010

A Land of Infinite Dimensions

Sorry for being silent for so long. I just finished my first full week of a new job and my brain is boggled. It's not like I haven't had new jobs before. Most of the people my age will have something like 6-8 jobs in their working lifetime. In my parents' time, the number was closer to 2. My children might change jobs every two years. The way things are changing, I suspect the very nature of the job will evolve into something I wouldn't recognize. Maybe they'll all be specialist contractors, each given some small slice of a larger project, but never allowed to see the whole. It'll be a bit like the world's funniest joke.

Anyway, what I wanted to write about today really does deal with change. For the past -- oh, let's say 20 -- years, I've dealt with on-premise technology solutions. That means products that are bought and installed in their environment by a buyer. It's a pretty simple proposition when you think about it -- you just have to know who the buyer is, what his problem is, how much money he has, and who else offers a solution. Work out the equation to your benefit and, whammo, your business grows.