A Tax on Old Technology

This little piece in Engadget caught my attention yesterday - AT&T urging customers to upgrade to 3G, possibly killing off 2G. The main takeaway from the piece is that for several technical and financial reasons AT&T wants to migrate users of older technology, (phones, network protocols), to newer 3G or 4G communications networks.Rocking the 2G

For the moment let's put aside the question, (that I personally think is pretty relevant), that AT&T and many other mobile providers do more to confuse their customers and the general public with all the references to 3G and 4G and LTE and HSPA+, than they do to educate and inform (and sell), about the real value proposition to the customer of upgrading. Does anyone really understand all the little acronyms and symbols and little indicators framing a mobile phone display? Save for 'How many bars?' But, I digress.

Why I really took notice of the Engadget piece was how it reinforces the costs, or as the writer expressed it, the 'tax' that is more and more frequently being levied on users of old technology, or in the form of a kind of opportunity cost, (and sometimes real cost), for those among us who for various reasons have decided against the adoption of new technology. Think about most examples of older technology that you still may possess and use - an old TV in the spare room or in your office, a coffee maker you have had for 10 years, maybe an old truck you keep around to use in the winter, (really common where I live). While these examples, (and many others), might offer fewer features and less capability than the latest LCD flat screen, or high-end espresso-cappuccino-single cup mega-machine, they still function, they still get the job done, and (at least for now), whomever sold them to you isn't turning up at your house to let you know you need to upgrade pretty soon or they won't work any more.

And beyond that, think about how many of us, (me included), sometimes feel about those late or never-adopters. While most of the rest of the world has moved to debit and credit cards, you get stuck behind the guy in the grocery check out line who is paying with a paper check. Or maybe you're waiting at the airport stuck in a queue because some passengers can't quite grasp the nuances of the mandatory check-in kiosks. Or possibly you're starting to get frustrated with a co-worker or business associate that has yet to upgrade off of their 2G phone so they can get mobile E-mail access, and thus be available to respond immediately to all of your 1:30AM on Saturday missives. We seethe at those people, smug in our technological superiority.

The one general law of technology is that it always advances. Faster, better, more amazing all the time. And the rate of that acceleration is only well, accelerating.  Making it really easy to be left behind. Making the cost or tax or missed opportunities only larger.

Mostly, we are ok with that. We usually, eventually see the benefits of the new technologies as greater than the monetary, psychological, and emotional switching costs. We pay out for the flat screen, the iPhone, the GPS for the car, even if we don't really have to. We still have a choice, though.

But as the AT&T example shows, sometimes we don't have a choice, sometimes the technology drags us along regardless. And again, mostly we are ok with that too.

Until the day when 'Big Coffee' figures out a way to render all those old drip coffee makers useless. 

Then we might see a revolt.

Off Topic - Shut it. Shut your trap I said.

Did you have to endure a meeting this week where someone just would not let go of a topic and kept blathering on and on endlessly?

Did you find yourself stuck on a commuter train or bus or maybe waiting on a plane when Mr. or Ms. Big Shot Important Person could not get off their mobile phones for one second, subjecting you and everyone else around them to the intimate details of their (boring) lives?

Or maybe, just maybe, that significant other in your life has been on your case about something you sort-of-but-not-really promised you'd do and have not managed to get around to it yet?

Well I just might have a solution for you - get yourself one of these cool Speech-Jamming guns, direct it towards the person you'd like to silence, and suddenly.... Shut it!

The details of this awesome new invention come courtesy of the MIT Technology Review's Physics Blog with this piece - How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun. 

From the MIT piece:

The drone of speakers who won't stop is an inevitable experience at conferences, meetings, cinemas, and public libraries. 

Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech-jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission. 

The idea is simple. Psychologists have known for some years that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second. 

Kurihara and Tsukada have simply built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a  speaker that does just that: it records a person's voice and replays it to them with a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone and speaker are directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance, like a gun. 

In tests, Kurihara and Tsukada say their speech jamming gun works well: "The system can disturb remote people's speech without any physical discomfort."

Money. Shut up that person who needs, (at least in your mind), shutting up with the added bit of awesomeness in using their own words fired back at them. I'd love to try one of these out sometime.

What do you think - did you find yourself looking around for a Speech-Jamming gun this week?

Have a Great Weekend!

Before You Know You Want One

Did you catch this fantastic piece from the New York Times last week - 'How Companies Learn Your Secrets', an inside look at how the major retailer Target has combined it's extensive data collection efforts with insight into shopper's tendencies and habits in order to better tailor promotions and outreach efforts, and match them more accurately with with what products that shoppers are likely to want? The focus of the Times article was Target's work around using data and analytics to attempt to predict which shoppers might be pregnant, and with that knowledge, send them more focused ads and offers for things like prenatal vitamins and maternity clothing.

It is an incredibly interesting piece, and I'd encourage everyone to read it, as it offers not just a peek behind the curtain at a multi-billion dollar merchandising machine, but also suggests other ways that the ability to capture, analyze, interpret, and make actionable copious amounts of data presents an area of opportunity for organizations and disciplines of all kinds. A quick read provides three important takeaways from the piece that are worth remembering:

1. Timing is everything. From the Times: 

Consumers going through major life events often don’t notice, or care, that their shopping habits have shifted, but retailers notice, and they care quite a bit. At those unique moments, Andreasen wrote, customers are “vulnerable to intervention by marketers.” In other words, a precisely timed advertisement, sent to a recent divorcee or new homebuyer, can change someone’s shopping patterns for years.

2. If you're not thinking about how to manage and derive value out of all this data, you might be already a step behind your competition.

Almost every major retailer, from grocery chains to investment banks to the U.S. Postal Service, has a “predictive analytics” department devoted to understanding not just consumers’ shopping habits but also their personal habits, so as to more efficiently market to them. “But Target has always been one of the smartest at this,” says Eric Siegel, a consultant and the chairman of a conference called Predictive Analytics World. “We’re living through a golden age of behavioral research. It’s amazing how much we can figure out about how people think now.”

3. But having all this data, and ability to extract meaning and opportunity from the data, doesn't absolve an organization of thinking hard about how it has collected the data, and the expectations and possible reactions of the consumers, (or candidates), about how the data is used.

At which point someone asked an important question: How are women going to react when they figure out how much Target knows?

“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.”

Is there an equivalent or at least approximate set of takeaways for the HR and Talent professional?

Definitely. Hitting a top performer with a high-profile and challenging assignment before they drop their two-weeks on your desk, understanding where the next set of company stars and leaders are likely to come from based on your assessment of the data on the current team, while making sure the data you're digging up on employee, candidates, and competitors doesn't make you too uncomfortable are all applicable takes from the Times story on Target.

It's all Predictive Analytics these days. Maybe you need a refresher course.

It's only the next big thing if you've never thought about it much. Then it might be the latest thing you just missed.

PowerPoint for the iPad? Well that's no fun.

Lots of chatter in the tech news and blogosphere this week about the possible launch of an iPad version of Microsoft Office.  First the news of the Office for iPad was broken by The Daily, denied, (kind of), by Microsoft, examined in more detail by ZDNet, then reconfirmed on Twitter by a staff member at The Daily. And I am sure there were lots of other takes on the potential release of Office for the iPad, most of which making it seem like it is not a question of if Microsoft will release the iPad version of Office, but rather when the apps will be released.Source - The Daily

So based on the evidence, and the sort of non-denial denial from Microsoft, let's assume that indeed in the 'coming weeks' there will be a release of MS Office for the iPad. Most of the accounts about this possible new Office version herald this development as a positive one, both for Microsoft, essentially absent to this point in the rapid rise of the tablet ecosystem, and also for the millions of iPad users that now can become 'more productive' now that the ubiquitous Office suite will have a native iPad version.

But for me, I have to admit I don't feel all that excited about having Excel, Word, or PowerPoint on the iPad. Even assuming that the iPad versions of these workplace stalwarts manage to leverage the best capabilities and usability features that the iPad offers, you are still crunching spreadsheets, writing (boring) documents, and futzing around with another PowerPoint. You know, working. And work, sadly, is often not much fun. And perhaps through no fault of their own, Excel and PowerPoint take a lot of reflected shrapnel for that if you get my meaning.

People love their iPads because they are fun, (assuming you can mentally set aside how they are actually manufactured, but that is another story), they provide an amazing user experience, and mostly what you do with them either isn't work, or doesn't feel like work. It just seems cool, hip, easy. Not words we often associate with work. Especially when work takes the form of spreadsheets and slide decks.

So when MS Office for the iPad comes out will I rush to load it up? Probably not. But I imagine I will eventually succumb, as the allure and utility of being able to tweak that presentation file on the iPad when sitting in the airport will prove too tempting and seem too necessary. It's work right? Need to get 'er done whenever and wherever.

I just hope I won't have to drop Angry Birds to make room for Excel. Because that would really stink. 

Job Poaching and Designing Engaging Systems

You've probably heard or read about the class-action civil case to be held in San Jose meant to determine if Google, Apple, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe, Intel, and Intuit in various combinations conspired to eliminate or at least reduce competition for skilled labor by entering into illegal 'anti-poaching' or 'Gentlemen's agreements' where these firms would cease recruiting from each others employee bases.

While the tech focused sites like TechCrunch have been following the story for quite some time, as far as I can tell, the only HR/Recruiting writer to have a take on the issue was Kris Dunn at the HR Capitalist, with a piece called 'Hey CEO: Your High Level Agreements Not to Poach Employees are Anti-Trust Violations...', where KD quite succinctly and correctly warns HR and Recruitng pros against entering into such agreements, even when the CEO wants to help a 'friend' at a competing firm, or when two firm's leaders kind of give a wink and a nod to each other, both knowing back and forth poaching (usually) ends up in increasing costs, delaying progress, and even (horrors!), having to keep and extra HR or Recruiting pro on staff to deal with all the churn.

It's an interesting story and I recommend the TechCrunch coverage as well as KD's take on it, but one other aspect of the story, slightly linked, and also covered on TechCrunch, is related to a new 'recruiting' site called Job Poacher. Job Poacher seems to have been at least partially inspired by the high-tech poaching case, and part of that response was to create an anonymous, simple, and direct platform for employees that, well, want to be 'poached' without their current company knowing.

Job Poacher 'registration'

Job Poacher is a site that "lets you make yourself available to recruiters, without exposing your identity or giving up your email address. We set you up with an anonymous email address that you control — just like on "Craigslist". 

After a potential candidate provides the basic information in the 'poachee' profile, their listing appears on the 'Poachees' tab on the site, and interested recruiters can message them via a simple 'Reply' button.

From then on the prospect and recruiter can connect and figure out if there is any interest, suitability, and so on. 

There are two things I really like about Job Poacher and I think are worth noting. One, sometimes, maybe almost all the time, looking for a new gig when you are currently employed can be really tough to keep under wraps. Buffing up your LinkedIn profile, dusting off the old personal blog that had been dormant, trading the T-shirt and cargo pants look for some sharper duds are all tell-tale signs that something might be up, and that something often needs to be kept quiet.

And two, I really like the incredibly simplicity of the registration process. Seven simple bits of information are asked for, presented in a way that makes it seem like less, and in a manner that makes the user feel more like they are telling a little bit of a story about themselves rather than mindlessly filling in another web form that they've done probably hundreds of times. When you look at the form, it makes you want to tell that little story. Even the header, 'I'm brilliant, and I want something better', is miles more engaging than most job sites pitch to 'Fill in the 17 fields below and we will (if we remember) to email you of suitable matching jobs in the future.'

I know there are a million holes that can be poked in what Job Poacher is doing here, and I am not trying to argue it can or will be an effective site for job seekers or recruiters, but I do think there are some lessons to learn about simple design, responding to a need with that design, and not over-complicating it all.

What do you think? Would you use a site like Job Poacher?