Dark Ages Computing ® …

I was reminded of technology the other day.  Actually, I’m reminded by technology of technology every day these days.  You are too, I’d bet.  Today’s reminders remind me of what I observed throughout my business-to-business, technology sales career.  Use, or shall I say misuse, of technology has been so prevalent in my lifetime that I trademarked the phrase Dark Ages Computing ® in 2000, the turn of the century.

Throughout my career I had a front row seat to witness how companies would expect technology to fix their internal business problems.  The way they repeated avoidable mistakes led to my sales philosophy: 

Just because something is technically feasible doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. 

The problem was (and still is) there are problems with problem-solving expectations of technology.  First, there’s the matter of applying technology to begin with.  Such as the reminders I’m referring to.  The simple act of scheduling a doctor’s appointment these days unleashes AI driven technology to remind us… and remind us… and remind us. My wife received two texts reminding her of her appointment, ON HER WAY TO HER APPOINTMENT! 

I’ve stopped counting the number of emails, texts, and computer-generated phone calls I receive reminding me of each doctor’s appointment.  Some programmer somewhere decided to build a limitless reminder sequence into the scheduling software medical providers purchase.  And because the feature is there, medical providers seem compelled to use it; over, and over, and over again!  Oh, and don’t get me started in trying to deal with medical billing questions or corrections.  They’ve set up an army of machines to block us from talking with someone who can decipher the issue and provide a resolution, true? 

If that’s not bad enough, I purchased a new car recently.  Holy cow!  Every time I start it up, a message comes on the display (aka computer screen) reminding me to “enroll” in Toyota’s services application.  Hey, it’s free (for the first x months at least).  Then, as we used to say in the sales game, it’s merely a “nominal fee” to continue the subscription. 

Even though I’m not interested in subscribing to Toyota’s service application, that message is programmed to appear every single time I start the car.  Yes, I can switch to another option on the display to move beyond their reminder, but I can’t just get rid of it.  Some programmer (or machine) somewhere decided to lock it in place regardless of whether car buyers want it or not. 

Then there’s smart watches.  I read an article recently imploring people to take their smart watches off at night.  Such wearable technology claims it can monitor the quality of our sleep.  Turns out, research has found that such monitoring is actually ruining our natural sleep pattern: 

Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems. 

Mark Manson 

Which brings me back to the “Dark Ages” often associated with a period in history where mankind was faced with “economic, intellectual, and cultural decline” following the fall of the Roman Empire.  Do the machines think we’re in an “intellectual decline” again?  Do you? 

Gotta go now.  Office Depot just pinged my printer to remind it to remind me to buy ink.  Where are those Romans when we need them? 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.