Technology's Unintended Consequences

I recently had a conversation with a consultant the other day, who (about 6 weeks ago) had to immediately drop everything he was working on and temporarily relocate from New York to San Diego. to take care of his sick mother. Her condition required her to have constant care and family attention. Because of how he used technology, not only was he able to do this, but he began to look at his current approach to work in a different light.

The technologies he took advantage of were:
* laptop computer
* wireless Internet connection
* cell phone
* Skype
* office productivity suite

When I spoke w/him, he was sitting on the deck of his mother's house, over looking the pacific ocean. And he sounded pretty happy.

Other than Skype, everything I listed above has been available and people have been using them for a number of years. Technology becomes interesting to me when I look at how people and process interact w/technology. You start to see new possibilities that didn't exist before. Take my friend from above, for example, and let's go back 10 - 20 years:


20 years ago:

* laptop computers were concepts and the 386 desktop was leading edge

* wireless Internet connections did not exist for the mass market; Internet connectivity was still largely limited to academics, Geeks posting on a cryptic BBS somewhere...and then there was DARPA and the Department of Defense...

* cell phone technology existed, but only for a limited market and it was very expensive to use

* IP telephony was not available for the mass market

* office productivity suites largely didn't exist. Apple had some word processing and graphics capabilities available; Lotus Notes was the standard spreadsheet program for PCs, and Word Perfect (remember that one???) was one of the larger players int eh word processing space

Bottom line: he would not have been able to support his mother and maintain / increase his business; one or both would have had to materially suffer


10 years ago:

* laptop computers were becoming more widely available, but they were pretty homogeneous offerings, with a small set of features relative to desktop PCs; most laptops did not have the same "horsepower" (in terms of graphics acceleration, chip speeds, hard drive capacity, monitor visual acuity, etc.). Laptops were for "road warriors" who couldn't afford to be away from their computers

* the Internet was starting to move into the mainstream. America Online (now known a "AOL"
* see Trout & Ries' work on Positioning for some thoughts on that name change...). Netscape was a fledgling browser and not an Alliance w/anyone. America Online was going to bring the Internet to the masses

* cell phone technology became more wide spread; car phones (phones actually built into the arm rests or dashboards of cars) were a status symbol available only in high-end vehicles,m and as an expensive option. In my view, pagers were still more ubiquitous & cheaper than cell phones. So, your boss could push a button on your "electronic leash" but you still had to find a phone to respond back

* IP telephony was experimental technology, and only among the Geek inner-sanctum. Most of the people I knew who were using it were Chinese and Indian ex-pats who wanted to call their loved ones back in their home country

* office productivity suites were really starting to come into their own, as was the notion of bundling different software packages together in general. Microsoft Office had really established itself at this point, and along with some of their other products (do you remember Microsoft Works?), started defining the space and what the market would eventually demand / accept as "the Standard".

Bottom line: he probably could have made it work, it would have been very expensive, and he would have increased mobility relative to his predecessor of 10 years earlier.


Today, all of these technologies are taken for granted. Here's an interesting thought:

One of the next 5 presidents of the United States will most likely have played a Nintendo or Atari game system.

But that's for another blog...