Keeping up with the Technology Jones

One of the biggest challenges for marketers is keeping up with the technology. And let's be serious, we all need to have a jones for technology.  If we don't, it will bury us.

But for many of us, we already feel buried. As soon as we master a new technology, there is more technology added to that.  I can recall my first computer (a Kaypro II with dual disc drives, if you must know).  By the time I got it home, out of the box, and had mastered the software (which was next to impossible), Kaypro had come out with a new version that was ten times as neat at half the price.  And here I was with an obsolete computer I had to borrow money in order to buy.

That aspect has gotten a little better.  Computers are going for pretty cheap these days, for some really good machines, but there is still the matter of other technologies. I thought I had the web mastered and along came Search Engine Optimization.  I knew what search engines were, but Google put an entirely new spin on it.

I was feeling pretty full of myself when I educated myself about blogs.  Then came RSS feed and then another whole new technology in pod casting.

It is hard to determine what technologies are worth learning and what chronologies are worth waiting to see how they develop.  There is a curve going around -- I will have to look it up -- that says the best time to jump on a new technology is just as the curve starts to drop.  That's about the time prices will drop and the technology will become simpler.

Over the next few months I would like to explore new technologies.  We can talk about open-source software (which at first sounds like communism on the web) wikis, podcasting, and whatever else happens to be out there.  And if you find something new that you would like to explain, submit a comment.  We'll discover more about it.

P.S.:  Before I posted this entry, I put it through spell check.  The spell check did not recognize Kaypro.  I did not expect it to, but nevertheless it was ironic.

 

Comments

[Russ]

Congratulations to you on the opening of your new agency Tim. It is obvious from your writings that you have the energy to make it happen. Well done my friend.