Andy Piper’s thoughtful post about the plethora of social networking services, combined with Richard Young’s comment about PC upgrades got me thinking – is being a laggard a good thing? Context: Andy noted the number of so-called social networks to which he belongs, referencing Stephen O’Grady‘s discussion about peer pressure to join Twitter:
Yesterday, I was reading that Stephen O’Grady has given in to what he describes as “peer pressure†and signed up to Twitter. I’d vaguely heard of Twitter – mainly because it was one of the options on my Mugshot profile – but I hadn’t looked into it yet. The idea is that you simply, and regularly, post the answer to the question “what are you doing?â€.
Compare that with Richard’s blunt declaration:
My wife was talking to a guy the other day who still uses Windows 3.1. That’s luddite even by my standards (and until 1998 I was still using an Amstrad 1640 at home, with its giant 640k RAM), but if you mainly process words and use spreadsheets… well, why bloat yourself up?
When you’re leaning over the bleeding edge of technology it is all too easy to get sucked into the burgeoning number of social networks. Some are fun, some are business oriented. All require effort. I don’t know about others but if I was an active member of all those to which Andy relates, I doubt anything useful would get done. Kathy Sierra gets all scientific about it with one of her terrific graphics – the end point: “We’re screwed” makes so much more sense than ‘information overload.’ The one thing Kathy and Andy miss out I think is the vague sadness that people find it necessary to spend time at Twitter. What’s wrong with IM or Skype or lunch with someone you’ve not see for a while?
And Richard is so right. Why spend hard earned money upgrading when you can get done what you want with the ‘old’ model? It’s a reason I fought tooth and nail to keep the old Finax on DOS when the Windows version came out. It worked, it was easy to use and it was super fast. So I was especially pleased to see a response from Martyn Shiner, finance director Severn Delta, makers of kitchen wipes:
We are actively looking to replace ALL of our desktops with thin clients or browser based kisok type terminals – we won’t be upgrading to vista.
And what are we? Not some cutting edge development shop but a small UK based manufacturing company in rural England.
MS is not a “given†in the desktop or server space anymore. Exiting the upgrade cost spiral is possible – you just have to think around the problem.
The irony in all this – and here I’m assuming we’re all using devices that support a browser – is that by taking a step back, or by standing still, we can still be at the cutting edge of what’s going on – or not. We can still be innovative, and not waste a penny. That’s not being a laggard. That’s being smart.
Technorati Tags: innovation, Microsoft
