Monthly Archive for June, 2009

While there is a constant acceptance that technology makes things faster and better – there are so many transitions that technology has muttled. No, I am not trying to play devil’s advocate but I am someone who constantly turns things over to examine the proverbial underbelly. My super tractor beam of inquisition is in the hunt for a bit of real talk (and not just because my computer system opted to stop working this past weekend and I am karmicly hell bent to take revenge -no not the shiny new Apple but my old faithful). So let me give you the low down on my observations:

1- Caller ID: while it is nice if you are the person receiving the call to know who you do and don’t want to speak with, this is a very tricky mobile technology nuance. If you respond to your caller by saying simply, ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ How should the caller respond? They can no longer logically say, “Hi X, this is so-and-so.” So does that mean you move onto question #2? Did you just loose your transition to question 2? >Awkward< 2- Facebook and/or Twitter updates scan: Here again, it is unclear if this information serves as a springboard for eliminating pleasantries because maybe you have already read the latest information so you want to jump into some other update and skip right over that person’s feelings. Or perhaps you feel obligated to comment on something important the person posted that could be slightly uncomfortable for them to have you comment on based upon how little (or how intimately) you know the person. A miss step here could prove nearly fatal no matter which way the pendulum swings. >gasp<

3- Wearing your heart on your keyboard: what is too much information and how do you determine who you let in and whom you keep at a distance? Is it possible to really connect with someone that you only ‘sort of knew’ and haven’t talked to in years or maybe never really ever met? I believe it is possible, as we do connect on many different levels, but it certainly does seem like a strange concept when you sketch it out on a laptop. And what IS the transition exactly: do you give that person the 140 character personal bio update? Does this really entirely replace a phone conversation? Transitional confusion prevails as there are no hard/fast rules on this one.

4- Positioning: I am speaking of how you position your business in this tech-ified micro world. I recently read an article about someone I knew many years ago who is in PR and was mortified to learn that her positioning for not really knowing social media was to call herself ‘old school’. Here the transition of ‘appearing’ to kinda-sort-almost understand this marketplace was rendered VOID. (WTF?)

5- Anachronim-ology and Hash tagging: Where to begin? For those of you may not be in the know. There are more acronyms that you can begin to imagine and if you can’t figure out what one of them means like EVOO (extra virgin olive oil – yes remember, I am a Foodie at heart) you can do a search on Google or Yahoo and find out what that new shortened term means. As for hash tags, well that is more of a way to track a conversation or a ‘thread’. By searching on #blogher you will come up with a wealth of information on that topic. Problem here is that as the reader, you’ll have to do your own digging and attempt to transition your input in whatever medium you are utilizing to communicate. Big picture transition- acronyms or hash tags leave you in a quandary of what the person is trying to communicate and can often read like gibberish if you don’t have the patience to drill down to the crux of the conversation.