Marketing Brillo doesn’t like to whine, but let’s be realistic. A lot of people in this marketing/PR business – and most other industries – are technologically traumatized.
Every day -- simply in the process of doing our jobs -- we must deal with software, hardware, peripheral, cell phone, netbook, operating system, networking, and – increasingly – Internet glitches. Here’s a short sample from the last 24 hours (Marketing Brillo is not making this up).
• Wary of the phishing scams that invaded Twitter direct messages yesterday, I applied my IQ to changing my password. Whatever I typed in (and Twitter accepted twice) didn’t work this morning. That affected Tweetdeck, of course, which might have been obvious to others, but took me awhile to figure out. Password Perplexia: 30 minutes.
• This morning I tuned in to my first virtual conference: The Social CRM Summit hosted by Lithium. I had pretested my system (15 minutes, last week), but when it came time to listen, my freshly downloaded Real Player wasn’t working and had to be REinstalled. No surprise there: Real Player is one of the worst bits of technology ever thrust upon us, a plague dating back 10 years and still leaving scars. Real Player Rash: 16 minutes.
• Safari wouldn’t play nice with the virtual world, so I switched to Firefox, which also asked to be rebooted from Post Real Player Rash: 5 minutes
• Once I got into my virtual conference, I wanted to upload my photo/avatar. I had lots of little gifs on my computer, but they were all too big. A trip to Photoshop fixed the Image Impetigo: 10 minutes.
• Since it was a holiday, I thought I should invest in my Marketing Brillo Facebook fan page. “Please fan me” invites to friends and family, aka Fan Funk: 38 minutes.
• Lately, my printer has taken to power surging, momentarily taking the Starship Enterprise (Marketing Brillo’s workspace) down with it. Testing Tendinitis: 7 minutes.
• Distractions from the evil Adobe Updater interfered with system performance: Updater Upchuck: 9 minutes
By noon, I was 115 minutes down and out with Techno Trauma. For most of us sick with technology, there’s nobody to call, no immediately apparent solution, no “getting it finally fixed.” Techno Trauma simply mutates, living on to exhaust us another day.
If we are working longer hours, part of our effort is expended dealing with technology that either doesn’t work or needs to be tweaked. Technology isn’t going away, so Marketing Brillo thinks it’s about time that American Commerce recognizes this very real and viral drain on human resources.
Meanwhile, thank you, Social CRM Summit for giving me the best frontline defense against Techno Trauma: Education. My Real Player Rash is fading.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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2 comments:
Love this and it's oh-so-real. I have been tempted on several occasions to throw my computer out the window, go find my selectric in the basement and have at it. I only have one question for you - are you on MAC? Just had to ask, it's like a warm hug. I've gone MAC and I won't go back:) All the best.
Hi, Kim... Thanks for your comment. I used to have TWO Selectrics myself, but donated them to a friend's 5th grader who wanted to "play reporter." But to answer your question... yes, I'm on a Mac. If I had to deal with a clunky PC and that whole virus thing, I wouldn't be traumatized. I'd be institutionalized.
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