Comments on HighTouch: The Empty Quarter

BTW, this was an old post that got elevated when I...

2007-03-30T00:32:00.000-05:00

BTW, this was an old post that got elevated when I was fooling around with tagging it.

I apologize for spamming the feed with the old stuff.

The issue isn't the difficulty of using the techno...

2007-03-30T00:30:00.000-05:00

The issue isn't the difficulty of using the technology. That wasn't the point of the post. New technologies always have rough edges. My point is that the organizational culture tries to stop the early adopters from using the tool. There is active resistance to change. It may manifest itself by people saying, "It's too hard", but in reality the issue is far more complex.

If ease of use was just the issue what you would observe is indifference. That is not what we are seeing occuring with these tools. It's a much more profound form of resistance.

Excuse the typos in the earlier post.. any intelli...

2007-03-29T07:38:00.000-05:00

Excuse the typos in the earlier post.. any intelligent person can spell a word more than one way..

So.. it is the evil outside the social group that ...

2007-03-29T07:35:00.000-05:00

So.. it is the evil outside the social group that is to be feared.. ok.. I agree in part. But I fear the focus is wrong. If these tools are useful to business and organizational leaders.. they adopt them. If they are deemed to have a low return on investment (time, energy and money), they do not adopt. Too much focus is being placed on are they techies or GenXers.. In truth, this in normal with all innovations.. there is always an early adopter group that is typically not typical. Thus, their adoption does not show the way.. if it works for them.. doesn't necessary mean it works for the others..

Want an example.. PC Write was a burden to learn.. but those of us interested in technology and who saw the benefits adopted it. But word processing would never have become mainstream if we were forced to use PC Write.. the cost of training, supporting, etc... it was just overwhelming. And while wiki is pretty easy.. I would put it in the same category. There are all these cool things you can do with it, but you have to know the tricks. The mainstream doesn't want to have to learn those tricks.. they want a button for it.. they wan it to lead the out of the desert. The focus should be refining the technology.. making it better.. more focused around the needs on the non-techie..

One last point.. The danger is in thinking.. it works for me.. so it should work for them. Do any of us really want to go back to FTPing files? Sure it was great back then.. but we wanted more.. I think that is the case with Social Networking software.. it is just a baby... I am looking for a toddler..