Mark My Words January 11, 2010
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Technology.9 comments
There’s been a lot of hype this past week coming out of the Consumer Electronic Show, centered around a couple of big technology items: tablet devices and 3D television. To save you all the trouble of figuring out whether to jump on this bandwagon, let me offer my prediction as to the future success of these devices.
Tablet devices: No.
3D television: No.
If you are pressed for time, you can stop reading now. If you have a moment, here’s why:
For both if these devices, the failure is not in the technology, which is admittedly sexy and clever. It is in the ergonomics and usability, both of which matter very little to the nerds at CES but matter dearly to real people that buy these devices.
Consider a tablet device. If all you are looking for is an iPhone on steroids, you may like this thing. But it’s too big to put in your pocket, too small to use as a real computer, and has limited usability for anything that requires real typing. For music, ebooks, and movies, it could be useful, but so is an iPod or iPhone. Web surfing would be lovely, but typing anything at length is pretty much impossible.
If you’d like to prove this to yourself, try this “tablet simulation” trick. Take your flat panel monitor and lay it face up on your desk, just above your keyboard. Type like this for a week. How’s your neck feeling? Now, put your monitor back, and attach your keyboard to its lower edge with duct tape. Any better? Those are your two typing positions for a tablet, so pick the one you prefer.
Tablets were all the rage about six years ago. After the excitement died down, tablets suddenly developed real keyboards attached via a clever multi-way hinge. This hinge had two primary uses: you used it show off your tablet to your friends for the first three days after you bought it, and then the hinge broke two years later, rendering your laptoptablet useless. In short, tablet PCs combined a $800 laptop with a $900 hinge. Oddly, this never proved very popular.
Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Thus, expect to see a bevy of tablets which will enjoy brief lives as overweight ebook readers and cumbersome music players, coupled with a short aftermarket of weird add-on keyboards.
What about 3D television? Please. Except for fulfilling the lifelong dream of Ralph Kramden, there is no practical application for 3D television. Who is going to put on special glasses whenever they want to watch television? And forget lying on the couch, or on your side. You’ll be sitting upright directly in front of the set if you expect to get the full effect, including headaches for some viewers.
Honestly, is there any content on television that is just crying out for 3D? Will Real 3D Housewives of Des Moines really be improved with this technology? Should we expect more dimensional ingredients on Iron Chef 3D? Barring a resurgence of 80s-style shoulder pads, I don’t know that Launch My Line 3D will provide the aesthetic bump that really extends the genre.
I find it ironic that, as content migrates to portable devices (like tablets!), we’re going to create proprietary display formats that only work on home-bound devices. Wait. I just realized what we really need.
3D tablets!
Who’s got the number of a VC? This will be huge!
Catching My Breath December 21, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Technology.add a comment
With the holidays fast approaching, it is time to reflect on the past year and anticipate the next.
When I started blogging in earnest, around this time last year, I made a commitment to write three times a week, every week. I had no idea if I could do this, or if it was even possible. I’m a bit surprised to find, a year later, that I met my goal. Even more surprising, I enjoyed doing it.
Along the way, I’ve met some wonderful people, built relationships, and found value in this exercise. I’ve learned a lot about social media and its impact, as well as new and innovative ways to learn and share. I am very thankful for all of you who read this blog, regularly or otherwise. I am doubly thankful for those who took the time to comment and extend the conversation, adding far more than my initial contributions.
Last year at this time, I reran some of my favorite posts to round out the year. This year, instead of peppering you with reruns, I’ve tagged some of my favorite posts. If you are interested, this link should take you to them. If not, no problem.
And on that note, I’m going to go offline for the rest of they year, to relax and recharge. I’ll be back next year with new content. I hope you’ll still be willing to listen and reply, and I look forward to seeing where it will take us.
Method CIO December 16, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Technology.Tags: Technology, Users
5 comments
It is said that during the filming of Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman stayed up for several days to appear appropriately disheveled for a particular scene in the film. When his costar, Lawrence Olivier, asked why, Hoffman explained that method actors were trained to actually experience the role they were playing. Olivier replied, “Why don’t you try acting?”
While actors may choose to act or to use Stanislavski’s classic Method, I don’t think that CIOs have that luxury. To be effective, a CIO needs to be a Method CIO: directly experiencing the systems, technologies, and platforms that they will subsequently select, acquire, deploy, and manage. It is not enough to consider technology at arm’s length. Technology must be experienced first-hand to be fully understood.
I have always embraced technology, long before I moved into a management role. Even when I held technical positions, it became clear that reading about new things was not the same as using and exploring them. The technology we use is too unpredictable, with side effects and unintended consequences that can only be discovered through first-hand use.
I can remember the first time I tinkered with a PC, or used email, or set up a network, or created a web page, or configured a RAID array, or used any of a hundred tools that have since become part of the technical fabric of our lives. My expectations of the technology were dramatically different from my actual experience. The longer I used the tool, the more I discovered about it. The lessons learned and the overall experience made it much easier for me to understand the system and be able to decide how and when to use it.
Even as I’ve shifted away from a direct technical role, I’ve stuck with my decision to directly experience as much technology as I can. That’s why I blog, and use social media tools, and experiment with mobile devices. It’s not that these tools hold a sudden fascination for me. Instead, they are simply the next generation of potentially useful technologies that may or may not matter to me and my company. I’m expected to be able to evaluate these tools for their personal, professional, and corporate potential. I can’t do that effectively without directly using them until my curiosity is satisfied.
Obviously, no one has the time (or the wherewithal) to try everything that crosses their path. We have to use some discretion to sort out the potentially valuable tools from those that may not be worth a look right now. Even the list of potential tools can be long and unmanageable; that’s when we need to engage other like-minded folks to experience those tools and share their impressions. Others who share the enthusiasm for the “Technical Method” can be a tremendous help in sorting through the ever-increasing amount of stuff that comes our way.
With all due respect for Sir Olivier, I think that Method CIOs develop a deeper understanding of the technology they manage. Were Dustin Hoffman ever to turn his attention to IT management, I suspect he would agree.
Way Too Much Information December 2, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Technology.Tags: Google Wave, Interfaces, Technology
1 comment so far
I received an invitation to Google Wave a few weeks ago. I was anxious to try it, but got little traction. Since then, a few more friends have joined, and I’ve been able to experiment a little bit. The jury is still out on the ultimate usefulness of the tool, but there is one “feature” that gives me pause.
If several people are actively participating in a conversation, the Wave interface actually shows their typing, in real time. This is the next logical extension of existing instant messaging platforms, which note when another party is actually typing. This was a handy feature, since it let you know if the person at the other end was actively participating. Wave’s extension, on the other hand, is unnerving.
Very few people, myself included, write complete, rational thoughts on the first try. Instead, we type, think, delete, edit, retype, and iterate until we have composed a complete message. We often start out with something that we later contradict, or use a word or tone that we might regret and subsequently remove. The end product represents a finished thought.
Google Wave exposes that entire process. It is weird, and a bit voyeuristic, to watch someone in the act of composition. In one conversation, I actually began responding to a person’s message, only to have them edit and change it before after I had posted my now-inappropriate response. My response made no sense, and they knew I had been privy to a thought they later chose to retract.
It should be obvious by now that I am a big fan of all these new-fangled communications tools. I like the idea of being instantly connected, and I enjoy the immediacy of keeping up with other people. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn: I get it, and I use it.
But this crosses a line. I am happy to share what I am doing, but I am not willing to expose my actual thought processes before they are fully formed. Rapid communication is fine, but at some point there are aspects of what I am doing that I absolutely do not want to share.
I suspect that the folks at Wave did not set out to design a “thought exposure” feature. Instead, I suspect they think that this is just a cooler way of showing that the other parties are typing and interacting. I’m hoping that they’ll see the error of their ways and at least let me turn this feature off.
The whole experience reminded me of a scene from the show Married… With Children. Peg Bundy and her long-suffering husband Al are sitting silently on the couch. Peg finally tries to break the ice by asking, “Al, what are you thinking?” Al, speaking on behalf of every man on earth, replies, “If I wanted you to know, I’d be talking.”
Google, if I want people to know what I’m thinking, I’ll click “Done.” Until then, I’ll keep my keystrokes to myself.
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