The power of information

Buying an electrical device

Before: You went to the store, you looked at your 10-15 choices, you eliminated 5 of them and then you asked the salesperson. Despite the fact that the salesperson had no idea what he was talking about, you are still convinced by his words. You buy the one he recommends.

Time needed: 1 hour

Now: You Google what you want and you come upon a little more than 1000 choices. After a while you eliminate some and you start reading reviews online. You eliminate another bunch of them and you are now left between 5 options. You read the reviews and weigh the pros and cons of each. You decide to go to the local store to check them out. You ask the salesperson opinion and you correct him on every specification he says because you know it better than him. You return home, get online and read reviews from another site. You finally make your decision. You know start reviewing websites to see which is the most secure to order from. After you pick the one, you put your credit card number only to find that this website does not accept your American Express. You get frustrated, but you manage to find another website that will accept your American Express. You order it and as soon as you place the order, you start thinking whether you made the right choice. You start reading reviews again and try to find positive reviews that will make you feel good about your choice. For the next 3-4 days you live by the window of your house waiting for Fed-Ex to arrive.

Time needed: 1 week – 4 months

 

You are sick:

Before: You call your doctor, make your appointment, visit the doctor, get your prescriptions, go home and wait to recover.

Time needed: Time you need to pick up the phone

Now: You get online. You google all your symptoms and come upon 10 possible diseases. You start thinking of how it could have started and reconsidering your symptoms. You come to the conclusion that you have a disease that affects 1 in 1000000 every year. You panic. You call your mum, dad, friends, boyfriend, girlfriend and you tell them about it. You then call the doctor, make an appointment, visit the doctor. Before the doctor asks you what the problem is, you state that you are sick with xxxxxxxx because you googled it. The doctor has a different idea, so you go to another doctor. You finally get convinced that you will be fine, take your medication, go home and wait to recover.

Time needed: Time needed to read about 100 websites

 

Wishing a friend happy birthday

Before: You have forgotten the last 3 years, but you remember today. You get your dusty phonebook out and you find the phone number of your friend. The number has changed since you last talked to him/ her, so you have to call the information line to get the new phone. You managed to call and wish Happy Birthday

Time needed: 20 minutes

Now: You put your username and password, you log in Facebook, you find your friend and write on their wall.

Time needed: 20 seconds

Dude, where is my smartphone?

Guilty as charged, I am one of the many people who cannot live without their smartphone. Better yet, I am one of the many people who need to have it next to me just in case an e-mail comes and I need to respond immediately. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Here are both sides of the coin:

The bad side:

Lack of personal life, increase of stress, deterioration of socialization skills, danger to others. Go through the following 7 questions and if your answer to most questions is “many”, “a lot”, “quite a few”, “I don’t remember” or any number, then you are as quilty as I am.

1) How many times have you checked or tried to write an e-mail or text message while driving?

2) How many times have you checked your smartphone while waking up in the middle of the night and read an e-mail and then you couldn’t sleep again?

3) How many times have you used your smartphone to play a game while riding a bus or a train and avoided talking to someone who could be interesting?

4) How many times have you received an e-mail during a meeting or during class and tried to read it?

5) How many times have you skipped the newspaper or the web from a personal computer to read the news on your mobile device?

6) How many times have you pulled up your smartphone while at a bar with friends to “google” something or to show them videos or pictures?

7) How many times have you paused a movie you are watching with your significant other in order to respond to an e-mail?

The good side:

Obviously there is a good side to it too. I strongly believe that the one thing that smartphones have helped businesses with, is increase of productivity and efficiency. The ability to be connected anywhere, anytime is extremely valuable and helps increase productivity. There is no need to go into examples here since they are self-explanatory I believe. Just imagine last-minute e-mails that need to be sent, urgent documents,, checking the stock market and anything else that you can do on a smartphone.

The solution

Make no mistake, if a smartphone is an integral part of your business and you need to hang by it, there is a way to absorb the benefits of a smartphone without falling into the trap of the disadvantages. Here is how:

1) If you get an e-mail after work hours that is not very urgent, ignore it until you go back to the office tomorrow.

2) If you get an urgent e-mail that needs an immediate response, respond to it. The sender knows that you are connected and will expect the response. Just make sure that if:

a) you are driving, to stop at a convenient location and take care of the business.

b) you are with friends, explain the situation, apologize and say that you will be back in less than 5 minutes.

3) Try to avoid using it for personal reasons when spending time with friends or family.

4) If possible, try to avoid taking it with you when you work-out.

5) Do not place it on your bedside table when you sleep for the night. The sender will probably know that you are sleeping. If the urgency requires a phone call he will do it.

These are just a few of the things you (or I) can do to make sure that our smartphones do not completely take over our lives. If you have any more insight, please feel free to share.

A.

The threat of Skype

If you live in the U.S I bet that the phrase stuck in your hear nowadays is “There is an app for just about anything…only on the i-Phone”.

One of the applications on the i-Phone is Skype (www.skype.com). Skype is a software where you can make free or very low-cost calls from your computer through an internet connection to anywhere in the world. What are the implications of this? Let’s walk through it.

The i-Phone by Apple is provided by AT&T a cell-phone provider. In order to purchase the i-Phone you have to get in a contract (usually 2 year) with AT&T where you get a specific number of minutes on your i-Phone for which you can talk per month. AT&T also provides wireless Internet service through the i-Phone. This is where Skype comes in the picture. If an owner of i-Phone decides to download the Skype application, then instead of using his or her minutes, he/she can use Skype and call anybody anywhere in the world using the wireless network service.

As more and more cell-phone manufacturers (RIM, Samsung, Nokia) come with applications for their phones, Skype presents a threat because of its network effect. Wireless providers have one of three options:

1) Block Skype from using their wireless networks. This will essentially make the Skype phone application useless if ALL the providers agree on this. Apple has already allowed Skype but has blocked it from being able to use AT&T’s network.

2) Allow Skype to use their wireless networks for a standard fee. Skype will pay and will in turn probably pass the cost to users who want to download the application. This seems to be the most probable scenario but it does take away from Skype’s image as being “free”.

3) Do nothing. This is an option where they might be forced to concede to. There is this concept of  net neutrality which allows a free and open Internet. If this is the case, then there will be a lot of money lost, many jobs lost (what a surprise!) and less investment in infrastructure.

There is another trend that we could be moving towards to and I certainly hope we do. The razor-blade model used by network providers is unfair especially for someone like me who is obligated to a two-year contract with a monthly fee for a specific number of minutes (the lowest one) when I only use about 10% of my minutes.

A.