Try Not to be Always Amazed

One of the easiest ways to spot a digital immigrant is their ongoing sense of amazement at ever evolving technology. If you wish to blend in, never, ever, start a conversation with, “I remember when,” or “Back in my day.” What you say next is no more valid to a digital native than how far your parents had to walk to school through drifts of snow bigger than any seen in modern times.

Moore's Law guarantees you will be more and more amazed. Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel, asserted in 1965 that the number of transistors on integrated circuits would double every two years.

An overly simplistic interpretation is that computers become twice as powerful at half the cost every two years.

(Note to computer engineers who may have stumbled upon my humble blog, yes I realize I am evoking an overly simplistic explanation of the complexities and permutations of Moore's Law. Before you flame me, I'll even admit it is a grossly simplistic view. Okay?)

Miniaturization is limited to a human being's data input ability, not the device. Here's a tip for digital immigrants, practice texting. Nothing tags you faster as an oldster than the inability to text with speed. Digital natives grew up with using only their thumbs to input data; we learned data input typing with all 10 fingers.

Since a theme of this blog is trying to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving business world, my advice is to let go the impulse to assert your personal technology evolution as a measure of your relevance.

Every time I forget myself and let loose with a story about moving from a pager to a brick phone to a flip phone to a smart phone, I see the natives' eyes gloss over. My intentions are true. I want these kids to appreciate what they have. A full-fledged computer, camera, video camera, data communication device that fits in your pocket and also makes phone calls? They should appreciate how far we've come. But that's exactly what Dad said about the school bus.

I understand it's hard to resist.

When I had my own ad agency, Influential Communications, my designer and I went through a series of storage devices at a frightening pace far faster than every other year. One advantage of working in marketing is that you are always forced to be at the leading edge of technology.

Each leap in computer technology allowed us to do more, especially in graphic design. Each time we did more, file sizes grew. Getting the file to the printer required a seemingly endless evolution of devices and standard upgrades. I could open a museum of removable media.

We stared with the 5.25 inch floppy discs, then the 3.5 floppy discs. (Remember how you could tape over the lockout on the back and reformat those free AOL discs?) Next came a rather expensive optical-magnetic drive. Then we followed Syquest as it leapt through ever-increasing capacity drives and their attendant cartridges. Next we had to switch to Zip Drives and they then ran the same race of ever bigger capacity drives and cartridges. Finally we thought CDs were our salvation. The cost dropped significantly and every new computer came with a built-in drive. But then DVDs appeared with even greater capacity. Having lived through all this, you'll forgive my shock when I see you can now carry a terrabyte of information in your pocket on a thumb drive that costs less than $100.

Now as Marketing Director at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, I am still driving changes and upgrades. We moved the web site to content management, Joomla. (It's overdue for upgrading to the next version.) We're trying to keep up with Social Media. Just this past week we added two new webcams. And we are working to introduce a new digital interface for one of the exhibits by July. I'm spending more of my free time with my GoPro and Adobe Premier. It seems video editing is an inherent skill for most digital natives. You can see some of my attempts on my YouTube channel. My motorcycle skills video sent my wife Cynthia into paroxysms.

There is no end to the upgrading. (That will perhaps be my next blog post.) Get over it.

Having been in at the beginning earns you no chops either.

I remember stacking punch cards to run primitive programs. My first work computer, a Compugraphic, saved to paper tape. My portable writing device at the time was a manual typewriter in a fiberglass case. When we cut and pasted, we really cut and pasted, with scissors, tape and waxed cold type. I loved my Radio Shack Model 100. I could program a bit in Basic. I've owned most every version of Windows. I once memorized 30-some function key combinations for WordPerfect. I am fairly fluent on both PC and Mac.

Nobody cares.

I have a coffee mug decorated with this Dilbert cartoon on my desk. It reminds me to stay fresh and to keep my digital war stories to myself.