We all claim to want a simple life, but sometimes we make things too darned complex by slapping layers of technology on problems that should have straightforward solutions.
New York Times’ technology writer David Pogue last week wrote about his battles with technology at speaking events, often finding he can’t control his own presentation or the hapless venue doesn’t have the right dongle for his computer.
At one event he describes how he had a technician driving two computers, one showing the current slide and the other showing the next slide so David would know what was coming up next. The article is worth a read just to understand what hoops people will go through to get technology working for them.
Like all technologists, David has a touching belief in the reliability of technology and forgets Murphy’s Law – what can go wrong will go wrong. To a degree we’re all doing this as technology becomes pervasive, cheap and easy to use.
Because it’s so easy to use, we assume it’s always going to be there so we come to rely complex solutions to simple problems. The GPS takes the place of the street directory and, because the computer says ‘yes’, we suspend belief in our own eyes until we find ourselves stranded in the wilderness.
The business risks are even greater when the computer says ‘no’ and all work comes to a stop, as we’ve seen with recent bank and airline outages.
The chain of disasters that led to the Fukushima Dai ichi nuclear plant meltdown is probably the worst case example. Each potential problem had a complex solution involving standby power and emergency pumps, all of which were washed away by the tsunami leaving the operators helpless.
Fortunately most of us will never be responsible for a nuclear meltdown – except maybe in our own offices after a disastrous presentation – but the lesson is that the more simple we can keep our systems, the more robust our businesses.
David Pogue’s adventures are a good example of this, avoiding disaster when he was told his computer, and therefore his presenter view, would be off stage, David panicked and it was only when he realised he could have a, gasp, print out of his event was the day saved.
A simple hard copy print out beats the technology bugs every time which is what anybody who regular gives presentations knows.
With presentations, people have come to expect to see a slide show illustrating the speakers points which does add complexity to everybody’s lives. Just how complex it can be is shown in how I make sure we have there’s a working presentation at the venue;
- Mail the presentation to the organisers a few days before
- Upload a copy to Dropbox or Box.net
- Save the presentation to a USB stick
- Copy the presentation to a netbook computer
- Take the netbook with me. The netbook is dumb and cheap but it has a VGA output which will work with most projectors
- Have a print out the presentation with speaker’s notes
- Arrive early
- Finally, I practice. Winging it the way David Pogue does is a recipe for embarrassment
Practice is an important thing both in presentation and businesses. If staff are trained, prepared and confident then they can work around tech or other hiccups.
How can you strip some of the complexity out of your operations? You could save some money along with making your business more flexible and robust.