Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/303798
W e, as Americans, love technology. From the latest smart phone, to the latest interactive TV gadget, we love our technology. e newer, the better. We are easily hooked on the latest gadgets, too. A couple of examples: My daughter, who attends high school, broke her smart phone last year. In the five days it took me to repair the phone I think she nearly died three times from the shock of not being connected with her friends. I am being facetious, but the grief she felt from losing her phone for a few days was very real, and likely deeper than what she felt from losing her first boyfriend. For TV, I was an early adopter of Digital Video Recorder (DVR) technology. I love the freedom of being able to watch TV shows when you want, and being able to skip commercials. Watching a sporting event without all the breaks for commercials, and time- outs is a joy. If I have to live without my DVR, I don't even turn on the TV. It is too hard to wade through the available shows that are on now, and most commercials are a true annoyance. e question comes back to why? Why have our lives become so entwined with this technology? Why do we crave the latest gadget? If we look at life 20 years ago — before much of this technology — we lived without it. How are we so dependent on it now? ese questions are hard to answer, and are usually a matter of personal desires, and cultural customs. Part of it is popularity, part of it is how easy these devices make otherwise hard tasks become. For me, it is largely feeding a desire to be more efficient, and stay in communication with those whom I associate. In India, when newspapers came online, there was a boom in the use of online personal classifieds. is was to support the matchmaking that thrives in that society. In the U.S. today, we are seeing a large number of 40 to 60 year olds getting on Facebook, and using other online services. is group is the largest growth group on Facebook today. ese examples are not the standard idea of young, male video game players being the only ones using new technology. ere is a growing array of online services that support many aspects of everyone's life. It is much more than just game playing, or social media, too. E-books, business services, general information, religious services and materials, etc. ... We are seeing an ever increasing amount of our physical and social wants and needs filled through applications and online. It is curious, too, as we see more and more information about us virtualized, we are seeing the retro movement of physical information becoming cool again. e popularity of vinyl records is one of the biggest evidences of this. What does this have to do with you? We are seeing user interfaces get more intuitive, and easier to navigate. New technology is leading this ease of use charge. We are also seeing an increase in connectedness and acceptance of online communication. Skype, email, and other electronic communication methods are much more accepted than before. Paper mailings, and face-to-face meetings are becoming more scarce. e bottom line is, we need to work in this world to stay competitive, even in transportation. Get excited about technology. If you embrace the new hardware and applications that are coming out, it will pay off in increased productivity, connectedness and can even help your bottom line. WHY WE LOVE NEW TECHNOLOGY Vo l . 8 , N o . 3 TRUCKSTOP.COM 17 BY CHIP OLSEN, ITS DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS TechTalk