Technology is great... For technology companies... For the rest of us, it sucks!

So, Marino commented on a previous post... To which I replied... Fuck you are so right... We have all worked on tech accounts that promised the next "Paradigm Shift" Which was the same old shit rehashed... Fuck this for a comment... I'll run this out into a full blown post... Stand by. So, picking up where I left off... Yes, it is like all that shit companies like Intel, or 3Com, or Cisco, or whoever, have been promising the great unwashed public for years... That all-encompassing, seamless, integrated, ubiquitous computing, communications, interactivity, whatever. Whereas, in truth, it all just gets more and more screwed up while it costs you more and more bucks. Remember that Star Treck movie of ten or so years ago (can't remember the exact number) where Sulu tries to talk to the computer (which is a Fucking Mac... Ha... Bloody Ha) and is stunned when someone tells him he will have to use a keyboard to communicate with the computer! And, just how many years has voice recognition software been around... Since we discovered fire? Anyway... It's all a giant conspiracy to keep us shelling out the bucks for software that is in reality, increasingly HARDware.

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Precisely!!!

Comments

[marinobean]

glad to be of service, but it's true for all clients, and lately even more so... EVERY client seems to have rented The Graduate and taken the "diversification" dialouge to heart, even though they only make one thing.

take Coke. how many versions have they unleashed on an unsuspecting public? vanilla, lemon, lime, blak (WTF!!!??) and they've all died in the aisles. Coke makes good fizzy brown water tha's great with ice and hard liquor. period. stick to making what you make well and stop wasting everyone's time with trying to solve the middle east crisis. you will not teach the world to sing in harmony and shame on you for trying to bring that old chestnut back way past its expiration date.

the same is true of most clients that over reach on development and over promise to the consumer. that's one of the things that makes Nike so good, and left out of brand integration powerpoint briefings. they stick to what they know: sports shoes and clothing. they work with the marketable users of their products: athletes. they're a lifestyle company and happy to stay that way. they don't make TV's. they don't have 17 flavors. they, and a few others, are happily entrenched doing what they started out doing and have made agreat profitable niche for themselves.

the same is true for the tech, telecomm, and interactive product providers. over reach + over promise = over saturation. that's why the iPhone looks fantastic but will be a small player in the end. bigger fish specilaize in that field will pick it apart and make a better, cheaper one. there's already a clone in china that's 1/4 the price and has most of the features with stronger specs. AND THE IPHONE IS NOT EVEN OUT YET!

stick to what you know best. whether it's technologies, communications, shoes, or soft drinks. you'll have happier customers and be able to provide a better product.

aaahhh, the golden days of yesteryear!

[makethelogobigger]

I find it amazing that Toyota can single-handedly challenge Ford for No. 1 truck/car sales here, but they haven't been able to figure out how to duplicate a fucking can of Coke or a Pepsi?

They figured out door locks for Christ's sake, how hard can a pop top be?

[marinobean]

i'm sorry, MTLB, why does Toyota want to make a soda?

as for replacing Ford at the top of the food chain, that's simple: evolution. all the big dumb animals that trample the landscape after becoming too big for their mass to be connected to their medula are supplanted by the smaller wily animals that forage better that eventually grow into the big dumb animals that trample the.... well, you see the cycle.

that's part of the problem. clients buy into the hype that their empire will never die. they should spend a couple of hours with a history professor or at least the box set of HBO's Rome.

and i get the chinese reference above, but please. if you make cars, make really good ones and leave the eyeglass frames to Persol.

[Gary Bloomer]

George, you're right to say the role of techology is to control people. Take the media as a prime example: mindless game shows, troupes of performing sports people, even the news for God's sake with its dramatic voiceovers with tales of woe about all kinds of other nonsense, most of which isn't news. Technology has given us fire, the wheel, beer, and a good deal more. But now it's 2007, which leads me to ask one simple question. Where's my flying car?

[Jetpacks]

It was Scotty, not Sulu.

Geez.

[Jetpacks]

And Gary, where's your flying car? FLYING CAR?

Jetpack, man. Jetpack.

[Tangerine Toad]

Marino: The few times Nike has stepped outside the model you outlined, the results have been abysmal- witness their iPod-friendly headphones which get bad reviews all around.

But they've certainly done their share of extensions within the sports category. Remember, they were a running shoe first. And then a basketball shoe. They've brancked out into clothing and to other sports: tennis, baseball (they make baseball gloves that compete against Rawlings & Wilson), football, etc. In many of those categories there was already an established brand.

Their success is that they've kept it simple and not tried out the sports equivalent of diet vanilla-lime-mango Coke.

[everysandwich]

The thing about tech that fries my ham to a crispy brown is the time, effort, money and manpower that goes into taking technology built to be flexible, adaptable and ubiquitous and then packaging into some torturous, hoop-jumping propietary scheme whose sole purpose is to lock me into a "solution" that probably isn't the best. If it were the best solution, the money would have gone into making technology made to solve the problem instead of locking me into some freakin monetization channel. Mmm...Ham.

[makethelogobigger]

marinobean - they don't, to my knowledge.

Point is, mastering the formula of a stupid can of soda has got to be a lot easier than ramping up for automotive production and then dominating a US market. Since we seem to be really good at inventing stuff here only to see it be copied better, faster and cheaper by other countries, you'd think by now someone would've kicked Pepsi or Coke's ass.

Can't be just because they have good lawyers or that ® mark.

;-p

[marinobean]

i think they're in cahoots with la Cosa Nostra, you know, the Italian family, nudge, nudge, wink, wink... the Hudson River floor is littered with dead soda competition in cement shoes!

seriously, the was the simplicity of purpose that good manufacturing adheres to. toad, you're right about Nike moving into the world of sporting goods,but it was a logical extension of the original product. theytried to cohabit the market with Apple for the personal trainer iPod and let it go smartly after it failed to move.

they didn't start a flatware company. Hummer makes shoes, fer crissakes!

MTLB, there are some things that can't be improved on, i guess, not due to product greatness but due to being imbedded in the social subconscious. Coke even tries to expand their range with Fanta with 70+ flavors, count 'em, and the best selling one? orange.

i agree, competition is healthy, but within limits. but: how many SUV's are needed? from the same company? mulitplied by how many companies? we've all seen the Cadillac pick-ups, with leather appointments and plenty of room in the back for jewelers screwdriver set from Neimann-Marcus.

and thank the lord that Porsche entered that market! that was a thud heard round the world...

negrito, por favor!

[Gary Bloomer]

Jetpacks,
It's ten below here on the east coast and I'm too old to be exposed to the elements. So, if it's a toss up between sitting in an enclosed, heated flying car, over freezing my nuggets off or getting soaked strapped to a jetpack, I'll take the former. Thank you.