Sure, it's from a comic strip. About corporate life. But it still works—probably more than ever. And yet there's so much of it we take for granted—or simply forget how little of it we used at the turn of the century.
Ten years ago, fax machines still dominated a lot of the business we do. In fact, I still remember our first Readers' Choice survey eight years ago, and how counting though the faxed-in ballots became an exercise in archaeology, because if you wrinkled the fragile paper, or smeared the barely-there ink, it would be lost to history.
Remember AOL? Dial-up internet? All replaced by broadband, turning email into more than a weekend hobby while completely transforming video from a choppy, time-consuming hassle to a business model for at least three major players that allows you to watch just about any television show ever, anywhere you want.
And the iPod? Remember when Steve Jobs unveiled that game changer? It wasn't his first. Or his last, but it represents a turning point in small, portable electronics—specifically memory storage and battery life—that would be carried over into so many other aspects of our personal and professional lives.
iPhones, or any smartphone for that matter, have become as ubiquitous as business cards—if we even have those anymore.
And we're watching another digital revolution take place right before our eyes as tablets threaten to upend not only a personal computer market that just saw its single-greatest quarterly sales drop, but print media as a whole. Books, magazines, newspapers, all suddenly endangered species, replaced by a single tablet that can all the things they used to, while still allowing you to wipe out a colony of discolored pigs with a flock of birds.
What about social media? How many of you were on Facebook even five years ago—or even MySpace, for that matter? Or even knew what a tweet was two years ago? Or a Tumblr? Now, you can't even begin to compete in today's market without a robust, people-powered social media strategy.
Which brings me to how we do business: Remember when laptop enrollments seemed so cutting-edge? And when something such as telemedicine seemed pulled straight from “The Jetsons”? And even though it's only been a few years, can any of us even imagine how we'd do our jobs without access to a world of information on a device that doubles as a telephone? And still fits in a suit pocket? Or designer purse?
All of which leaves us with Putt's Law: “Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.” Where do you fall?
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