The Future As Seen By Me In 2010

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Well looky here, things one has scanned in eh. (ignore the photo, that's some guy that made some accounting software, not sure what became of him ;) MIKE RIVERSDALE is fuming. The expensive headphones he bought in Sydney three weeks ago have just died. His first reaction is not to randomly spill expletives into his coffee, but to use his iPhone to vent his frustration to his Twitter con- tacts, under the moniker Miramar Mike. "I will also put, 'What should I do?' It's a conversation. I'm reaching out to the people following me." The council predicts hand-held digital devices such as smartphones will rule the world in 2040. They already rule the life of Mr Riversdale, whose company WaveAdept helps businesses adapt - their computing sys- tems to allow staff to work from anywhere - and with anyone. In order of fre- equency, he uses his iPhone to tweet (1136 followers; 8363 tweets since joining), e-mail, make phone calls and use online services, such as checki
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WTF Do You Think This Product Does?

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Plain English (or local equivalent) is something that should, nay MUST be used at all times as part of making your information findable and more importantly usable.

A classic example of NOT using plain English comes from this product's "key features" list - number 1 key feature is:
The new Web 2.0 based user experience for [product name] is centered around the needs of the modern ECM knowledge worker user interface; it delivers a simplified and streamlined application which will improve usability and efficiency.

This is THE number one reason you should buy this product .. so, what do you think it does? No, need more, OK let's keep on reading, feature number 2:
Fourth-generation object model: Content Manager object model combines content, process and compliance resources as native capabilities that enable content to be dynamically managed and dramatically reduces development complexity.

! ... ?!? ... ???

Moving swiftly on to key feature number 3 (out of 8, and I won't subject you to the whole list):
Active content: Unique [product name] capability to proactively move content and content-related business tasks through a business process without requiring human initiation.

Wholly crap, this product will move content (I'm assuming documents but I could be so wrong) around without anyone doing a thing ... it's a robot!

Given up? I gave up and I HAD to try and find out for some work at a client site - good thing I wasn't deciding whether to spend (loads) of dollars on something like this as I would've been off to competitors within seconds.
Check out the product page for yourself and tell me if you're any clearer.

Ooooh, it's so easy to mock ... but I am guilty of the same and boy do I have to pull finger and make it easier for people to know what I do! Do you know what I do from my "about page"? I will be expecting help in the very near future from you all :-)


And as an aside, you ever heard of "human latency" before ... no, I hadn't until this morning as I viewed a Sharepoint preso and had to check with Google what the jolly heck it was - this from Reducing human latency:
If, for example, it will take you two days to take appropriate steps after being alerted to a particular issue then the fact that that information arrived at your desk within seconds of its occurring, as opposed to hours, will not have huge relevance. This decision-making latency, or human latency, is what needs to be squeezed out of the situation in order to improve efficiency.

Comments

  1. Anonymous28 August 2008 at 10:27

    "This decision-making latency, or human latency, is what needs to be squeezed out of the situation in order to improve efficiency."

    EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous28 August 2008 at 10:36

    What's worse it's from an organisation that for over half a century had a superb reputation for being customer intimate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. David French28 August 2008 at 11:01

    Plain English everytime. It used to be just TLAs that made text difficult now almost every combination of 2 words has a special meaning to some group of "thought leaders" involved in "social enterprises". No wonder there is "human latency", we are all reviewing every passage against Google to figure out the hidden meaning.

    ReplyDelete

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