Gadgets Galore

I was getting caught up on some ‘offline’ reading; wading through a stack of magazines when I came across a cover story in Information Week (Jan 9, 2006). The headline reads:

EMBRACE YOUR INNER GEEK. With consumer tech driving innovation, staying gadget-savvy is a business imperative, not just a indulgence. (You can find the full text of this article here).

In this article, the authors make the observation (from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas) that the lines between consumer and business tech are vanishing. Think about how most people react when they see an IT manager sitting in his/her office playing with gadgets; or ‘toys’ as they are affectionately referred to. Most people would question the value of this effort or treat it as a waste of time.

But given the importance of handheld devices today to everyday work it is hard to make the distinction between work and play any more. Even camera phones have become a way to capture scribblings on a whiteboard eliminating the need for expensive devices. iPods can be used to listen to informational podcasts or educational material. Convergence has blurred the lines between many of the pocket devices we are used to carrying around (PIM, eMail, phone, still or video camera, GPS, music player, video phone, and now – even pocket TV).

A recent post (Top 10 technology trends for 2006) places ‘cell phones that do everything’ in the numer two spot.

So, we need to take these gadgets seriously. We need to plan to integrate them into our solution architectures – whether in educational or work settings. They have become indispensable extensions or prostheses for many of us. McLuhan would have had fun examining the impact of these devices.