100 Business Days Out: Day 12 - Tool Tyranny

When I got my first “professional” job (defined as when I went to work for Pratt and Whitney in 1986) the tools I was given to work with were a desk phone, a new thing they were just rolling out called Octel Voice Messaging, and a desk. We were not given desktop PCs individually until the following year in 1987 when they rolled out this new thing call PROFS from IBM (now more called instant messaging) that was the precursor to email. We used PROFS for very important and high level things like finding out what time you wanted to go to lunch, flirting and sending barbs back and forth. Fast forward to 2008 and here I am on my own in my home office trying to manage my tools: two laptops (one Dell, one Mac), a two monitor set-up for my Dell, 100gig Iomega storage back-up for my Dell, 500gig Iomega storage back-up for my Mac, a Motorola V-Cast phone/PDA with active sync, two Plantronic wireless headsets, high-speed (Buffalo) wireless repeaters throughout the house, a Logitech webcam, and an Epson wireless scanner/fax/copier. What I have in my home office alone is more than the whole department that I worked in at Pratt and Whitney had at the time. And what do I also have that Pratt and Whitney had? Pratt and Whitney had Chuck, who was the IT expert and was bringing us into the new age. He was a mainframe guy but he was the guy who gave us our first desktop PCs, taught us how to use this newfangled voicemail thing, etc. And now I have my own Chuck. His name is Ryan. Ryan comes to the house and tunes the computers and network we run. (I forgot to mention that Patti has her own office too). So, we have come a long way. I do ask the question though as I monitor and assess the performance of my home network and tools….what happened to the simple days? I do know that with the move from simplicity to complexity it is one more thing to worry about, pay for, and do all you can to not fall behind the curve.