North Coast Connections

I try my best to mask my impatience with colleagues, acquaintances and strangers who don't bother to polish their tech skills. After all, I can hardly encourage people to use technology effectively by scolding them. So I offer coaching, advice and talk about the benefits in the hopes of inching people along as best I can.

However, I get to the point in my work life that I occasionally have to use shock therapy to get people out of their comfort zone. When I am teaching or consulting, I try to instill a sense of alarm when dysfunctional tech scenes unfold instead of just living with it. Here are some examples:

CLUNKY DATA SYSTEMS
God save us from computer systems that require the user to access multiple screens, enter a lot of extraneous data, use the mouse more than necessary and generally annoy, vex and frustrate those the computer system is supposed to work for. I add to this category those data systems with unattractive
interfaces such as black screens and green fonts.

OVER CLICKING
Everyone building a website should be painfully aware that users lose interest after a click or two. Content should be organized so that useful information is no more than two (at the most three) clicks away from your home page. Track website statistics that show what visitors see most on your site and "promote" heavily visited content while "demoting" or eliminating little used information.

LOSING YOUR TOOL
Like most busy professionals, I need a good calendar, address book, to do list and note taking organizer. After all, it is a necessary tool. I've purchased plenty of different software packages over time, but I've stuck with one that is now out of business from Daytimers (the folks who make paper organizers). Why? Because IT WORKS!! I've tried all the major products and each one is either too difficult to learn, is not intuitive, or is clunky beyond reason. A key feature must be the ability to synchronize with Palm digital assistants. I only hope I can find a replacement software package before this one loses its ability to work with new Windows updates.