Even the geekyist of us have terrible and costly technology weeks; it's the price of using complex systems. With extraordinary state-of-the-art features come extraordinary costs in either the form of time, money, or both. Do the costs justify the benefits of being an early adopter? Where on this scale are you happiest, most profitable, and most effective?
In other blog posts I'll cover the benefits of technology. In this post I'm just going to focus on the costs when something goes horribly wrong. Here's what my cursed week looked like:
1. My brand new MacBook Air died a slow death over two weeks. Cost: 6 hours
2. My company's accounting computer got infected with a password-stealing and key-logging Trojan. Cost: 12 hours
3. Adobe's Creative Suite install on my temporary PC failed. (I'm getting my dead Mac replaced) Cost: 4 hours
If you had been paying your computer tech to handle this for you, your week would have cost you around $3,000.
I'm sure the early adopters of automobiles had similar problems. They were moving from problems that they knew how to solve on their horses and other tools to new problems that they didn't yet know how to solve. Was it worth the change? It took some people a generation to transition. They went from all the known hassles of maintaining a horse to new problems--starting your car with a crank, regularly blown out tires, and expensive parts that were hard to make yourself. Entry into any new field requires this learning process and you just need to decide: is it worth it for you?
If you want to get into the weeds, here are the technical details of what failed and why it took so long.
Earthquake got you shaking in your boots about the security of your data? Irene rearing her hurricane head have you wondering if you’re going to be kayaking past your laptop next week? Well, ITC wants to help keep you and your office on track even when Mother Nature has other plans.
