Innovation News Can Mean IT Support Blues

Working in the high speed internet world means friends and acquaintances always assume I’m all over the latest trends, gizmos, apps and services. And to some extent I am — in fact I have to be, but…

A New (OLD) Rule to Live By

Only some of you will remember the TV series Banacek back in the early 70’s. George Peppard played a super smart freelance investigator. Banacek would always recover the stolen art, jewels, etc., collecting the million dollar reward offered by the “Insurance Company”, one step ahead of the baffled police or the poor, underpaid in-house investigator.

Why do TV characters always have such cool homes?  Banacek’s residence was filled with rare antiques. Banacek explained, “There’s only 2 years of NEW, but 10,000 years of OLD, so the odds of getting something OLD that’s better than something NEW are about 5,000 to 1.”

Hey, it’s TV… before the Googles and the You Tubes, you found little gems of wisdom where you could!

So this particular quote has stuck with me… it just made so much sense, it became a “rule to live by”.

Working in a high tech field, I see more and more people demanding the latest, greatest gizmo, program or high speed Internet service. Yesterday’s model has become, well,  too yesterday… is the newest obsession simply being the “newest”? Is Twitter faster than the speed of gossip?

The key difference between leading edge and “bleeding” edge? If it’s absolutely out of the door for the first time, that means it’s also new to the technical people supporting it where the latest definitely isn’t always the greatest. So play nice, and be careful — don’t cut yourself.

That’s why I never buy any of that new stuff. Am I alone in this?

(Drafted on my iPAD 2, Oct 19, 2011. Available on Craigslist as soon as the iPad3 is available).