Technology - Am I...Old?

[thetiger2015]

Well, today is the day I finally feel like a fossil...

I had a 2 hour virtual meeting with a US company and I still don't actually know what the purpose of their software/technology is or the problem it's supposed to solve?

For 2 hours, the American was going on and on about Web 3.0, intelligent interactions through virtual portals and digital touch points for staff in customer facing positions. Basically, a wholly linked up and digital system, all bundled together and cloud based that blends internal and external systems and integrates with other platforms to bring down data from Shopify, Klaviyo etc.

All very nice but I am finding it difficult to understand the point of all of these new cloud based software things. They seem to be finding problems in a digital world that are instantly solved by....picking up the phone?

It started with Slack - I never understood it, I opened the app once, read some comments and then never bothered again. Seemed like a place for web developers to put memes on with their friends. This was back in 2017, I've not been near it since.

I also experimented with Trello but found it just as simple to use Notes on my phone or...a notepad...

So, as business owners, do you try and learn about the new techy world or do you pass this on to younger, more able types in your business? If so, how do you understand enough about what's going on, the costs, the reasoning behind the investment etc? If someone is telling you to invest in TikTok advertising...don't you find that difficult to get your head around? It's just people doing silly dances or cats falling over, what's the point?

 

[Ozzy]

today is the day I finally feel like a fossil...

There has been many a conversation in the office where I have literally felt my body decaying during the conversation.

I've accepted that I like the old ways but know the business often needs the new ways. I'm not even allowed into the codebase of some of our software now because my coding standards are not up with the new trends!
We use Slack to communicate with some of the development teams within Government as it's what they use, and we used to use it ourselves before we switched to Teams. Used properly it's actually a really good tool, mainly used by software and technology companies. The same goes for Trello, which I do personally really like, it's a good visual project planning tool for team planning and management.

I think it boils down to two things really, whether you believe in the person giving you the recommendation and if you look behind the technology and into the business case whether it stacks up. Using TikTok as an example, I think I heard the other day that half the population of the entire planet have installed TikTok which more than any other platform in existence. Taking that business case, then to not be using TikTok in your marketing strategy you could be missing a huge market.
I spent a few days looking through TikTok at different company marketing strategies and what makes a viral TikTok (saw some dodgy stuff too) and found it quite fascinating. Not my cup of tea, but I could see the business case for it. UKBF now has TikTok, not that I use it and no way I'm doing these silly dances. I'd put my back out.

 

[gpietersz]

In my view it is a mistake to assume young people are more able with technology. They are familiar with things like fun and social media mobile phone apps, but a lot of them are worse at using work related technology. There was an article I read not long ago about American STEM undergraduates who did not understand things like files and folders. They are used to (at best) flat lists and search.

I had a 2 hour virtual meeting with a US company and I still don't actually know what the purpose of their software/technology is or the problem it's supposed to solve?

Its quite possible that they do not have a clear idea either! Its also possible they are so wrpped up in technology issues and buzzwords that they cannot explain the benefits.

With regard to Slack and Trello, they are both useful if you are part of a team that uses them. They are collaboration tools so not something you would use an an individual.

If someone is telling you to invest in TikTok advertising...don't you find that difficult to get your head around? It's just people doing silly dances or cats falling over, what's the point?

If your potential customers like watching what is on tiktok, then its a good place to advertise.

 

[Mark T Jones]

If it helps, I'm staying in a cottage which boasts a Nespresso coffee machine

I've absolutely no idea why it's supposed to be better than a cafetiere.

 

[tony84]

I think like anything, it has to fix a problem for your business or improve it in some way.

I still do not understand the need for teams and the other one for most meetings. I remember doing my second teams meeting and thinking why could we not just use the phone.

 

[WaveJumper]

Well this has just taken me back several years when, in another life I was attending a trade show in London with a fellow facilities director when we wandered up to a very impressive stand and got talking to a fine young gentleman.
After about five minutes I looked at my co attendee and asked is it just me or is this guy speaking a foreign language I had not got a clue what he was talking about, it turned out we had drifted into a neighbouring trade event specializing in cyber security …….. I was just glad it was not part of my brief at the time; some things are just best left to others.

 

[Alan]

I write software, mainly around events among other stuff.

At the beginning of December one of my clients was holding a seminar in virtual reality which was also being viewed by attendees not in the metaverse, so I had to write some software so that those outside the virtual world could real time chat with those within.

I was awesome seeing a 'fireside chat' in VR.

( of course the pandemic has accelerated the need for this sort of stuff )

This stuff makes me feel young.

Alan, aged 62 and 5/8ths

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I have always used computers since the first Hewlett Packard just before the PC. but always as a user not writing software.
One thing I have never understood is the need for SAS software on the Cloud, when you can have software on your computer which you have full control of.
Perhaps someone can explain why i should use Microsoft 365 rather than just using Office and having total control over it and far less security risk at the same time
Jargon seems to be the new way of inventing new words that are meaningless buy show how clever you are to others , just like the Guardian job adverts for the civil service

 

[Mark T Jones]

I have always used computers since the first Hewlett Packard just before the PC. but always as a user not writing software.
One thing I have never understood is the need for SAS software on the Cloud, when you can have software on your computer which you have full control of.
Perhaps someone can explain why i should use Microsoft 365 rather than just using Office and having total control over it and far less security risk at the same time
Jargon seems to be the new way of inventing new words that are meaningless buy show how clever you are to others , just like the Guardian job adverts for the civil service

It's not a new debate. My father is fond of reminding me that he was selling cloud software when I was born (a long time ago( for IBM, who famously turned away Bill Gates because nobody wanted all their data on one computer.

Details have changed, the respective arguments are similar

 

[DontAsk]

Perhaps someone can explain why i should use Microsoft 365 rather than just using Office and having total control over it and far less security risk at the same time

You shouldn't If you don't own the server then you don't own the data. The plug can be pulled at any time. Or ownership changes and you suddenly see a hike in fees.

Similarly with password managers whose developers can be bought out and the app monetised, i.e., lets screw over all those people who have become dependent upon it (this has happened).

 

[Nico Albrecht]

Microsoft 365 rather than just using Office

There are many reason for businesses and office 365 business is actually very cost effective and helps cash flow a lot for businesses.

Let's run some numbers Office 365 is = to Office Professional 2021

Office Professional 2021 perpetual license for 1 device is around £400.

Most businesses have more than 1 PC so we would need more, 365 up to 5 devices licensed. You can even install more but only 5 can run at the same time. Perfect for home office and main office workers.

5 x £400 for Office 2021 so about 2K upfront with about 5 - 7 years security updates ( 3 max for MacOS version ) You would need 2019 or later to even run on a current MacOS and couldn't install 2016 on the latest MacOS.

Office 365 business is about £110 / year for 5 computers and gives you exchange email and 1TB cloud on top . It would take you more than 15 years to just break even.

A lot can happen in 15 years.

As much as I don't prefer subscriptions 365 business is very good value for money for very little monthly costs plus you get all the tech support and latest version by default.

 

[Alan]

It's not a new debate. My father is fond of reminding me

Certainly not new.
My second job as a developer was working for a business that provided what was called a 'bureau service', where companies would dial in at 110 baud ( 10 bytes per second ) type in data and print reports.

One thing I have never understood is the need for SAS software on the Cloud,

The answer is simple - economies of scale - one centralised solution 'rented' is far more economic than developing and maintaining your own software & servers.

You don't HAVE to use cloud services, but if you don't you need to fully understand the costs of running / supporting and potentially enhancing your own.

e.g. the cost of you employing 2 ( as you would need to cover holiday / sickness ) two top flight information security analysts would be around £150,000 p.a. where as if you use a cloud service like Google or O365 you are sharing the cost of around 400 top flight IS analysts for around $3.95 a month.

 

[Ozzy]

If you don't own the server then you don't own the data.

Accepting that I'm being a little pedantic on terminology here, but I want to separate "owning" the data and "managing" the data. The data is always your data, but if you use a cloud service then you are outsourcing the management of the data to someone else.
As a SaaS business since 2001 before the term cloud and SaaS was being bounded around, this is an argument I've come up against many times in the early years so always have to pick up on it.

The plug can be pulled at any time. Or ownership changes and you suddenly see a hike in fees.

This is true, but I'd argue it would be a bit silly for someone to take over a business and then screw over all their clients they just purchased. Although I would be take this into account when and if you choose who to outsource your software to.
I'd like to think you'd be pretty safe with the likes of O365, Google and AWS. Could be wrong but I have gambled on it.

You don't HAVE to use cloud services, but if you don't you need to fully understand the costs of running / supporting and potentially enhancing your own.

We as a business did make a decision to stop managing our own web infrastructure about 15ish years ago. I think we were one of Google's early cloud customers.
We used to have our own bank of servers handling different parts of our system from database, web, scheduler, email and it became a pain keeping their OS and software up to date, and upgrading the hardware. A few years later we decided to also bin off our office server and move to O365 too. It wasn't about cost with either of the decisions, the reason was convenience. Just two less things we needed to worry about.

 

[fisicx]

I just use Libre Office. It’s even more cost effective.

 

[Ozzy]

I just use Libre Office. It’s even more cost effective.

We actually use --headless LibreOffice on the part of our system that creates Share Certificates and other company documents. Was much more cost effective and flexible that trying to code into an MS Office internal API to generate PDF documents.

 

[Alan]

I just use Libre Office. It’s even more cost effective.

As always depends on requirements. If your requirement is a stand alone desktop spreadsheet / word processor then it is a great choice.

If however your requirement is a real time collaboration between several people in remote locations then there are better solutions.

 

[Ozzy]

If however your requirement is a real time collaboration between several people in remote locations then there are better solutions.

That’s a big part of the reason we needed cloud based, all our documents (mainly spreadsheets) are shared files we work on collaboratively…from different locations.

 

[fisicx]

I’m Billy no mates. So no collaboration for me. I just have to decipher clients requirements. Half of whom think WhatsApp is a suitable means business communication.

 

[Strontium Dog]

I’m Billy no mates. So no collaboration for me. I just have to decipher clients requirements. Half of whom think WhatsApp is a suitable means business communication.

Well "Billy" - you've just made me spill my coffee with your WhatsApp reference. I think the added point here is we all need solutions our clients are happy with.

 

[fisicx]

Indeed. Except I had a chap from Gambia paste his whole specification into WhatsApp. He had my email address he just only ever wanted to use WhatsApp.

 

[Kitsunae]

If it helps, I'm staying in a cottage which boasts a Nespresso coffee machine

I've absolutely no idea why it's supposed to be better than a cafetiere.

I don't know either, except that every time I see one I think of George Clooney. And also the craziness of consumerism and the insane amount of waste created.

But my in-laws have bought... four? Five? It was with great difficulty that we managed to stop them from gifting us one – they really love them.

PS. Also, it really annoys me when they are put in hotel rooms instead of the kettle and all my tea ends up coffee flavoured.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

This is true, but I'd argue it would be a bit silly for someone to take over a business and then screw over all their clients they just purchased. Although I would be take this into account when and if you choose who to outsource your software to.

I always quote the story of Digital Railroad. You might own the data but if they turn off the servers your data becomes worthless.

As The Byre is keen to point out major companies can get into difficulties.

 

[fisicx]

I always quote the story of Digital Railroad. You might own the data but if they turn off the servers your data becomes worthless.

As The Byre is keen to point out major companies can get into difficulties.

Happened more than once with Adobe. And if you don’t keep up with your subscriptions you lose everything (as a number of designers have discovered).

SaaS can work well but keep all your data at home.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Regarding Slack, Trello, Monday etc, I think sometimes there is an unnecessary push towards this "collaboration" , and a hell of a load of apps that claim to make life simpler.....except they create you a load more work to supposedly make things simpler. Set up a project group, add your various projects into it, add some subprojects, set up tasks of subprojects, assign some projects to a team leader who can then assign tasks to individuals, send indivduals reminders when their tasks are due to be completed, email team leaders when a task is overdue who can then reassign that task to a different person or put it into a backlog queue which will highlight to senior management who can request a status update from the individual responsible and so on and so on and so on!

Or, you know....sometimes we could just pick up the phone to somebody and ask them to do something, or ask how they're getting on with something? Maybe have a meeting every week or fortnight for a quick catch up and review?

I'm sure in huge organisations there can be some benefits when massive teams are very remote from each other, but in smaller work environments I really think it can be overkill. Our design agency and two of our customers that I have spoken to in the last maybe 4 - 6 weeks have all stopped using these various platforms as they found they were spending more time using them than they were just getting on with the actual jobs in hand!

 

[japancool]

I had a supplier who wanted to communicate via WhatsApp. I told him no.

In my corporate life, we use Teams. A very useful piece of software, but it doesn't disseminate information the way being in an office does.

Our managing director is very fond of new bits of cloud software. Hence we change our internal CRM system about once every 2 years.

 

[fisicx]

My wife uses jabber at work along with teams. Most of the time they are just used to talk socially with the occasional catchup meeting. All the important stuff is sent/tasked by email.

Collaboration is a bit of a buzz word that often means: get on with the job a gave you to do.

 

[Alan]

Well I'm firmly on the other side here. Collaboration tools are an enabler for working method that are far more efficient and controlled that random phone calls and post it notes - or worse bouncing back an forth attachments on emails.

Sure it is possible - after all that is the way we used to work. If I needed to communicate an important issue or a proposal or minutes of a meeting to management I would write it out by hand, the secretary would type up a memo and that would be sent by internal mail to the appropriate in trays. No need at all for email.

In the same way, there is no need for Slack, or various project management tool when a phone call can be made, notes taken and recorded.

Just it is far more efficient to have tools that enable fast and controlled communication.

My one team member is on the other side of the world, works part time and only shares some hours with me. We have a very efficient process using a cloud ticketing system for client support, Slack for async communication between us, Jira for prioritising development tasks with occasionally Google Docs to record testing issues. As a just under two person business I certainly couldn't afford to build and maintain the infrastructure to 'inhouse' these systems and manual processes would just be too inefficient.

 

[Ozzy]

I agree @Alan. We use Teams for all comms including phone calls, and for sharing of information. We use Office365 web version most often and work on docs collectively.
We use Jira (which owns Trello) for maintaining our client feature request list which enables our clients to document their request and attach supporting docs, it includes our development schedules and sprints, holds our support queues and our future development road map. We plug that into Teams channels.

I can’t imagine working without Teams and Jira/Trello now.

 

[pentel]

latest version by default

Which can mean learning a different way to do the same thing. We have had software where icons have changed for no reason where the new icon had no resemblance to the function. Re learning software once ever 3 / 5 years is a lot cheaper than every 6 months

This is true, but I'd argue it would be a bit silly for someone to take over a business and then screw over all their clients they just purchased

Some companies take over businesses who provide a cheaper / better service with the sole intention of removing that competitor. We have had situations where the existing software was hiked in price by a huge amount so that it was in line with that "market leading" purchaser.

Happened more than once with Adobe. And if you don’t keep up with your subscriptions you lose everything (as a number of designers have discovered)

Have a look at Adobes revenues and profit margin since they forced their customers onto a subscription model. There is only one winner and it isn't the customer.

 

[Cornwhaul]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a customer of ours a few months ago.

He lived in a nice big house & worked in the tech world. I had to ask him 3 times exactly what he did and still didn't fully understand. From what I can gather he made apps and collected data, I know there's more to it than that but I gave up trying to make sense of it.

bearing in mind I am part of the generation that has been brought up with computers/software & I've built a few websites with ease, this tech world is stupidity complicated.

 

[Alan]

Have a look at Adobes revenues and profit margin since they forced their customers onto a subscription model. There is only one winner and it isn't the customer.

Are customers meant to win?

 

[pentel]

Are customers meant to win?

No, but it is reasonable to expect a fair exchange to occur, as opposed to an abuse of a monopoly position.

There are competitors coming onto the scene, but I suspect that as soon as they achieve any sort of success they will be promptly be consumed by the dominant player.

 

[Alan]

No, but it is reasonable to expect a fair exchange to occur, as opposed to an abuse of a monopoly position

Have a look at Adobes revenues and profit margin since they forced their customers onto a subscription model.

Do you really think Abobe has a monopoly position?

Personally I don't think so by a long shot.

 

[fisicx]

Do you really think Abobe has a monopoly position?

Personally I don't think so by a long shot.

If you do any sort of graphic design Adobe application are the preferred products. Just like MS Office is the preferred application despite excellent alternatives. So whilst not a monopoly they have pretty much got the whole professional market sewn up.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I try to avoid any situations where my lack of knowledge and poor understanding of modern technology may expose me

 

[Financial-Modeller]

Well, today is the day I finally feel like a fossil...

I had a 2 hour virtual meeting with a US company and I still don't actually know what the purpose of their software/technology is or the problem it's supposed to solve?

For 2 hours, the American was going on and on about...

No need to feel like a fossil - the fundamental point is that the representative didn't communicate effectively.

If he/she can't explain what it does, what problem it solves, what benefit it brings etc, it is unlikely to be adopted, irrespective of how technically advanced it is.

 

[fisicx]

Can anyone explain blockchain? And what is an AWS bucket? Or kubernetes?

Whole load of cloudy stuff out there that is most confusing. Wikipedia wasn’t much help either.

 

[Alan]

blockchain

A block holds some data, a chain links the blocks. It is a concept since the beginning of time filing systems even manual. What is different is the 'chain' or cross reference indexes in filing cabinets are use ****** graphic mathematics to ensure integrity to the level where the the 'chain' can be a public item. Simples.

 

[Alan]

AWS bucket

AWS is a TCA for Amazon Web Services

A bucket is something that can contain virtually anything - in the real world buckets can contain water, sand, apples. In the data world they can contain - any sort of data, documents, images etc.

Amazon has been around 27 years.

The term bucket has been used in the data world for a long time, I can't verify but I think probablycoined by IBM ( a TCA for International Business Machines - THE powerhouse in computing before Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon) labs in the '70s

 

[Alan]

kubernetes

To explain Kubernetes, the first question you have to ask is 'why do you need to know?' then if you really need to know you have to ask the question 'what is containerization?'