Are you still feeling the fascination?

Are you still feeling the fascination?

This one goes out to those of a certain age. Those who instinctively reach for the office techie whenever a potential IT solution is under discussion; children of the seventies or eighties for whom IT is no more than an endless parade of specifications, upgrades and grudgingly signed-off expense.

Embrace your inner geek

The message? These days, you have to be enthused by IT. You can no longer treat IT as a utility, let  the next generation sort it out, or palm it off to an outsider. Specifying the correct IT to steal a march on your competitors — while maintaining a tight rein on costs — means embracing your inner geek.

Things change too quickly these days for you to grudgingly “take a look at our IT” every now and then. Hardware, software and services change on a daily basis. If your response to that last sentence is to wonder when the HELL it will EVER END, you may be worried that you’ve never really had the necessary geekiness in you. Let’s put it to the test.

1) When using a pocket calculator at school, what was your response?

A) You did your working out in the margins anyway.
B) You did your sum on the calculator, then checked it manually to be safe.
C) You worked out that if you typed 5318008 and turned the calculator upside down, you could proudly display the word 'BOOBIES' to your classmates.

2) What did the introduction of the CD mean to you?

A) Twice as expensive as an LP. Scandalous.
B) New racks to store them in. Another costly trip to MFI, then.
C) No scratches! Even with the volume to 10 you hear ABSOLUTELY NOTHING between tracks! You can smear jam on a CD, clean it and it STILL plays.

3) What’s the most impressive thing about a smartphone?

A) It keeps your daughter quiet, although you worry about what all that loud music might be doing to her ears.
B) The phone bill: That’s quite a profit for the operators.
C) 32GB of storage! Your 1998 PC only had 6GB! What people don’t realise is that these things are powerful computers in their own right. You could leave it to record an audio conference for an entire week! And look at that — the GPS means it knows where I am! It’s just like that film Minority Report…

Your score

So, how you did you do? Straight As? You’re in trouble. All Bs? You need a wake-up call.

Three Cs in a row? Congratulations, you still have an innate curiosity about IT — that initial astonishment surrounding each technological innovation followed by a desire to explore its potential for your business. In short, you’re still feeling the fascination. Looking, learning, moving on…

• Top of page