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A Time of Fast and Dumb

fatdumbWell, here we are in 2013. And, as with each year, I need to pick out the things that I am going to complain about this year. But this year there is no contest. It is the “dumbing down” of our industry.

There is certainly no doubt that we live in an era of increasingly fast technology and model changes. No sooner do we get the new device unboxed than its replacement has been shipped to us. This pace is manifesting itself in a number of ways in which our manufacturers communicate with their dealers, and in which we communicate with each other.

There is an old saying that you can have a product fast, cheap, or good — just pick any two. That has never been more true. Certainly we all know that the pressure on electronics is to deliver them cheaper with each passing month. Market pressures make us deliver them faster and faster. And, in many ways, it means we are leaving behind “good.”

I see this happening in two ways, and I am going to talk about them over the next few months in both my rAVe radio show, in my blog entries,  and in rAVe Rental [and Staging].

In this month’s Rental [and Staging] edition, I talk about the decreasing quality of documentation in our industry, and how it can lead to poor product adoption and implementation.

In this weeks edition of the week on rave radio, we’ll be talking about the importance of open standards for equipment communication and data transfer.

Both the issue of documentation, and the issue of the need for open standards, are created and influenced by the increasing pace with which we adopt electronics.

I am hoping that you will have a chance to give me your opinions on these issues as well. Here in our blog, we will attempt to track both my opinions and yours. And, hopefully, we will help each other develop new ways to deal with a time of increasing change.

JRR

Three Stooges image via Wikipedia

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