Shift Happens

My Latin teacher in high school used to say "quam carta cadit, scienza galoppat". Don't try to translate it; it's pidgin Latin (read: it's made up). What it means is that when we do not have the paper in front of us, our knowledge goes with it. That was the traditional way of looking at information. The new way is online.

That was a big shift for those of us who were not natives. We didn't grow up using the Internet and surfing the web. We learned, some of us better than others. I'm a bit timid with some applications, and being in a corporate environment, I still surf the web using Microsoft Explorer -- and I think it's version 6.0. I know, I know, that is terrible news.

It's what I discovered when I came in this morning. All my favorite bookmarks were gone. As in irretrievable, not found, deleted, nowhere in sight. Do you get the idea? Five years worth of research disappeared in seconds. Because I am not as wise as I'd like to be, I did not know that there was no backup anywhere. My IT department is running a virus scan, but I suspect I was naive and did not do what I could have done to save myself the aggravation and time.

How can I remember all the great sites I have visited in the last five years? I am grateful that I learned how to aggregate my feeds using Google homepage so the blogs I read are stored there. I had another idea for a post today, but I think this conversation is one worth having. I am exactly like the marketers and business people you are trying to reach.

I have enough knowledge of the web to be dangerous. I know I should be using better tools, like Ma.gnolia.com to bookmark my favorites. Downloading the Firefox browser and using that instead would have been smart. My good friend Chris Baskind told me that there's a free extension that backs up your bookmarks every hour. Not only that, it will synchronize your bookmarks with your other computers. Bookmark something at work, and it'll appear on your home machine.

Like your customers and clients, I get email marketing, I understand banner ads, and other forms of online ads and branding initiatives. From a benefits standpoint I can have a detailed conversation of what to use that would work best for the business I am marketing. I am lost when it comes to features. That is why it is so important to sell me the benefits and eventually teach me the features; I love partnering with companies that help me learn. They will get my business.

Shift happens and it is very easy to be caught in the middle of it. It is also easy to forget that the people you are talking with may not keep up with what you're saying. They know enough to give you a false indication of where they are on the spectrum of technical savvy. So they have an incomplete understanding of what you do -- and sell.

If you partner with me, and bring me along, you may have a business relationship for life.

Comments

[Chris Baskind]

The Firefox browser:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

The Foxmarks bookmark synchronizer:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410

It's a convenient system. Bookmark something on your laptop, and it finds its ways to your desktop. Loading a new computer? Install Foxmarks, and it will automatically retrieve your store bookmarks.

Obviously, it's great for crash recoveries.

c

[mvellandi]

Valeria,
I've had that happen too in the past. What a bad experience that was. Perhaps it was a godsend though in disguise, as I hadn't used many of them in a long time. I re-categorized my bookmarks and now have a great collection again. I'll send you some for Firefox you can import.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Chris -- thank you for coming to the rescue with instructions. I will figure out if I can run Firefox with our firewall.

Mario -- you should have seen the look on my face this morning. I'm sure it was quite expressive. I was meek for a couple of hours. Thank you for offering to send me your bookmarks, that is very thoughtful and sweet.

Isn't this a great way to solve problems and share ideas? C'mon everyone, visit in the comments, let's keep the conversation going.

[Matt Dickman]

Valeria,

Learning how to know when people are faking their technical acumen has been one of my best learned skills in my working career so far. People are intimidated by technology and some people in the IT industry love to perpetuate the mystery and better-than-you attitude. Good technology is transparent. It just works. Great technologists know this and help marketers create more conversations through tech.

To your point, I would recommend del.icio.us for bookmarking. Not only are your bookmarks "safe", but you can share your bookmarks with your network to benefit everyone.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Matt:

"Good technology is transparent", I like that. I was reading in Freakonomics how experts control the market by virtue of withholding information... not as much with the advent of the Internet.