Jan 12
Tablets can help the tech-challenged get connected
Paul Hillman
I started work in 1981 (old!) and entered consulting in 1984… so I’ve been consulting for many years.
People say I’m good at “speaking the truth”. Meaning I’m willing to stick my neck out and share my opinion. I generally have a positive outlook to life, and like and value fresh new ideas.
I’m a big talker, sharing what I think as I think it. I generate a lot of ideas, but I also check myself by saying “98% of all ideas are crap!”. Of course, the world runs on the 2% of ideas that are GREAT!
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Articles by Paul Hillman
I came home recently to find my lovely, tech-challenged wife had a new slate computer. My wife is smart — a teacher, a former business owner and a school board member. But she does not go out and buy technology.
The school district had had a brainstorm that addressed the lack of security inherent in schlepping pre-meeting packets to all of its board members and leaving them on the porch where any Tom, Dick or dog could pick it up, and the cost of printing these weighty tomes that were usually out of date by the time of the meeting.
The district bought a bunch of inexpensive (they’re available as low as $99) tablets, and handed them to its board members. The district had modified the tablets, so they do nothing but provide and update board packets and information. The tablets wake up and search for a wireless network when new packet information is uploaded, so board members know when to check in.
So now my lovely, tech-challenged wife, bingo-bango, uses nothing but the finger she’s usually wagging at me to flip through the pages of a PDF to keep up with her school-board business, and she’s ready to rock and roll come meeting night.
The tablets secure and control the documents on a single-purpose device. You can even set a time bomb on your tablet PDFs, so that your super-duper, confidential documents self-destruct, Mission Impossible-style, at a designated point after they’re read.
Eighteen months ago, tablets didn’t exist. Now, with a wireless network and a public key infrastructure, we’re changing the way boards of directors have communicated for as long as there have been boards of directors.
The moral of this story is you can give technology to non-tech people, and they can make it work. And you can save money — paper, ink, transportation costs — and secure your data, in one fell swoop.
February 9th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Paul, your nifty little treatise gives hope to technonots such as I, who resist all tablets unless it’s an Etch-a-Sketch. I also congratulate you on your snappy turns of phrase, e.g. : “So now my lovely, tech-challenged wife, bingo-bango, uses nothing but the finger she’s usually wagging at me to flip through the pages of a PDF to keep up with her school-board business, and she’s ready to rock and roll come meeting night.” Very nice. You could be a reporter once you get bored with computers! There’s no money in it but it’s good clean fun.
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