I’ve been in a real quandary lately about staying with the old or trying the “latest, greatest” new thing.
For example, should I stay with my trusty, productive Palm Treo 700p or get the “cool” new iPhone? This excerpt from my letter I sent to the President of Palm last year sums up part of my feelings:
Friends and co-workers all have flocked to the iPhone and constantly say, “Have you seen this thing? It’s the greatest thing ever! It’s so much better than your Palm.” I look at the iPhone and get dazzled by the form-factor and the display. The “just swipe your finger across the screen; try turning it!” functionality is kind of cool. However, things quickly fall apart when I ask, “Show me its business productivity tools. How will this make you more effective?” People always say, “Well, it has a note pad! And, you can download other products at the iPhone store I guess. But look! You can swipe your finger across the screen! Try turning it!”
Is it really worth it to go through the pain of getting the new phone, finding, buying and downloading all the software I need just to get back to the functionality I already have? I tried something similar today with Microsoft Outlook, only to truly experience the pain and make me go back to the old.
A couple of days ago, Microsoft announced the pre-release of a “hotfix” that I’ve been chomping at the bit for. It’s an update that was supposed to increase the startup speed and responsiveness of Outlook. In addition, it has a plethora of other fixes. I jumped right on it and loaded it. Right out of the shoot, I noticed that it wasn’t any faster. (I did some time trials before I loaded the hotfix, then after). In addition, my InBox was missing all its columns in the default view, and, my custom views were also all messed up. So, “going with the new” truly was a productivity killer. I fortunately was able to uninstall it and the “old” feels really good again.
This is a tough position for a “techie” guy like me. I want to experience the “cool and new,” especially so I can advise associates and customers what new things are the right things to use – and which ones they should avoid (like the hotfix). Yet, I need my own world to remain productive so I can continue to serve the very same. I think the bottom line is will the “new” add that much more value to your life? In my phone example, the answer is still “no” (but, boy, if I could only swipe my finger across the screen!). As for Outlook, it sure seemed like the answer was “yes.” And, hopefully someday soon, the hotfix will be that.
