Technology — It can be a love-hate relationship

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Aug 10, 2004 by David L. Politis

The past two weeks found me on opposite coasts, first in Silicon Valley (primarily for a family gathering), then in New York City for a significant product launch/media event involving a client.

As I write this column while winging my way back to Utah, my ruminations at 35,000-feet remind me that technological advances have given me much to be grateful for. That said, there are still many times, and ways, that the high-tech industry falls short of its potential.

So for what it's worth, consider this edition of "Utah Tech Watch" to be my take on what I love (and hate) about technology.

For example, I think it's great that the computational power required to land a man on the moon now fits into devices the size of a one-inch three-ring binder. As a result, travelers can take their electronic play and work with them (such as writing this column), enabling more productive time on-the-go instead of being forced to watch and listen to the vapid movies and sitcoms played on most in- airplane video systems.

At the same time, why can't the technological geniuses of the world figure out how to make portable batteries capable of maintaining their stated charge capacity? I just hate being in the middle of a Microsoft Word document and then have my laptop screen go dark because the battery in my portable computer just died -- two hours ahead of schedule, no less. Ugh!

I also hate being in the middle of Manhattan and not knowing from one block to the next whether or not I'm going to get a cell phone signal. What is up with that?

You'd think that a city of 8 million plus people would be sufficiently large for a company like AT&T Wireless to ensure that its customers had cell coverage throughout the metropolis, let alone within a few blocks of Times Square.

By the way, if anyone from AT&T Wireless reads this, can you fix the dead airspace at the intersection of I-15 and I-215 in the middle of the Salt Lake Valley, particularly the northbound I-15 ramp onto eastbound I-215? Every time I go through that area while on an AT&T Wireless call the signal drops to zero and the connection is lost. I hate that.

Cell phone complaints aside, I confess I do love the fact that cell phones allow me to stay connected with family, friends and clients almost anywhere I go. Now if I could just get my wife and kids to remember to always take their respective cell phones with them when they leave the house that would be a good thing.

Other good things: How about the World Wide Web?

I think it's nigh unto amazing that I can be sitting in a hotel room in New York City and virtually view major news outlets throughout the country as they publish online a major news announcement involving a client. That's cool.

I also love the fact that I can take a picture at that same New York City news event and send it digitally within minutes to a reporter back in Salt Lake City.

Twenty-plus years ago when I started my career as a strategic communications consultant, the absolute fastest I might have accomplished such a feat would have been half a day, if not longer. And it would have involved finding a processor willing to develop my film almost immediately, as well as a dash to the airport to get expensive door-to-door delivery service. Not anymore.

I love the fact that I can remain in nearly continual contact with my office while on the road, sending and receiving documents, instructions and queries, initiating and participating in dialogues - - in essence taking my office with me, wherever I go.

Conversely, I hate e-mail spam. I hate popup ads. I hate e-mail scammers from Nigeria, Djibouti, Amsterdam, or wherever pleading for help to get encumbered funds released, all in an effort to steal my money by getting access to my bank accounts and personal information.

I also hate Internet porn, e-mail and the like. It is a disease throughout the Interet and it's growing. One research firm suggested that there were more than 260 million porn sites at the end of 2003. Two hundred and sixty million? Mind-boggling.

If you are a parent with children still living at home, shame on you if you do not have some form of Internet filtration technology installed and running on your home computers.

Similarly, if you own or run a business, doing so without Internet protection tools on your office computers is inviting financial disaster, both from lost employee productivity (as much as 30 percent) and potential sexual harassment lawsuits.

On a totally different note, I love the fact that Utah's technology economy, as well as the nation's, appears to be on the road back to recovery.

I also love the fact that Utah has become a high-tech center. Not a Silicon Valley or a Seattle, nor a Research Triangle or Route 128. Rather it has become something different, something all its own.

Utah has a well-educated, multi-lingual, digitally aware and connected populace primarily concentrated in a narrow sliver of land roughly 100 miles long and 20 miles wide. This, plus ties to several institutions of higher education that are developing greater and greater educational results in areas of engineering, computer science, and applied science bode well for the state's tech industry.