All about technological progress.

I was watching a TV show the other day. It was a series about a New York Ad Agency in the 1960's. As far as what passed for technology in those days, the IBM typewriter was IT. The secretaries actually put the dust covers on when they left work each day!

The only other hi-tech contriviance in evidence was the telephone—they all had the black desk model, circa 1949, with the row of buttons on the front. The switchboard girls worked in a closet somewhere, connecting the phone callers to those desk sets by plugging in wires. When a call came through, you pushed whatever button was lit and took the call. Ah, the simplicity of it all!

But I digress, the point of this blog is about the complexity of tools we all use every day here in 2009.

In one episode at that ficticious ad agency, in 1961, they took delivery of a newfangled photocopier—a real innovation at that time—a bulky behemoth with canted sides! The thing was, they didn't know where to put it! They tried it in the hall, in the secretarial pool, in the art department and finally in an office where the junior copywriters worked. I seem to recall that back in those days, you used to even see them in reception areas! Were these high tech marvels of the time meant to be shown off?

Well speed ahead and here we are in 2009! Telephones are no longer simple, they do all kinds of things never dreamed of in '61, and what's more, they can live in your pocket and go wherever you do—there's no escape. And copiers, (yawn) what's the big deal there? We have computer networks that are connected to everything in the world—want to know something? …ask Google. Need a photo? …download whatwever you need. etc. etc. And who needs that landline phone? We can talk on the computer with Skype and actualy see who we're speaking with! Does anyone under twenty even know what a typewriter was? ...or a dictaphone?

My point is: that 1960's ad agency seemed to get the job done without all the gadgets we have today. No one seemed to need 24/7 access to the internet (even if there was an internet), no one needed to have their phone with them all the time or have their phone provide games, a calendar, music, a camera (remember film?), or a thousand and one other "apps".

They came into the office around 9am and left around 5pm and got all the work done—of course everything took more days to do. But now that we have all these handy dandy gadgets, we can come in at 7am, stay 'til 7pm and still not get it all done because everything was expected yesterday.

Ah progress!