The handwritten letter lives, and other predictions
The Huffington Post has a year-end slide show highlighting 12 things that it says became obsolete during the past decade: voice calling, newspaper classified ads, dial-up Internet, encyclopedias (the kind you put on a shelf), CDs, landline phones, emulsion film and film cameras, yellow pages and hand-written address books, paper catalogs, fax machines, wires, and handwritten letters. You can go to the site to vote on whether you miss these items or are glad to have seen the last of them, and you can see how others have voted.With the exception of dial-up Internet, film and film cameras, printed classified ads, bound encyclopedias, and yellow pages, I think the Huffington Post has jumped the gun with this list, and I predict the remaining items will survive the coming decade.
I think discerning audiophiles will continue to want CDs, or analog records, rather than settle for the compromised MP3 format. Similarly, cell phones aren’t going to offer sufficient voice quality and coverage to completely replace the landline phone. I don’t think voice calling is going to replace texting, despite the latter’s increasing popularity. Paper catalogs would appear to have a long life, based on the number I receive, even from firms from which I order only online. Fax machines will continue to be used for transmitting signed contracts and so forth. And despite the proliferation of wireless signaling and power supplies, wires will be with us for a long time. Finally, handwritten letters will cut through the clutter of e-mail. Just today, the Boston Globe has a column extolling the virtues of the fountain pen. The Huffington Post item doesn’t list handwritten calendars (just letters and address books), but I’m tempted to move to one every time Outlook looses an appointment or shifts it to some unknown time zone, or perhaps time warp.
On a related note, L. Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal bravely predicts that most technology predictions for 2010 won’t come true. He cites many inaccurate predictions from the past, beginning with Roman engineer Sextus Julius Frontinus, who said in the first century AD, “Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments.” He concludes with British entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar predicting in 2005 that “Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput.”
Crovitz advises, “As we go into 2010, there are entrepreneurs and technologists doing their best to confound predictions.” So let’s get busy.
Danniiela commented:
, Create a master schdluee Involving team members in creating a master schdluee would be a good idea as well. Since each location has a manager, they should be responsible for daily issues, challenges or routines. Although you should know about their daily issues, challenges or routines, it is not your responsibility. If it was then you are doing what the area manager should be doing.The master schdluee talked about earlier could include a weekly/monthly report by the area managers to discuss or keep you informed. May be a weekly report sent to you by email and a monthly meeting face-to-face.In-town dinners would probably only work if the dinners are not just to discuss work. May be if these dinner are more of a social event, then it would be bit more interesting and this would also give you as the regional manager to know the area manager at a personal level.
WireMan commented:
I still use a fountain pen because it glides across paper. Felt-tip nibs get squashed too quickly, ball-point pens take a lot of pressure, and pencils just don't make the grade for handwritten thank-you notes. Unfortunately, a lot of writing paper is so poorly made that it soaks up water-based ink and makes a mess out of even the neatest handwriting with a fountain pen.
Engineer1 commented:
Huffington Post and Boston Globe?? Those are only for ultra-leftist extremists.
The land-line is dead for economic reasons. One needs a cell phone because phone booths are gone and there is no way to call home when out or to call a tow truck if our car breaks down. Since we need the cell phone and we can't afford both it and a land line too, we cancel the land line. But even under the Hussein Obama depression with unemployment over 10%, many in the media are untouched by economic constraints and so the land-line lives on.
As far as Alan Sugar's prediction that the iPod would be dead in 2006, I don't own one, and I don't know anyone who owns one so he was right. Whoever owns these iJunk gadgets must not be a large percentage of the population.
Its funny you mention that handwritten letters will cut through the clutter of email, while other people are predicting the death of email due to the availability of instant messaging. It seems to me that no one is reading much of anything anymore, and when they do they don't read it thoroughly and they don't read with comprehension. That's what comes of a complusory government indoctrination from birth to the age that should be adulthood.
