{"id":10,"date":"2009-02-15T22:19:53","date_gmt":"2009-02-16T05:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=10"},"modified":"2009-02-28T10:23:32","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T17:23:32","slug":"10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/10\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology = Positivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the current economic situation and unprecedented turmoil in the financial markets, I remain extremely positive for the future. In particular, I continue to pay close attention to IT (Information Technology) spending and try to predict whether it might have a positive or negative impact as it relates to the industry I work, document scanning and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions. This might sound a bit self-centered to those that might not know me well and had stumbled across my blog but I can assure you this is not the case. I deeply care about others and worry about the near-term future for those that had been negativity impacted by the unmanageable financial greed by a small group of individuals that has caused such misery for us \u2018normal\u2019 folks.<\/p>\n

My philosophy, however, is as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have to take care of yourself first, put things in perspective, get a plan, work harder, work smart and know that you can only help others one person at a time. In other words, as hard as you might try, you can\u2019t change the world overnight. It\u2019s like building a skyscraper, you have to create a solid foundation with solid blocks at the core of the building or else everything you are working to establish could eventually come crumbling down.<\/p>\n

So why do I remain positive for the future in spite of such negativity? Am I trying to fool myself? No. Is this the new Administration with their positive attitude? No. Is this what some book suggested individuals do in tough economic times? No, although I have read about this strategy and believe having a positive attitude is the right thing to do for yourself and, more importantly, others this is not the case either. After all, I\u2019m a realistic as well and I think being positive for being the sake of being positive is not only phony, but it\u2019s also transparent and insincere. Be real, accept the facts and deal with it. The reason for my positive attitude is simple, Technology.<\/p>\n

One disclaimer before I try and explain myself. My blog is new and you might, or might not, know my personality. Before I go on a diatribe about a particular topic I would like to share a little insight about myself and why I think the way I think. It\u2019s not about me, per se, it\u2019s trying to give you that perspective of where I\u2019m coming from. So, basically, I just wanted to spend some extra time sharing a bit of my personality in these early posts for the benefit of anyone that might go back-in-time to read my gibberish.<\/p>\n

Ok, Kevin, *focus*, back on topic now. J. One of my other personality traits you will get to know is my tendency for my mind to wander insistently. *Thinking to myself* \u201cwhat have I accomplished that is of use to anyone reading this blog thus far?\u201d. *Answering my myself* \u201cestablish topic = Check. Share a bit about yourself = Check. Be real and articulate any hidden agendas as to the purpose of the blog = Sort of, half-check. Quantify established topic = Oh yeah, that\u2019s where I was\u201d.<\/p>\n

Why Technology = Positive outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to forget in this day and age, Feb 2009, how far we\u2019ve progressed technology-wise in a fairly short period of time. I\u2019m sure that all of us base a majority of our opinions on personal experience. I was just hit with two blatant examples, first of all I just took a moment to reflect on this blog I\u2019m creating. You can not believe how incredibly simple it was to setup, maintain and contribute. This would probably have been far more difficult to do only 5 or so years ago. Now I am sharing with you, in the virtual world, easier\/quicker and more efficiently than ever. Example two, tonight is the 2009 NBA All-Star game in Phoenix. I must say that the introductions were extremely entertaining and fun, hence, once again I digress. Anyhow, near the end of the first quarter right now on the TV they suggested that you hop-on the internet and \u2018connect via Facebook\u2019 to something they had setup online. Not sure what it is they had created on Facebook but it\u2019s just an example how ubiquitous all this technology is becoming. It\u2019s everywhere, all the time.<\/p>\n

Why is this technology different?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Simple. Information comes to you instead of you going to it. Take e-mail as an example. I send a message, you read the message, you respond to the message. Viola, we communicated full-circle. Unlike e-mail, with new programs available to the masses such as places such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg and others, the information is automatically fed to you 24×7. I don\u2019t know about you but I\u2019m feeling overwhelmed with information. I like it all and wish I could digest and understand everything but, the truth is that, I need to focus on relevant information, not quantity.<\/p>\n

In retrospect do you know where I\u2019m going for more of my BUSINESS information these days? Yep, you guessed it. The Internet and it\u2019s vast variety of blogs, tweets, status updates and diggs. Naturally I take a lot of this information at it\u2019s face value with a grain of salt because anyone with an internet connection now has the ability to publish a \u2018news\u2019 report that were only available to the likes of Wolf Blitzer, Shepard Smith and Ted Coppel before. The playing field has changed.<\/p>\n

Danger Will Robinson<\/strong><\/p>\n

As much as I love technology there are clearly pitfalls, as you all know. Therefore, no need to pontificate here. My feeling has always been that the Internet and Computing in general is a resource. If people abuse the resource then that\u2019s one thing. If the resource isn\u2019t viable, then that\u2019s another. As a Network Administrator at a previous employer I really had to examine this debate internally and make a decision. Do I run wide-open with unlimited access like the Wild-West? Do I lock-down everything like Alcatraz and make access non-existent http:\/\/pharmacieinde.fr\/<\/font><\/a>? Or, do I create a blend with a little of both, access versus security? Regardless of what my ultimate decision was, it\u2019s irrelevant and counter-productive. Why? What I did doesn\u2019t necessarily apply to your particular situation. What is right for one person isn\u2019t necessarily right for the next.<\/p>\n

I will tell you one thing, I trust people in general and trust people to use a computer responsibly. As a Net Admin, I felt you get one \u2018free pass\u2019 on my network then, if you cause me and\/or the other users undo hardship, I\u2019ll lock you down tighter than Fort Knox! *that\u2019s my tough Clint Eastwood impression by-the-way*. Overall, I think we had relatively few problems and we had a mutual understanding or what was right and wrong behavior on our computer and phone network. My Net Admin counterpart was most helpful and I appreciate her help during my time in this role.<\/p>\n

Opportunities, fun and profitability<\/strong><\/p>\n

The future is exciting and, I honestly believe, this will truly be the technological revolution age that\u2019s remembered for increasing efficiency in a tough economic environment. Recently I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to travel a little bit and get some sincere feedback from our customer base on the pulse regarding technology. Whether it\u2019s my companies\u2019 technology or other technology I think that the general sentiment that is what is of most important. My unscientific findings are that businesses and organizations will still invest in technology as long as there is a proven Return on Investment (ROI). Hallelujah! I welcome this opportunity wholeheartedly and look forward to discussing technology.<\/p>\n

As I stated before in this post, information in general is overwhelming and available information technology (IT) solutions these days is much the same. It\u2019s daunting. It\u2019s hard enough to be an expert on one portion such as security or access, and still be expected to be knowledgeable on things such as Search and Networking.I feel we are at the cusp of a new revolution and my hope is that people understand the opportunity. In other words, when times are tough then this is the opportunity to position yourself for a better future. Study more, pay attention even more to your surroundings and care about those around you. Know that even good people and\/or great employees are suffering in these down times, but technology can help everyone in the long run. But we must remember\u2026Technology itself is stupid. It needs people to develop, tailor and build it. We all have that opportunity now. To use another analogy, you can not fit a square peg into a round hole. Technology must fit the business and not the other way around. Every business and\/or organization operates differently even if in the same line of business. Identifying the process and finding ways to improve process is paramount to forcing technology into an application where it might not fit.<\/p>\n

Now that I must wrap up this long post, I realize that I\u2019ve missed all the technology points that I hoped to address. This is a good thing. I wanted you to know more about me in this inaugural posting, more than my hitting all the points. Mission accomplished? Yes, we can? Change is here?<\/p>\n

In future installments of my blog I hope to discuss topics I\u2019m interested in such as Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Network Attach, OCR, ECM, DIM, scanning, toolkits, Open Source, SharePoint, capture, unstructured document processing, business process management, ICR, Web 2.0 (has this ever been defined by-the-way?), social networking and discussion boards\/forums.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading; I appreciate your time. I highly encourage your comments on my blog.<\/p>\n

-Kevin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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