KerryJ's Neotenous Tech

This is a bit of a bold confession for someone who works in ICT and spends most of her life online: I’m not an early adopter. I’ll admit it – those brave souls that boldly go forth and test drive a multiplicity of new services are doing the work for me. I’m not at the tip of the Long Tail, but I’m not wagging it either. When it comes to software or online tools especially — I need a compelling reason to learn something different. Adobe buying Macromedia and making Fireworks expensive was my motivation to learn Gimp. Security, widgets and new templates make me update my WordPress installation. Switch from PC to Mac? Nope, haven’t heard a compelling argument to make me switch. In fact, the arguments used – the seamless integration of the software and services – seem to be the things people complain about in Microsoft. At work, we need to use Office 2007 because of Sharepoint and Outlook integration issues (not sure what they are, it was hard to hear over the groaning). Things I can pick up quickly or can take my time to understand without a lot of stress — I’ll give a go ’round.  It took me no time at all to pick up Twitter and but it was almost a year before Second Life made sense to me. I didn’t have to rely on either one for professional or personal stuff and both were completely different tools to the ones I was using at the time.  So – do you wag the tail or do you wait for a reason to hop on?

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