The Problem With Blog Software

In this age of reality TV and real time media, the reading and watching public expects immediacy to both information and entertainment. The recent YouTube is in many ways the next step past blogging. Instead of simply typing in a "post," you speak it and record it. Instead of seeing what someone has to say, you get to see how they say it, the intonation, and expression that go along with it. Blogging has a sense of reality to it. Video has a sense of reality on steroids.

Of course the problem with youtube.com is that there is a lot of work that goes into putting an online video up. There are production activities, including in many cases, editing, that require time.

The advantage of blogging is that it requires less time than video content.

The fundamental change that has occurred in technology is not technology itself. These last two years or so, end-users are now willing to do a lot more than they were willing to do three or more years ago. It used to be that the masses were willing to receive email. Then they were willing to reply to email. Thereafter, they were willing to sit a little longer. They were willing to attach files to email. Today, the users are willing to do a lot more. They are willing to sit at their computers and interact with technology. The transformation, which is occurring in the world today, is the end-users willingness to interact with Technology.

But the problem is still one of time. When an end-user has to sit at their computer, log onto a website, enter information, edit their typing, and thereafter submit the information, precious time is lost. The fact that more and more people are willing to spend the time is interesting indeed. Anyone who is serious about blogging knows it takes time to generate good, interesting content. Those who say they have "no time to blog" raise a valid point. Many people still chose to spend their valuable time elsewhere.

To me the most powerful thing about dictating your blog posts is the dramatic reduction in time that it takes to generate content. Take this post, I am dictating this while waiting for my computer to start-up using my portable Phillips 9350 digital recorder. I am getting my coffee cup ready for coffee. I am not losing a single moment of time from the other activities I would normally engage in. The GAL website has a tremendous amount of content in it. 90% of that content was generated without any loss of family or business time. Having a staff member transcribe and post my dictation may result in an occasional typographic or grammatical error, but the trade off in time saved is well worth any transcription errors that occur.

All of this has gotten me thinking. There has been an explosion in ASP service providers. We use Basecamp Extranet System. We use Leapfile for sending large files encrypted across the internet. We use web mail to send and receive email remotely. But no one has thought to solve the problem of time; the time it takes for the end-user to interface with these technologies.

I used to say that everyone needs a personal assistant, even personal assistants. I believe this statement could not be more true in today’s technology and information world. The outsourcing of tasks is a critical need, which is only on the cusp of being acknowledged, but alone, solved. We need our technology people to focus a little less on cool technology, and a lot more on end-user issues if we are to reach the next stage in the evolution of the information age. (by the way, it took me about 5 minutes to dictate this entire post. It probably would have taken me 20 -30 minutes or more to type it up and post it.)