August Theme: Dead2Me
By Gwynne Monahan
The credit for this month’s theme goes to Steve Matthews, a member of our Advisory Board.
The premise is to think of something that you used to do or use, but no longer do or use. Great idea, Steve, and one I thought would be super easy for me to write about: the phonebook, also known as the Yellow Pages. I hadn’t looked anything up in a phonebook in years. I look everything up online. Except the week of #nopower when there was no Internet, and trying to call a 1-800 support number from my smartphone was a challenge. The Yellow Pages had the number, and better yet, it had the number to report outages! A whole list of numbers, actually.
So much for the Yellow Pages being “Dead2Me,” but I couldn’t begrudge that. #nopower reminds you of what used to be and it turned out to be helpful that I still remembered how to use a phonebook.
And then last weekend I was in downtown Chicago for the TechWeek Conference, and it hit me: the landline is Dead2Me.
The landline, the phone on the wall I used to make plans with friends, to call home when I arrived back at my college apartment, to call businesses to see if they were hiring, to make doctors appointments and call teachers and coaches to get quotes and stats for a newspaper article. I remember, in grade school, being really excited when my parents decided I was old enough to have a phone in my room. And I remember the thrill of walking into the office of my first job out of college, and seeing a phone sitting at my desk.
Now, I don’t have a phone sitting at my desk. There are days I don’t have a desk, but rather a table at a local coffee shop or my lap while sitting in on a session at a conference. The landline has been replaced with a myriad of options that I utilize: Skype, Google Talk (and recently Hangout) and my smartphone.
It occurs to me that, as a result of the landline being Dead2Me, so is the ease of disconnecting. Alas, that is for another post.
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If there is one tech that will never be dead2me - it's a landline. I consider it the last line of defense in my ability to get things done digitally.
Don't get me wrong: I use unified messaging, a VoIP line, and my cell phone to run my business - but there is still an AT&T landline running into my h-office.
Being a person who tends to plan for the worst and working digitally since before many of the techs in use today even were a twinkle (when I started all Google did was index/search).... I KNOW that if all else fails, that landline can be hooked up to my Brother Multi Function machine so I can still send/receive information digitally - without the need for the web.
I also tend to like useful old things (Hi Sean) - so when I found the 1940's style black rotary phone at a "antiques" store in PA, I had to have it.
Wanna talk about the look on a kid's face first when they see it!!! Invariably I get asked "Does that work?!?!" When I say yes and they pick up the huge, heavy black handset and hear the dial tone - usually the eyes widen and mouth drops open a bit ... then you see the total look of confusion spread over their expression as they look down at the dial...priceless!
LegalTypist Excellent point, Andrea. There were a few times I had to go out to the car and charge my smartphone, which ran the risk of also draining my car battery unless I turned the car on, which is unwise in a closed garage which meant I had to manually open the door. Not too hard, just pull the cord and it unhooks itself from the auto mechanism. But it's creepy in the dark! Still, I had to have a charged phone. Course, none of this would be an issue for a land line.
LOL! I can totally imagine the look on kids faces when they look at a rotary phone. One of my friends parents had one, and when I was a kid, it took a minute for me to figure out how to use it. The sound, the click-click-click as the dial spun, was so cool! Too bad that's not an option when dialing via cell phone.
You know, I still pause and marvel on those rare occasions I see a pay phone somewhere. I pick it up, too, to see if it still works.
Sean McGinnis Thanks!
That's a perfect story to illustrate the point. Guess there's a whole generation where the land line is Dead2Me.
Ya, that 'Matthews guy' is full of great ideas... Now I'm having trouble backing it up with my own 'dead2me' idea. :)
stevematthews Indeed. Sometimes it's the obvious thing because, well, it's Dead2Me.
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