The challenge, always, with technology is determining the right balance between not enough and too much, even as new technology emerges daily. Finding that balance often starts with understanding one’s current situation in relation to technology. In their book, TechnoStress: Coping with Technology @WORK @HOME @PLAY, Michelle M. Weil and Larry Rosen offer a series of questions to determine if technology users are victims. Among the questions:
Those who answered “yes” to any of these questions might suffer from technosis, in which people become develop an attachment to technology and become so immersed in technology that they risk losing their own identity. The authors assert that people in this situation can be sucked into this technological abyss and become less sensitive to their own needs and the needs of others.
The language of business never stops evolving. It never even slows down. What follows are recent entries to the business lexicon, thanks to BuzzWhack:
Data dump. A debriefing. A person working on a project does a data dump for the person taking over the project.
Drill down. To investigate thoroughly, from the early days of the Web, when it described the process of clicking down deeper into a Web site.
404. Derogatory term for one who is totally clueless, from the error Web message that pops up when something can’t be located: “404 Not Found.”
Hiptop. A multifunction, wireless device that is part cellphone, camera, game console, Internet browser, PDA, etc.
Touchpoints. All points where a company and its products or services come in contact with customers. Marketers are obsessed with controlling every touchpoint.
Like it or not — and it’s universally not — spam has entrenched itself as an unnecessary evil of the technology age. Few computers seem safe from either a trickle or torrent of unwanted e-mail.
Now for the bad news: The tidal wave is getting worse, much worse, and quickly, too.
According to a new survey from MessageLabs, for the first time ever, spam now constitutes more than one-half of all business e-mail sent — 55.1 percent. The company analyzed 133.9 million e-mails sent to its customers in May. That figure is up from 38.6 percent in April.
The company provides message filtering services for more than 6,000 customers and offers protection from electronic viruses and unsolicited e-mail messages.
