From living room to den to phone to…

In an interview in Rolling Stone in 1994, Steve Jobs spoke joyfully and perceptively about the shift of focus from the living room, the “set-top box”, where convergence had been headed up to that point, to the “den”.

“I love it,” he said. “I think the den is far more interesting than the living room… I’m very excited about having the internet in my den.”

And so it came about.

But now, as my friend, Jackie Bradley, points out, it’s no longer the den – it’s the phone through which it all converges. And my business partner, Alison Duffy, is a total convert. Jobs got that one right too.

Not for me. I like it in the den. And I can’t bear the idea that I’m connected to everything, everywhere I go, every minute of the day, no matter what I’m doing. I still want a life of my own, with broad expanses of thinking and being time.

Or is that just not going to be possible?

And where to next? Better ask Steve.

Neophobic – what me?

“There is no standard development nowadays of elegant letter writing, as there used to be… It is a sort of go as you please development, and the result is atrocious.” Who wrote this and what is it attacking? Is it an attack on SMS text messaging? Or Twitter? Or emails?

No – in fact it’s in a letter from a woman at the end of the nineteenth century, complaining about the supposed “dumbing down” effect of the then newfangled medium of postcards.

Neophobic attacks of that sort are launched every day – against new forms of communication, new products, new ways of working, new technologies, even new words. I even find myself doing it, unable to cope (at least initially) with the pace of change. My business partner at Per Diem, Alison Duffy, is currently in thrall to her recently-acquired iPhone, and takes every opportunity to expound its virtues. Will I get one myself? Maybe…

Of course, word of mouth support for a new product is the most powerful form of marketing, one completely out of the control of the marketer. But ranting against an innovation makes zero difference to the outcome. In the end the market always decides.

What’s new that gets your goat? And will you be able to move on, maybe even embracing it?