When my oldest daughter, Ciara, was younger, she absolutely loved He-Man. One day I went out with her and my youngest daughter, Keelin, at Woolworth’s. I was doing some shopping and made the mistake of passing the Electronics section with the girls. And it was my luck, He-Man was blasting through 25 different sized televisions and my little Ciara ran out. He quickly sat down in front of one of the televisions and asked the salesperson to turn up the volume.
There was my little 4 year old, happy as she could be, watching her favorite TV show on a sea of televisions with all the saleswomen amazed and amazed at how cute she was.
And there I was, with only an hour to run my errands before I had to go back to work.
Oh, how I wished I had a video iPod before I knew what it was.
I would have loved to have a couple of He-Man episodes loaded onto a video ipod for my girls so I could do my shopping that day. But back in the 80’s there was nothing of the kind on the market.
I WANTED IT, I GOT IT. NOW HOW DOES THIS THING WORK?
With the launch of so many new handheld devices aimed at matching technology with our lives “on the go”, much confusion and frustration arises for those of us who are used to the “old way of doing things.” I mean, weren’t you figuring out how to set the clock on your VCR and now there’s a thing called Blue Disc?
TAKING DIGITAL DIGITAL ONE STEP AT A TIME
I truly believe that the most important goals of technology are to make our lives easier and to help us use our time more efficiently. But these goals cannot be achieved until we adopt this new technology.
So how do you launch into the digital decade?
Here are three steps that I think will help you work with new technology:
o NO FEAR- Don’t be afraid of new technological advances. Yes, there are products on the market that seem incredibly complicated and confusing, but can you really make that assessment before trying something? Fear of learning to ride a bike didn’t stop you from asking your parents for the bright red one at the toy store. He had seen other children learn to ride a bike and was sure that you could learn too. The same goes for technology!
o PATIENCE- Okay so you get your new bike and you try to ride it the first time and you fall down not once, but probably a dozen times. Eventually you get going and you’re doing it. Yes, you are riding a bike. And now, you can’t imagine what it feels like to not know how to ride a bike. If you just have patience and take the time to familiarize yourself with (or learn about) these new tech products on the market, you may also experience their benefits and wonder how you have run out of them.
o ASK FOR HELP- I know that when my girls were learning to ride a bike, they certainly weren’t walking down the street and trying it alone. They asked me for help! So why not ask for help when you are trying to learn the features of a new tech product? There are user manuals, support tables, online training, and sometimes even one-on-one personal training to help users overcome the hassles of learning a new system. Take advantage of these resources.
By the power of Arrowsync, I am HOTLEAP!
Okay, cheesy as that headline may be, I couldn’t resist! We are talking about He-Man here !! And I’m very excited to be working with He-Mans from HotButton. Right now, they are in the field helping users learn how to use our latest HotLeap solution. Users are discovering that they can collect data for more than one application through the same portable program using HotLeap. And using my three tips: NO FEAR, PATIENCE AND ASKING FOR HELP, each of these users excels at using HotLeap for their daily data collection.
I challenge you to think about what is preventing you from digitizing your field data collection. Use my three steps when considering adopting a HotButton solution in your workplace and you’ll soon be wondering how it went without real-time data capture.