Get your scary software out of my workplace
The naysayer’s timeline of technology in the workplace.
Email has no place at work (1994)
It’s clearly used for goofing off. The last thing I want are my employees wasting my money emailing each other. What’s the use case for email at work? What’s the ROI? Who else is doing it?
Internet access has no place at work (1996)
Giving employees access to the internet would be a massive productivity problem. Not to mention there are huge security concerns. What’s the reason employees should be allowed to cybersurf? What’s the ROI? Who else is doing it?
eCommerce is too high a risk for our company (1998)
Our company can’t afford the risk associated with opening ourselves up to new, unproven channels or even hacking. There are a lot of thieves online. Why would someone buy our products on the World Wide Web? What’s the ROI? Who else is doing it?
Instant Messaging has no place at work (2002)
It’s a massive distraction. Interruptions cost billions each year. Employees shouldn’t be allowed to spend time chatting all day at work. Instant messaging has massive productivity loss implications. What’s the use case? What’s the ROI? Who else is doing it?
Social Software has no place at work (2005)
It’s clearly used for goofing off. The last thing I want are my employees wasting my money blogging or networking with each other. What’s the use case for social software at work? What’s the ROI? Who else is doing it?
Things people have said about this post
Sam, you have the satire thing down. Wonderful post. It should be read by every CFO in the nation, in the world, no, in the universe and beyond …
Fun post, I remember reading some of these, or similar articles years ago.
Posted a similar line of thought on Ed Brill’s blog the other day.
I pointed out the following when discussing Naysayers about The Cloud:
Who would use a credit card? (circa 1960’s)
Who would pay for something over the phone? (circa 1960’s/1970’s)
Who would pay for something online? (Circa early 1980’s)
Who would put their private information like their address and phone number for everyone to see? (circa 1990’s)
There are always going to be bleeding edge people, then leaders then followers then laggards.
This is both frightening and inspirational. Were the telegraph, phone, fax and mobile phone as scary to corps, or is it the power of the web that scares the corporate world. - BC
I spoke to an analyst once who was around when PCs first hit the workplace and she described how all the execs saw it as “beneath them” because it looked like a typewriter (which was something their secretaries had).
Then the industry started calling it “keyboarding” and it became acceptable.
The ironic thing about email is that once people overcame fears of misuse, it became their primary communications tool - to the point that it’s the main cause of information overload. Now the scary thing about it is how inefficient it makes us all.
Love this post Sam. I posted it over on FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/e/1ae0022a-273c-11dd-a306-003048343a40
[…] Beautiful compilation by Sam Lawrence which further illustrates how time and time again the naysayers have been proven wrong with regards […]
It’s great how technology detractors always try to position progress as a drain on productivity or a distraction. The fun part is watching “old” companies adopt scary software and make gains in revenue, productivity and employee satisfaction. And then point out, “I told you so.”
Bah. Blogging? On the Internet? That’s a bunch of crap. It will never take off. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a very important long and boring business meeting to attend.
Similar post on Confused of Calcutta has similar pre-interwebs quotes. “Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value.”
Love this post. You could definitely add mobile devices and before that PCs to the list (though not as software of course). Interesting that the anti-blog article is from 2002. Have those sentiments started to decline already, do you think, as those before them?
The Personal Computer has no place at work (1984). It is a toy for hobbyists.
What I meant to say was how far have they declined, how close are we to the mass acceptance that IM / Internet / Email now have?
its very easy to write off something you don’t understand. i really loved this post. i stumbled it. good being your twitter friend.
Great post - I’ve been looking for something that linked to articles like these for a while!
For a species who originally lived in packs and had to communicate well with one another to survive, we’ve come a long way, baby!
Social software is the online version of living in packs. Stick that in your tar filter and smoke it.
I am sending my boss this blog post the next time I get in trouble for any of the above mentioned time-wasting and ROI devastating distractions. Then we can both laugh heartily as A/P cuts me my final check. =)
Very interesting to see these headlines in a sequence - thanks, Sam!
It’s hard to make predictions…especially about the future - thanks, Yogi.
People fear the future based on what they remember or believe about the past. Perhaps the fear is really about whether technology is really pushing us forward, which I allude to in my post, Are We Making Progress?
People will find ways to goof off no matter what technology is available
You can’t look at past performance as an indicator of future potential. Sure all those other technologies have worked out in the corporate setting but that doesn’t mean social software will have the same track record.
Ok, I can’t keep that going any longer. Someone might take me seriously. Nice way to show how ridiculous the arguments against social, collaborative software are.
[…] I would expect all these fears to be article headlines and topics of conversations just like they’ve been for other movements over the last 20 years. […]
OMG, what is next??
No playing video games in the office??
No rock band? No GTA??
[…] 25/05/2008 1705hrs (Melboure) Oh just to add, Norman Naysayer generally loses. What a wonderful […]
[…] Sam Lawrence’s post last week reminded me of the push back that I got selling Y! Enterprise Messenger a number of years ago. […]
[…] post by Sam Lawrence on how organisations have been scared of developments in collaborative software (email, instant messaging, and now social networking) over the years but now are regarded as […]
[…] This comic was adapted from xkcd. Check out Sam’s sweet round up of historical naysaying around tools we now take for granted like internet access and email. […]