End User Revolt: Time for a Universal Platform
Hmmm, will you join myend user revolution?
In the last year up toand including the next month, I will have been compelled to learn no less than10 new web-based programs including half a dozen virtual event platforms. Some ofthese involve modest learning curves while others are mind-bendinglycomplicated. My brain is overheating, my reserves of patience run dry and myrepertoire of four letter words is growing.
Enough is enough! I amhereby issuing a directive to developers around the globe. All of you are togather virtually and develop a universal platform on which all your programswill run as distinct but compatible modules. This universal platform must bedead simple to learn, use no confusing terminology and be 100% bug free.
I anticipate a number ofobjections arising which I will address here at the outset.
OBJECTION: What you are asking for is notfeasible. Our programs are proprietary and inherently different. They cannothave a universal platform.
RESPONSE: Overruled. Your problem, not mine.Your job is to make my life easier, not more difficult. That is why you arepaid the big bucks. Figure it out.
OBJECTION: We have invested large sums of moneydeveloping our program. Recouping our investment in a cost-sharing model with auniversal platform is difficult if not impossible.
RESPONSE: Overruled. Your problem, not mine.Your job is to make my life easier, not more difficult. That is why you arepaid the big bucks. Figure it out.
OBJECTION: There is always a learning curve withnew technology. Inventing new terminology is what we live for. We see nopossible way to make the learning process dead simple.
RESPONSE: Overruled. See above.
Furthermore, I will beretiring in just shy of two years in early April 2023. Between now and then, Iam instituting a moratorium on any new programs that I might conceivably berequired to learn. In addition, you are not to change the interface to yourprogram nor issue any major updates that require me to relearn the 10% of theprogram I have occasion to use.
Once I have retired, themoratorium expires and you can knock yourself out with new tech.
I anticipate anobjection arising which I will address here at the outset.
OBJECTION: Our business model is based onissuing new versions of our program every six months with assorted bells andwhistles. The model does not work under a moratorium.
RESPONSE: Overruled. See above.
Web-based technology isa wheel that never stops revolving. I am throwing a wrench into the spokes ofthat wheel. You may ask: How are we supposed to continue to generate income? Myresponse: Figure it out.
~ NowAvailable Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: HuntingMuskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is alsothe author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel whichwas a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’swebsite at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
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