Think Tank

Have you seen the IBM commercial where they're all laying around in a dark room and brainstorming?

I was stuck in that meeting today. From 8 am until 3:45 pm with no more than a 5 minute break.

And they really started at 7:30 but I just couldn't make it there by then. Clearly the people who decided on this time are not full time working mothers with children to get ready in the morning and drop off at daycare and drive from the outskirts of town.

I quickly downed two cups of coffee to try to wake up and not yawn in front of everyone. Carter was up off and on between 1 and 3 am last night so I didn't really feel like I'd slept.

While I was in the meeting today and someone was talking about taking out full page advertisements in major newspaper publications I was reminded again of what I call the "generation gap" in technology. These people are not that much older than me.

I turned to my fellow coworker and asked, when was the last time you picked up a newspaper?
- years.

Ditto for me. I don't read the paper. I don't want to read the paper.

To me, when this last not-entirely-technology-savvy generation finally grows up I think the online space is going to take off even more than it already has. Just like no one buys Encyclopedia Brittanica and you don't look anything up in a Card Catalog at the library, I predict that newspapers will only be delivered to old people and online advertising is going to be more relevant to you, based on what you are subscribed to, your profile, the sites you visit.

When we finally don't have the target audience that are my parents - who read every line of text presented to them on screen and take 20 minutes to checkout on a website - making the decisions about company websites, then this internet thing is really gonna take off.