Only a couple years into this new century and we’ve already begun to forget that there was a time when joining a company didn’t include setting up email, configuring passwords for computer and telephone or having your finger scanned to allow access to the office after working hours.
Those long-ago days required leaving a message dictated to a secretary when you couldn’t reach someone at the office or – now so difficult to recall – having to get up off the couch at home to change the TV channel because there weren’t remote controls.
It can be truly astounding the dramatic impact technology has had on the way we live at work, at home and at play. Early TV VHS devices recorded limited hours of programming while you watched or offered a single-time preset. Today, TV recording means hard disk DVD recorders that can pause live TV, record hundreds of hours programming and even burn them on to DVD for posterity.
Similarly, 30 years ago cassette tape music players were bulky and only offered mono sound. Today we have wireless streaming MP3 devices that let you access and listen to your entire music collection through high-quality speakers all around the home.
In the medical field, we have portable home heart defibrillators to help in case of heart attack, while years ago you only had CPR – and then only if someone present was trained. In the lighting field, where Philips got its start, years ago there was only the light bulb. Today, offices benefit from dynamic lighting that mirrors the way natural light changes during the day.
However, despite the enjoyment we get from these technologies, there is a vibrant ongoing debate on whether technology in general has made things better or worse. Has the Internet created a global village or just increased individual isolation? Have pagers, mobile phones and smartphones helped, or actually hurt, the work-vs.-life balance. Are we better off with or without a device that is so complicated to use that it takes hours to figure out only its most basic features.
The problem in all these cases is not with the technology; it’s with the implementation. That’s why at Philips we are committed to taking advanced technologies and applying them in devices that are both easy to use and designed around the consumer’s needs.
All of us in the technology business must not use technology as an excuse to ignore the lifestyle needs of our consumers. We need to be sure that when we introduce a new product and a new technology, it improves the lifestyle, not complicates it; that it meets the needs of changing lifestyles, not crimps them.
We must take our cue from the great inventions of the current and past century. They all succeeded because they incorporated advanced technologies, but also exploited them in a simple and straightforward way. We can quiet the technology naysayers by ensuring that whatever we bring to market uses powerful technology, but also meets evolving consumer need in a simple and intuitive way.
