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High Tech Gifts That Should Exist
This year, Iâd like Santa to bring some special technology gifts to some deserving (and undeserving) business folks this year. The way I see it, if these folks get these gifts, the rest of us might have a better life. So, hereâs my list of gifts Santa should deliver. Did I miss any?
1)Santa, not every software company CEO or CMO has an iPad yet. This horrible oversight must end now if these people are to conduct their critical 1-2 minutes of a software demo. (Note to Santa: If you run out of iPads, then give them Etch-a-Sketchâs. Iâm pretty sure some of those executives wonât know the difference.)
2)Santa, PLEASE, create a Microsoft Word add-in utility that prevents holiday card senders from typing one of those year-in-review brag letters. Think about how great this holiday will be if hundred
s of millions of us donât have to read about Biffâs new Lexus, Alexaâs new plastic surgery, Cujoâs new litter, and Camilleâs stunning 2.00001 GPA at a âprestigiousâ college weâve never heard of before.
3)Santa would win big brownie points from me and thousands of analysts and bloggers if he sends us a special PR Hyperbole email add-in spam filter program. This software pulverizes any press release with words in it like: World Class, Industry-Leading, Transformative, State-of-the-Art, Award-Winning, and of course, Innovative. This software should also shunt any press release announcing the promotion of a technology firm employee to âExecutive Assistant to the Mid-Atlantic Weekend Sales Leader for SMB Accounts in the Toe Fungus Industry Sub-Verticalâ to the spam folder.
4)Could Santa please create a software utility that smites emoticons and those unprofessional abbreviations (e.g., LOL, OMG and IMHO) from emails? The business world would seem professional once more if this stuff were automatically removed from messages once you hit the SEND button. Be gone Smil
ey Face emoticon!
5)And Santa, could you please send true 4G capabilities to all U.S. cellular carriers for every part of the U.S.? That way, I and others donât need to drop to 3G service every time we cross from one room to the next.
6)Iâd like Santa to give Orbitz, American Airlines and others some new software that tells me BEFORE I hit the purchase key whether I have a chance of getting an upgrade, aisle seat and/or emergency row seat on a flight. Right now, millions of us are buying airline tickets and getting stuck in 30E, a middle seat right in front of the lavatory. If I canât get a humane seat for a 4 ½ hour flight, Iâll book a different flight or carrier. Last Thursday, my flight of the damned was AA618 from SFO to ORD. There were 16 people checked into first class with 33 more on the upgrade standby list. Not a lot of holiday cheer on that flight. (Iâd also like Santa to give American Airlines CEO, Gerald Arpey, a copy of Microsoft Word as I still havenât gotten even an acknowledgement to the letter I mailed him in June of this year.)
7)Remember, Santa, that some on-premise application software vendors still havenât found any multi-tenancy code in their stockings for over a decade now. Theyâve had to host their products and call them SaaS. Letâs help them out and bring them true multi-tenancy this holiday season.
8)And donât forget the folks at the TSA Santa. Their new body scanners have some folks upset. So, can you send them some software that enhances the scanned image of a person to look like one of People magazineâs sexiest humans on the planet. You know, can you get the image to drop 40 pounds of excess weight, cover up baldness, etc.? If people knew how good they could look in a scanner, theyâd want to use them all the time.
9)Santa, could you create a RosettaStone software product that helps people understand and respond to the contorted, needlessly and overly abbreviated, TLA (three letter acronym) infested tweets, IMs and emails? Just think how much more productive U.S. businesses could be if everyone could translate these communiqués. If you have time, could you make an advanced version of this software that automatically deletes smug or self-important 140-character messages (e.g., I hope my employees get me that Porsche GT-3 for Christmas this year!).
10)Finally, donât forget, Santa, that some tech users have been really naughty. You know who Iâm talking about: the Nigerian inheritance scammers, the fake pharma firms with their fake pills, etc. Be sure and send them a big, big lump of coal from all of us.
Well, thatâs all Iâve got for now, Santa. But, if I think of some more, Iâll let you know.
Great post! I myself think that finding the right gift can sometimes be difficult. What I think is that people tend to like unique gifts that are hard to find and not sold in stores. People like the gifts more this way since they cannot be replaced. I have been buying a few items from http://www.thinkfuntoys.com and giving it away to friends and family. They all love it. They have a few tech gifts to choose from. The stuff there are pretty cheap and unique and they deliver fast.