It works if you work it.

Remember Jill from my office? The one who is both clueless and brilliant at the same time?

Well, yesterday morning, Jill was looking for me. I was at an offsite meeting from 8am to noon. I had the meeting scheduled on my electronic calendar, which is accessible by everyone in the office. Because of the nature of the meeting (we were running a focus group), I had my cell phone (the dumb one) turned off.

When I got back in the car, I had four messages.

The first was from Jill:

"Amy, did you have a chance to review that CFL report? I need your feedback." That was about 9am.

The next message, recorded at 9:30am was from Annie:

"Mom, a lady from your office called looking for you. I told her you were at work, but she said you aren't there. She said she would try to track you down. Can you call her?"

Then at 10:15am, another message from Annie:

"Mom, where are you? Why aren't you at work? Can you call me? I'm getting worried."

Then at 11am, a tearfully panicked message from Annie:
"Mommy! Where arrrrrre you?! I'm scared you got in an accident or got kidnapped. Why aren't you at work? Why aren't you answering me? Pllleeeeeeaaaaaasssssse call me, Mommy! (sob...sob...sob...)"

So of course, I called Annie right away and assured her that I was indeed alive and well. Then I called Jill and explained to her if she had only clicked the little "calendar" tab in the e-mail system, she would have know right away where I was and wouldn't have traumatized my 12 year old daughter.

Technology: It works if you work it.

Confessions of a Technofraud

In the spirit of authentic communication, I need to make a confession. I am a technofraud. I am regarded by friends and co-workers as technologically advanced. They refer to me as the dotcom queen. And that’s fairly accurate. I can pretty much find anything on the web and use the internet as my first point of inquiry for any question at hand.

However, my techno prowess ends there. I attended BlogIndiana 2008 today and had to face that which I have known for a while. When it comes to communications technology, I’m quite antiquated in my knowledge.

So here I go…laying it all out here:

• I just gave up my AOL account a few months ago.

• When my kids put a photo on the background of my phone, I’m stuck with it because I don’t know how to change it.

• I don’t have a Twitter account and wouldn’t know what to do with one if I did.

• I only send about 10 text messages a month and am miserably slow at doing so.

• The concept of a smart phone makes me feel dumb.

• My Flickr is the TV remote control.

• My husband puts stuff on my iPod because I don’t know how to.

• The term “RSS feed” makes me want to order a pizza.

For the moment, the fact that I am a technofraud is my little secret (and now yours). But, my kids are going to quickly outpace me and realize my technological inadequacies, beyond the fact that I don’t know how to work the Xbox or Playstation, which is already well-known to them.

If you can help me jump with both feet into the 21st century, go ahead and send me a fax.