Santa - Bring these tech gifts to these people NOW!
High Tech Gifts That Should Exist
This year, I’d 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, here’s 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-Sketch’s. I’m pretty sure some of those executives won’t 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 hundreds of millions of us don’t have to read about Biff’s new Lexus, Alexa’s new plastic surgery, Cujo’s new litter, and Camille’s stunning 2.00001 GPA at a ‘prestigious’ college we’ve 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 ‘Executive Assistant to the Mid-Atlantic Weekend Sales Leader for SMB Accounts in the Toe Fungus Industry Sub-Vertical’ 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 Smiley 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 don’t need to drop to 3G service every time we cross from one room to the next.
6) I’d 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 can’t get a humane seat for a 4 ½ hour flight, I’ll 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. (I’d also like Santa to give American Airlines CEO, Gerald Arpey, a copy of Microsoft Word as I still haven’t 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 haven’t found any multi-tenancy code in their stockings for over a decade now. They’ve had to host their products and call them SaaS. Let’s help them out and bring them true multi-tenancy this holiday season.
8) And don’t 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 magazine’s 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, they’d 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, don’t forget, Santa, that some tech users have been really naughty. You know who I’m 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, that’s all I’ve got for now, Santa. But, if I think of some more, I’ll let you know.