GreatRidge Station

Technology and innovation are very challenging, and somehow, Amazon has figured it out quite well.

Among other things, they have brought some key features to the market:

• Constant availability –
  I can shop on my terms, and at my whim. If my computer is working, the information I need is available.
• Global reach –
  I have bought books, via Amazon, from a small bookstore in Sussex, UK, and at least twice from the same small bookshop in northern California. Needless to say, I’ve never visited either place. I just ordered an out-of-print book for my sister from another small shop. Amazing.
• Rich Information –
  As I read the reviews of a given book, I have a pretty good idea if the book might be what I want. I can tell as much from the wording and tone of the review as I can from the reviewer’s comments, and maybe more.
• Branding –
  I look forward to getting that brown box with the little trademark Amazon Smile on it. I feel like I have a personal stake in the company. Frankly, I buy from them because they have earned my trust.
• Community –
  Because Amazon knows my tastes, they make recommendations that are meaningful and (occasionally) perfectly accurate.

Years ago, in my home town of La Crosse, Wisconsin, there was a wonderful record store known as “The Tree Records.” What I loved about The Tree was that they knew my interest in music so well that they made suggestions and even special ordered the impossible things that I was looking for. They always used the same flat, green bags in their store, and it became their trademark–whenever you saw someone carrying that color of package, you knew that they had been to The Tree. Not long before they went out of business, the manufacturer quit making those green bags–I wonder if that record store didn’t die of the grief (I’m joking, but you know what I mean). Well, they went out of business years ago, long before the internet revolution, but Amazon provides that same level of friendly service that I expected from my friends at The Tree.

Now, with Kindle striking up a good deal of interest, Amazon is continuing to grow. Here’s a link to CEO/Founder Jeff Bezos’ recent letter to shareholders. Note that he also includes a shareholder letter from 11 years ago to add perspective and context to his comments.

Regardless of whether you are a fan of Amazon or not, you have to admire the business sense and cultural benefits that this organization has brought to society. Bezos offers a kind of bold, visionary leadership that is rarely seen today. One of the greatest challenges for organizations is to innovate from a position of success or power: Somehow, Amazon has managed to do that quite consistently.

I can’t tell you how many times I have told my students “As if you needed more proof that I am a total geek…”

Two weeks ago, I was working on a project with one of my colleagues at CSF, and I used my laptop computer all day. I came home, fired up my laptop again, and…nothing. I have no idea what happened, but all the memory fried, and the boot sector on the hard drive went out. Fortunately, I did manage to save all the data from that system.

So, two days later, I’m working on my desktop system, figuring that I’ll need to use that for a lot of my work. As I’m backing up files…blink. The power supply blew out.

I have another system that runs Linux, so I decided to set up my e-mail on it so I wasn’t completely in the stone age. Two days later, I turned on the system and..pfft! I burned out the power supply. So, I have three very nice boat anchors, and I managed to kill three computers in five days. Evidently, we had a power surge that turned my Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) into a computer eater (one of my surge protectors gave its life to protect my scanner and my office stereo). Other than clocks needing to be reset, computers seem to have taken all the damage (I’m currently working with the company that made my UPS to work out a settlement).

I could probably come up with a comedy routine along the lines of “You might be a geek if…”

The truth is that not everyone has three computers to burn out, so I guess that makes me a geek. Further proof of geekdom: My wife’s computer and the computer by the treadmill are both fine.

Jack Clayton Swearengen wrote about our utter dependence on technology, and these past couple of weeks have made me think a lot about his ideas. I work in at least two “people oriented” professions: Teaching and Ministry. Curiously, I found myself as helpless in those areas as I was in my two technology oriented professions: writing and consulting. At one time, technology was a want in my world, but some time over the past seven years, it has become an essential. That fact alone is a bit terrifying.

I, however, count my blessings. It’s true that there are very few people who can say they killed three computers in five days. But the fact is, most people do not have three computers to kill. My colleague, Brad, pointed that fact out to me, and I think it is great wisdom.