My New iPhone!

March 28th, 2011
[ Geek ]

I figured I should update you all and let you know I lost my battle to untether and am now the proud owner of a lovely iphone 6c.

Oh you’re so gullible. No, no, rest assured I’m still living the caveman life with no data plan or SMS. It’s been over a month and so far I have no regrets and highly recommend it to anyone considering the leap. Combined with a kindle I find myself reading a lot more and wasting time much better. By wasting time better I mean I work when I work, I goof off when I goof off and I’m more focused at each.

Not allowing myself to be so easily distracted from important work, like staring at the wall or playing mini sticks with my boy, is dreamy. So much so that I want more. I’m considering moving to a more strict email diet. While I’ve dabbled with this in the past, you’d be surprised how difficult this really is.

Some interesting myths related to this experiment…

Receiving more phone calls will make me less productive

I share my phone number everywhere I can, my intent is to be highly available by phone. It’s in all my email signatures, on websites etc. As well, I intended to reply to emails demanding urgent replies with a polite “I don’t have a data plan, please phone me if it’s anything that demands an immediate response”.

When I explain this approach, people’s initial response is “oh, that wouldn’t work, all those phone calls would be distracting”. The reality is there is no increase in phone calls. All that’s really happening is that I’m able to better manage expectations. People expect frequent responses over email from me, but not immediate, and they always know they can reach me with a phone call.

Your phone will not ring off the hook. You will not be bombarded with calls. Trust me.

Phone calls in general are more work, take longer

How many times has this happened to you in the past month over email, IM, skype, SMS, etc? You go back and forth until you realize you’re both having your own damn conversation and getting nowhere. You give up, pick up the phone and within a minute realize they were being sarcastic when they said “you’re mean” and you explain that you really meant it when you said “let’s sell them”.

Now, when was the last time you were on a phone call and said “let’s just switch to texting and sort this out as we’re past the point where voice based…..”. The answer is never.

The reality is that as you move down the list below, you’re dealing with less and less information. Face to face communication includes voice, smell, touch, subtle twitches, cringing, etc. Remote video has less but you can see some facial expressions. Audio includes all the audible subtleties but you lose everything else. By the time you’re down to text only, you’re at the bare bones.

  1. Face to face
  2. Remote video and audio (skype video)
  3. Audio only (phone calls)
  4. Text based

While I realize everyone else is headed in the other direction from me, texting all the time, and the carriers are quite pleased about it, you will have a hard time convincing me that’s it’s actually better for us. Let me know what you think below. As always, phone me if you need an immediate response.