Celebrating 80Years

By Tom Baker

With the recent success of Apple's iPhone, I started thinkingabout how much technology has changed how we do business. Unlikethe days of old when technology cost more than the average personcould afford, we now have inexpensive fax machines, cellulartelephones with Internet access and refrigerators with built-inscreens and Web browsers.

Wite-Out^(R) correction fluid was the brainstorm of aninsurance company clerk (Bette Nesmith Graham, the mother of 1960sMonkee Mike Nesmith) and an individual who worked with chemicals ina basement in the Washington, D.C. area. George Kloosterhouseneeded a correction fluid that would work on photostatic paper, astaple in another contemporary technology known as "photocopying."Trial and error over the next 5 years finally produced their firstproduct, Wite-Out WO-1 in 1971.

State-of-the-art technology over the past 80 years has includedcarbon paper, answering machines, mimeograph machines, automatictypewriters, computers and a remarkable little invention called the"ballpoint pen."

In 1938, the ballpoint pen was invented by Hungarian L?szl?Jozsef B?r?. Considering how often workers had to dip into an inkwell, his idea for a pressurized ink cartridge changed howinformation was stored and communicated.

On an October morning in 1945, more than 5,000 people crowdedaround New York's Gimbels department store, drawn by a full-page adin the New York Times promoting the first sale of ballpoints in theUnited States. The ad described the new pen as a "fantastic...miraculous fountain pen ... guaranteed to write for two yearswithout refilling!" On that first day of sales, Gimbels sold outits entire stock of 10,000 pens--at $12.50 each!

In 1971, PhoneMate introduced one of the first telephoneanswering machines. In 1979, Dallas businessman Gordon Matthews andhis VMX company launched applied for the first patent for voicemail and sold the first system to 3M. Anyone else remember refusingto leave a message on a machine thinking it would never beheard?

Technology also improved how we handle and share information.The original "copy machine" was a person; then along came"carbonated paper." This remarkable Italian invention was firstused in 1860 when the name changed to "carbon paper." InventorThomas Edison improved the process by envisioning a brand-new wayto reproduce information, and the mimeograph machine was born (Ican still remember that pervasive smell from mimeograph-producedhomework assignments in school).

In the early '60s, the most effective way to create the stencilfor the mimeograph was to type it on IBM's new hum-generatingSelectric typewriter. The traditional carriage was replaced withthat funny-looking ball. Later versions even offered theopportunity to program the machine to automatically type lettersand keep documents stored in its memory.

As it became necessary to share larger and larger amounts ofinformation, the fax machine became a business staple. The firstfax machine was invented by Scottish mechanic and inventorAlexander Bain. In 1843, Alexander Bain received a British patentfor "improvements in producing and regulating electric currents andimprovements in timepieces and in electric printing and signaltelegraphs"--in essence, a fax machine.

But it was during World War II that we really turned thetechnology corner when the first computers came on the scene. In1936, German inventor Konrad Zuse patented the first realfunctioning, binary computer Z1, in 1941. It was really just a verylarge calculator--but a computer nonetheless. Early computers werenot only a benefit to business; they also can be credited forbreaking German codes during World War II, leading to the successof the D-Day invasion.

Some of you reading this may remember Word Perfect, Word Starand Wang word processing programs. Word processors were largededicated machines empowering anyone to create professionaldocuments. Software was not always user friendly, partly because ofthe sometimes hard to learn operating system called DOS. Each newversion of these, and other software programs, challenged us tolearn, change and become more productive in how we conductedbusiness.

It seems the more we take time to remember how technology haschanged our lives, the more examples that come to mind.Dictaphones, copiers, scanners and desktop printers have allconverged into the seamless world of the ubiquitous Internet. News,information and entertainment are a Google search away. Data isavailable 24/7 anywhere in the world. And it's a safe best thatwhen it comes to technology, we've not seen anything yet.

Even though the thought of daily system crashes, networkconnections un-connecting and computers that do what we tell themto do rather than what we want them to do, it isn't likely that anyof us would like to use three sheets of carbon paper and Wite-Outto fill out an application. We may complain about the frustrationsof technology, but the thought of living without the benefits oftechnology is unthinkable.

Tom Baker is senior insurance systems architect for CatalystInsurance Systems. His background in marriage and familycounseling, team building, consulting and leadership training hasprovided personal, hands-on experience with hundreds oforganizations and thousands of individuals over the past 35 years.Contact [email protected].