By Tom Baker
With the recent success of Apple's iPhone, I started thinking about how much technology has changed how we do business. Unlike the days of old when technology cost more than the average person could afford, we now have inexpensive fax machines, cellular telephones with Internet access and refrigerators with built-in screens and Web browsers.
While I can remember vinyl albums, most of Gen Y has never seen a "record," and wouldn't know what to do with it if they were handed one. Kids' toys have as much computing power as my first portable computer, which was the size of a small suitcase and weighed more than 30 pounds. That's a lot of change! One of the most advanced examples of business technology had its beginning in an insurance company. This unassuming powerhouse quite literally changed how we do business. Its name? Wite-Out.Wite-Out(R) correction fluid was the brainstorm of an insurance company clerk (Bette Nesmith Graham, the mother of 1960s Monkee Mike Nesmith) and an individual who worked with chemicals in a basement in the Washington, D.C. area. George Kloosterhouse needed a correction fluid that would work on photostatic paper, a staple in another contemporary technology known as "photocopying." Trial and error over the next 5 years finally produced their first product, Wite-Out WO-1 in 1971.
State-of-the-art technology over the past 80 years has included carbon paper, answering machines, mimeograph machines, automatic typewriters, 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 ink well, his idea for a pressurized ink cartridge changed how information was stored and communicated.
On an October morning in 1945, more than 5,000 people crowded around New York's Gimbels department store, drawn by a full-page ad in the New York Times promoting the first sale of ballpoints in the United States. The ad described the new pen as a "fantastic... miraculous fountain pen ... guaranteed to write for two years without refilling!" On that first day of sales, Gimbels sold out its entire stock of 10,000 pens--at $12.50 each!
In 1971, PhoneMate introduced one of the first telephone answering machines. In 1979, Dallas businessman Gordon Matthews and his VMX company launched applied for the first patent for voice mail and sold the first system to 3M. Anyone else remember refusing to leave a message on a machine thinking it would never be heard?
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 first used in 1860 when the name changed to "carbon paper." Inventor Thomas Edison improved the process by envisioning a brand-new way to reproduce information, and the mimeograph machine was born (I can still remember that pervasive smell from mimeograph-produced homework assignments in school).
In the early '60s, the most effective way to create the stencil for the mimeograph was to type it on IBM's new hum-generating Selectric typewriter. The traditional carriage was replaced with that funny-looking ball. Later versions even offered the opportunity to program the machine to automatically type letters and keep documents stored in its memory.
As it became necessary to share larger and larger amounts of information, the fax machine became a business staple. The first fax machine was invented by Scottish mechanic and inventor Alexander Bain. In 1843, Alexander Bain received a British patent for "improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs"--in essence, a fax machine.
But it was during World War II that we really turned the technology corner when the first computers came on the scene. In 1936, German inventor Konrad Zuse patented the first real functioning, binary computer Z1, in 1941. It was really just a very large calculator--but a computer nonetheless. Early computers were not only a benefit to business; they also can be credited for breaking German codes during World War II, leading to the success of the D-Day invasion.
Some of you reading this may remember Word Perfect, Word Star and Wang word processing programs. Word processors were large dedicated machines empowering anyone to create professional documents. Software was not always user friendly, partly because of the sometimes hard to learn operating system called DOS. Each new version of these, and other software programs, challenged us to learn, change and become more productive in how we conducted business.
It seems the more we take time to remember how technology has changed our lives, the more examples that come to mind. Dictaphones, copiers, scanners and desktop printers have all converged into the seamless world of the ubiquitous Internet. News, information and entertainment are a Google search away. Data is available 24/7 anywhere in the world. And it's a safe best that when it comes to technology, we've not seen anything yet.
Even though the thought of daily system crashes, network connections un-connecting and computers that do what we tell them to do rather than what we want them to do, it isn't likely that any of us would like to use three sheets of carbon paper and Wite-Out to fill out an application. We may complain about the frustrations of technology, but the thought of living without the benefits of technology is unthinkable.
Tom Baker is senior insurance systems architect for Catalyst Insurance Systems. His background in marriage and family counseling, team building, consulting and leadership training has provided personal, hands-on experience with hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals over the past 35 years. Contact tbaker@catalystinsurancesystems.com.
