Techno New Year's Resolutions

Manufacturers. If you are working on, say, an operating system, be candid with the public about is capabilities and its release date. Do not promise to be DOS-less and then require DOS; do not promise Plug-n-Play configurability, then reveal it only counts for peripherals designed around the new standard. It is unfair to ask us to commit two years in advance to your corporate plans, and then you make us wait three years. If you are having problems with, say, a microprocessor product, be upfront about it with customers; do not make it their responsibility to document your design failure. Because, surprise, there are other operating systems and chips out there, and some are better today than yours promises to be tomorrow.

Repair Depots. Resolve that 1995 is the year to get those customer communications in order. f on the spot repairs are not possible, take a ballpark guesstimate at how long the job will take. If you are fixing a machine and the mood suddenly overtakes you to take that walking tour of the Appalachian Trail you've always dreamed of, tell one of the other technicians before taking off. Or leave a note attached to the unfixed machine: "Gone for a walk. Be back in five months."

Online services. Don't lure people to use America Online or whatever with a ten-hour usage credit, unless you notify people by e-mail when the ten hours is up, or inform them that unless they leave you e-mail, they will be billed for the month, with the meter already running on month #2.

Tech support. This year, don't pump Muzak into waiting phone lines. When a customer is having trouble with a sound card or software upgrade, the last thing he wants to hear as he is queued up behind thirteen other troubled souls, on a long-distance call costing $35 an hour, is "Muskrat Love." Why not instruct them in what to have ready for the help session -- serial number and where it is to be found, CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT and WIN.INI files, jumper charts, etc.

CompuServe tech forums. The online help forum is a great invention, allowing people to state their problems quickly and get helpful answers from knowledgeable people. Because it is online, tech support people could log in around the clock, seven days a week, in their pajamas. But they don't. Support people at all the major CompuServe forums work regular hours, with weekends off -- meaning that people who buy a product on Thursday afternoons have only a very poor chance of moving to the front of the tech support queue before the following Monday or Tuesday. I'm not saying everyone should work weekends or late nights -- but why not someone?

Sales people. Somehow you folks have to develop a sixth sense for detecting customer stupidity. Every time I walk into a store is an adventure in miscommunication. If the product is something I understand pretty well, the salesperson leads me through the features/benefits at the Romper Room level. If, on the other hand, the product is something I don't have a firm grasp of, I am treated to a spray of technobabble with every other sentence omitted as too obvious. I suggest a grading system, by which customers are judged on a scale from one to five, from tech-adroit to tech-at-sea. We would even be willing to wear badges ("I'm dumber than a post") if it meant getting the right low-down.

The computer press. Promise to run no more covers with a picture of a new desktop PC on it. A desktop PC is one of life's least interesting illustrations. It is like Newsweek having a picture of the Capitol building on every cover. Of course, computer companies may see this differently.

Users. Let it go. The curse of the PC standard is that users won't let genuinely new technology come into our lives. We fall in love with WordPerfect 2.4 in 1986, or DOS 3.3 in 1987, and we insist that companies ten years later still stand and salute these antiquated platforms. This backwardly compatible conservatism, this unwillingness to go out on a limb with a new operating system or a new chip standard, is the reason why the Intel/Microsoft/IBM standards seem so retarded today, and why new product versions are awash with new features only a handful of people really want. So you have to throw away your old software. So your old modem or fixed disk won't work in the next system you buy. So what. Spend the money. Put collector's plates on your old PC. Take it for one last drive. Then park it in the barn.

Columnists. First, solve everyone else's problems, as a warm-up. Then crank up that chainsaw and commence the delicate work of self-improvement.

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