Category: General

2025 is going to be an interesting year to watch. It’s becoming increasingly more difficult for me to try and guess what’s coming technologically, so instead, I’ll focus on a couple of things I’d like.

I’d like to think that the rift with Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine could get resolved amicably. With Meta laying off its fact checkers and with the political climate being what it is, things on line are about to be vaulted into the next era of web. (LOL). Personally, I’m an advocate for governance and I wish there were a way it could be moderated fairly, but I’m afraid the extreme opinions are going to dominate, and whoever is screaming the loudest is going to get the attention, which is truly unfortunate. When things happen like the legal battle between Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, it just seems to undermine the whole foundation and makes an already sketchy, largely unfiltered platform seem that much less stable to me. So I’d like to see that go away, so if the internet is going crazy, the platform that drives an enormous part of it can at least be on solid footing.

Something that would delight me personally is something I was hoping for last fall when Apple did its hardware announcement. I’d like to see an M series powered iPad Mini, even if it’s only an M1 in these days of M4 powered iPad Pros. I think that would make the popularity of that little platform soar. Especially with all of the Apple Intelligence stuff going on.

In a newsletter I subscribe to the author supposed that this would be the year that Apple focuses on it’s home series of products like smart speakers and set top boxes and really expands it’s lineup that way as the commuter innovation seems to have plateaued a little bit and the Apple Car is officially off the table.

Could this be the year that “just tech support” comes into its own? I hear company after company and person after person talking about how their startups missed the mark by not emphasizing tech support earlier than they did. And if you follow business news on LinkedIn, it seems like companies are having a renewed interest in live, personal tech support. I’d get on board with that.

So there you have it, although a week or two late to the dance, these are issues I’d love to see get some industry attention in 2025. For simplicity’s sake, here they are in bullet points:

• Some resolution with the WP situation
• An M series iPad Mini
• Support being legitimized as a career

I’d enjoy hearing what you anticipate or would like to see technologically in 2025.

I recently had a protracted conversation with someone on LinkedIn about mobility, and being to practice my craft from wherever I am. Regular readers will notice a couple of themes emerging in my posting, customer service and mobility among them. It’s very cool to me when they intersect because when it’s done right, it comes off a smooth as silk.

Like any artisan (and I’m going to stretch here and say that customer service is an art form and that not everyone who does it does it well, or even knows how to do for that matter) the craft has it’s tools. Like with any tools, to be able to use them skillfully in situations where you need them, you need to be practices with them.

For me, the remote tools that I use generally include an iPad mini and a Bluetooth keyboard, That isn’t necessarily the right gear for every mobilist, but that covers me in a lot of circumstances. When the time comes to provide that customer service on the fly, it isn’t going to be any good and won’t inspire any confidence if I’m fumbling around with things and trying to establish connections.

You’ve got to be practiced with your tools so you can use them almost without thinking.

As I was trying to describe this for the person I was having the conversation with, I was reminded of a time many years ago when I was a paramedic. We had to know every piece of gear on that ambulance so we were ready for what ever we might roll into. We had to be able to use that gear like it was second nature.

That’s how it’s go to be for the mobilist as well. What ever tools they use they need to know them like the back of their hand so they can install confidence in the customer.

Aside from that, the other thing that occurred to me is that if you take a paramedic out of his ambulance, where he doesn’t have the gear and the medications and the things to do his job, you’ve effectively got a really good first aider. The gear makes a big difference in how effectively the job gets done!

It isn’t any difference with mobilists. If you take away our gear, we’re basically a sympathetic ear, but won’t be much good at helping out if you need us. This is why so many IT guys run around with back packs that look like they could live on a small island for three days with them, by the way.

I got an email today from a company that sells bags (slings, satchels, backpacks, and the like) and the title in the email was “Going Small”. The focus of this particular marketing campaign was on the smaller bags in their collection, but it brought mobilism to mind. Many things bring mobilism to my mind these days.

As someone who identifies as a mobilist, I think the term can be applied more broadly than it is when you first think of it. Initially it conjures images of people on the go, commuters on trains, writers in coffee shops. And those people certainly are mobilists, but I think about it a little more broadly.

Someone who doesn’t have an office I think of as a mobilist. Someone who works in a lot of different places can be thought of as a mobilist. And that makes me think of people like college professors who go from classroom to classroom and have to connect to all kinds of equipment and be prepared for all sorts of contingencies from projectors that don’t work to laptops that won’t connect to Wi-Fi networks.

Mobilists have to be prepared for all sorts of things, but so do the people who support them! They need all the appropriate adapters, power supplies, and laser pointers, they need fresh batteries, and mostly, they need to be prepared for when those adapters fail, the batteries die, and the connections aren’t there.

As their support professional, I need to be prepared for all of those contingencies as well, and I need to be prepared for when my customers are not. That means having a “go bag”, sling, satchel, backpack, or the like ready with all the things that I might need when I get called into action.

I’ll have more to say about that in later posts, but I wanted to bring preparedness to mind, for when the rubber meets the road.

There’s a lot going on in our world today and a lot of it is pretty messed up. There are also a lot of opinions about what to do about what’s going on in our world today. Depending on the issue and depending on who you’re listening to, it can be pretty confusing.

And while I’ve got my thoughts and opinions, those aren’t really important to anyone but me. I’m an IT guy, not a politician. I can’t do anything about anything! What I can do, and my encouragement to each of you is to vote. Do your homework on the issues that are important to you, figure out who speaks most reasonably to you on your particular issues, then get out and vote.

It’s important. Really.

There is a lot of discussion today about returning to work and not being able to work from home anymore. In a lot of those cases I feel like Management is not trusting people who work from home to do the right thing or worries that they don’t have the right equipment so they won’t be as efficient or effective as they once were or could be.

To be honest, that’s a fair concern. There’s a lot of people who don’t work with the diligence that they do in the office, and I think that’s a shame, and I also think it’s like one rotten apple spoiling the whole barrel. I think there are many more workers who work perhaps more diligently when they’re at home than they do in the office. I’ve heard of people working two and three full time jobs because they can roll out of bed and sit down at the computer in bathrobes and bunny slippers, and they’ll sit there till 10:00 at night. I’m not sure that’s quite the right balance either but you hear the stories.

For me personally, I’m not an advocate for working remotely in my current role. I have had roles where I’ve worked remotely, my current role just isn’t one of them, but I’m getting away from what I wanted to share in this post.

It is vitally important when you’re working remotely to have a setup that’s going to motivate you and keep you engaged. A place that’s going to work for you ergonomically and functionally and every other way.

I believe the setup that many users try to use when they’re working from home is to their detriment and what makes them unproductive. I saw a social media post from one person who had and old monitor that they had laying around sitting on top of a stack of books that was on a TV tray and they were sitting in a folding metal chair. You don’t have to guess how that worked out.

The photo that leads this blog post is my WFH setup and also where I play, study when I’m taking classes and do work for others if I’m building a website. It’s actually more comfortable than my office at work, and I’m more productive when I work here, but the nature of the work I do from 9:00 to 5:00 doesn’t lend itself especially well to that.