Leadership and Change

Kristin, I'm with you! Here I am, studying networking and the Internet (as well as Internet tools and theories), and my typically business operations mind goes bonkers when technology destroys my momentum!

Barbara knows how frustrated I've been when my posts have either gone into la-la land, deleted or been lost. I've lost three posts so far. One was found on the main post - I failed to specify a post topic, but not without a wailing and gnashing by yours truly first (I felt slightly embarrassed when it was found, safe and sound). I unfortunately don't see that this happened with your post, so I'm sure you feel frustrated. My first lost post was one of my best (I felt) and took a long time to create -- but the "preview" button wasn't working correctly and effectively threw it into oblivion.

Long story short - I sympathize and totally understand how you must feel. What's most frustrating and maddening is realizing the amount of time spent on creating something felt worthwhile, contributing to others and well-presented.

(Perhaps you can tell that today I spent all afternoon trying to "fix" the following problems: my stupid cable modem, wireless router, Internet connection, and my stupid phone connection (also through the stupid cable modem). Technology is great, unless it is having problems. It's a time-saver until it is a time-waster--there's no middle ground here!)

Hello from someone who is very tech illiterate. At my age I had a decision to make; either I got with it or resigned myself to learning how. It is really quite irritating, for if I had been born sooner or later I would not have had to deal with this problem.

Hello from someone who is very tech illiterate. At my age I had a decision to make; either I got with it or resigned myself to learning how. It is really quite irritating, for if I had been born sooner or later I would not have had to deal with this problem.

This is really funny. The blog just posted my incomplete response without my corrections! Here it continues...

When I am frustrated I rely on young minds. I was sharing my frustration with one of the young gentlemen in our class at the beginning of the course about posting on the blog. He calmly and respectfully said, "You can make it a word document and then copy and paste it to the blog."

Since that wonderful suggestion I have been taking his advice. (except for this response!) I then can print off my paper before posting it. It is easier for me, when I can look at it on paper to do my corrections. For some reason, correcting on the blog is more difficult.

So my conclusions are:
Be humble and ask for help from the very people you have been caring for all these years. Admit you don't know and be open for new ways to "skin the cat." Most importantly, don't loose your sense of humor!

PS...My correction should be from the uncorrected post by the oh so humorous internet, "either I got with it or resigned myself to relying on everyone else to take care of me."

This is really funny. The blog just posted my incomplete response without my corrections! Here it continues...

When I am frustrated I rely on young minds. I was sharing my frustration with one of the young gentlemen in our class at the beginning of the course about posting on the blog. He calmly and respectfully said, "You can make it a word document and then copy and paste it to the blog."

Since that wonderful suggestion I have been taking his advice. (except for this response!) I then can print off my paper before posting it. It is easier for me, when I can look at it on paper to do my corrections. For some reason, correcting on the blog is more difficult.

So my conclusions are:
Be humble and ask for help from the very people you have been caring for all these years. Admit you don't know and be open for new ways to "skin the cat." Most importantly, don't loose your sense of humor!

PS...My correction should be from the uncorrected post by the oh so humorous internet, "either I got with it or resigned myself to relying on everyone else to take care of me."

Bette Jo - wonder why your posts are always in duplicate. hmmmmmm.....

After my 3 lost posts, I began to do the same thing as you were suggested to do: I now create my more important or significant posts in Word, then copy and paste into the blog when I feel it looks just right. That way, I can save my responses and then look back to all things I posted to, as well as re-post those that were lost somehow.

It's a good suggestion!

While I haven't lost any posts yet... at least I don't think so, I can honestly say that I can relate to your frustrations. While this blog has been a great outlet and venue for the class to discuss the readings and other thoughts it has also been my biggest enemy. Even after we discussed ideas on how to make it more user-friendly, I still find it cumbersome, difficult to navigate and daunting to utilize. I'm with Kristin, I'm ready to be done... with the blog!

I feel your pain Kristin, though it does bring a welcomed smile to my face. I also appreciated others posts related to technology illiteracy. The funny thing is, I think of myself as very technology literate, but I have a hell of a time with a lot of technology. In fact, much like Bette Jo above, I just duplicated my own comment on a different blog entry because of the slow response of the server and hitting the button again and again.

I also write all of my reading reflections in Word because of the wonderful auto save feature. For my comments, I cut and paste them into a seperate document prior to hitting post. Not because I'm clever, but just because I can't explain in words the frustration I've experienced and the number of times I've lost e-mails and other web related documents that I've spent hours writing because of sessions timing out on the internet.

I guess what I'm saying is, I never trust technology. Never.

As evidenced by the number of responses to this post, I'm comforted that I'm not the only one who is frustrated by technology!

I'm sorry for your experience Kristin - I've been there. It's not that I don't know that it's safest to first put my response into Word and then paste it (because I've been burned before). But, sometimes I get excited about a post and I just start responding in the blog. (I'm taking a chance as I write this now.)

There have been times I've written a carefully worded response to an important e-mail or written something that so clearly organizes my thoughts on an issue and, well, you know what happens. It's absolutely maddening.

As Ben says: Never trust technology, never.