Altering the mindset

“Video conferencing is scary and difficult”. That was the vibe I sensed from my users when we first introduced it last fall. This is a bad starting point for teaching stuff. People who are scared of technology are way less likely to learn it well than people who are intrigued by it. What to do?

First I started with some good old marketing. The central court administration had already written a paper about the advantages of using videoconferencing in courts. I distributed this to every user in the court. This caused some judges to become excited about the possibilities, while some were still skeptical.

Demo time

This is one of the Tandberg VC units we use.

The next step was a demo. This was probably the single most important step of turning their mindset around. I structured the demo as following:

First I talked about the possibilities with this new technology. Cost savings, faster trials, shielding witnesses from people they don’t want to or shouldn’t meet, and so on.

Then I told them to think about the equipment as a phone with a display. Dial a number or select from the address list. This was an eye-opener for many. Suddenly the technology wasn’t as arcane anymore.

Thirdly I demonstrated a call. I did it slowly so everybody could follow along. Then I let judges who wanted to try for themselves repeat the call. When they exclaimed “wow, that was easy”, I was relieved.

When several people had tried to call, I proceeded to demo some more advanced features like PC presentations and camera movements.

Finally I promised that I would personally help everyone the first time they used the system during a trial, and in trials with lots of advanced uses.

The result

All this resulted in changing the mindset of many people from being scared of the technology to being intrigued by the possibilities. We have since become one of the district courts who uses this equipment most.

I’ve continued to support my users, and have written detailed guides for users who want to learn more. I’ve also shared our experiences with other courts.

I think the success of this technology introduction to three simple points:

• Compare the tech to simple tech the users use often
• demo the equipment and let the users try it voluntarily
• provide great support in the first phase and continue with support when needed.

If you follow these steps you can teach tech much more easily to non-techies and techies alike. Good luck.

Questions?

If you have any specific question about this product rollout, please feel free to contact me @thomassnielsen or use my contact form.

• Refine interface
• Find that last memory leak
• Find out why it crashes at one function call
• Test on real device (not in simulator)
• Get through Apple’s approval process
• ???
• Profit

And you know you will read it here first when it launches. So check in regularly!

News for everybody

• Smaller: Snow Leopard is 7GB smaller, while keeping all the features and more. This is because of optimizing in the code.
• Even faster: Snow Leopard is significantly faster, most noticeable at start up, shut down, connecting to networks, and using built in programs like mail, safari and finder.
• Using your hardware more effectively: Apple has made technologies that will make it easier for third party software developers to make software faster, and more power efficient.
• New mediaplayer (QuickTime X): QuickTime X is based partially on the research done for the iPhone video player. It also contains video editing tools, which was previously a QuickTime pro feature, available for purchase. QuickTime Pro is no more.
• Better videochat: iChat is now capable of showing 4x the quality compared to before, with only 1/3 of the bandwith.
• Stability improvements: Even less crashes than before, for example in safari. Flash and other plugins will no longer make safari crash with them.
• Exchange support: If your workplace uses MS Exchange, you can now read your email and see your contacts directly on your mac, without Microsoft Office.
• Several small interface improvements: Apple has made improvements to the user interface based on feedback. For example the possibility of browsing folders in stacks.
• More accessible: Snow Leopard expands on the previous accessibility features with more voice over features, and more.
• Quicker backup with Time Machine.
• Write on the keypad: You can now write chinese characters on the keypad with your fingers.
  

News for nerds, stuff that matters
If you understood the headline of this section, you can read on. If not, just skip this.

• 64-bit all over: Snow Leopard is now almost fully converted to 64-bit. The kernel and the subsystem, and most of the software and utilities.
• Grand Central Dispatch: An advanced technology to make multi threading easier and more efficient.
• OpenCL: This C-based standard makes it easier to use the power of the GPU for normal computing tasks.
• Many rewrites of code to make use of GCD, and to make the system more responsive.

Burger King "food"

So I am now waiting in Trondheim before leaving for Bergen. I needed to get some food. I didn’t want to spend too much money, so I headed to Burger King. After eating I re-remembered why I never eat there.

The “food” was totally crap! The best part of the meal was the coke, followed by the salt and the kechup. The “steakhouse burger” tastet like old meat wrapped in old stockings with a touch of dead onion. The chips was tasteless, but at least not repulsive as is the case with some other fast-food chain (I didn’t say McDonald’s, it was your head thinking it).

So next time I will go to the local supermarket and get some bread and ham, as it would be an infinitely better meal than this one.

And by the way, this post was written in it’s entirety at Burger King, on my iPhone. While sending ugly looks at the staff. Have a nice weekend, I know I will.