February 11, 2009 5:26 PM
- Text
Get Me The Geeks!
David Pogue, who has authored computer books and writes a weekly technology column for The New York Times, says the revolution is still a work in progress.
"Part of the problem, when it comes to computers at least, is that there are so many cooks for what you are using. Microsoft made the operating system, some company in Taiwan made the equipment, you're running software from a company in California, and now you're installing the driver for a digital camera from a fourth company. You know, what are the odds that all of these are going to work flawlessly together for all 400 million people who have PCs? Zip," Pogue says.
"So, what do you do?" Kroft asks.
"You get unhappy. You develop software rage," Pogue says.
Anyone who has ever called a toll free help line knows what David Pogue is talking about, and it doesn't seem to make any difference whether you are talking to someone in Delhi or Dallas.
Software companies will try and convince you it's a hardware problem and hardware companies will do the reverse. According to one survey, 29 percent of all callers swear at their customer service representative, 21 percent just scream. The rest presumably are too exhausted to do either.
All the inconvenience and stress are a hidden tax on the low, low price you initially paid for the computer - the profit margin doesn't allow for customer service.
"Honestly, where do you go if you can't get it work? People buy this stuff and then [get] dropped. Where do they go for help?" Pogue asks.
It is this market niche that the geeks have filled. With more and more households discovering a need for tech support, they've become as valuable as a good plumber or electrician. On the low end, there are teenagers like Brandon von Koschembahr, who will be happy to come over and bail you out as long as it doesn't conflict with his shift at Starbucks. He can do it all, lives right down the street and his rates are reasonable - small market share.
On the high end, there is Paul Austi, geek to the stars. He will buy and install and all your electronics, integrate TV, cable, DVDs, music, climate control and lighting onto a single custom-built remote that even Kroft could operate. And all of this can be had for just a few hundred thousand dollars.
"How hard is it for an average person to go into a store and buy a high-def TV set and come back and work it," Kroft asks.
"I would say, in my client base, it would probably be less than five percent," Austi says.
Robert Stephens of the Geek Squad says more than a third of the wireless routers and modems purchased at Best Buy are returned because people think they are just too complicated.
"There's the do-it-yourselfers. There's the do-it-for-me. And what we're discovering is the even bigger market of 'I-thought-I-could-it-myself' crowd," Stephens tells Kroft.
New York school teacher David Barkhymer, who considers himself a bit of geek, fell into the last category: he spent three days trying to hook up his new 32 inch HDTV, plodding through menus and a manual that was almost certainly written by Korean engineers.
He finally gave up and sought profession help.
Dr. Donald Norman is an uber-geek - a professor at Northwestern University and one of the preeminent engineers in the country. He helped set the technical standards for high definition television in the U.S., but he had to hire a geek to set up his own TV.
"When people call up geeks to come and fix something or install it, a lot of them seem very apologetic for not being able to do it. Should they be apologetic?" Kroft asks.
"Absolutely not. No, it's not their fault. It's the damned designers of this stuff who have no understanding of real people, everyday people," Norman says.
Dr. Norman says the technology changes so fast and the competitive pressures are so great that products are pushed into the marketplace before engineers had a chance to simplify them.
"Someone complained to me, 'You'd need a degree, an engineering degree from MIT, to work this damn thing,'" Norman says. "Well, I have an engineering degree from MIT. And I couldn't work it."
Copyright 2009 CBS. All rights reserved. "Part of the problem, when it comes to computers at least, is that there are so many cooks for what you are using. Microsoft made the operating system, some company in Taiwan made the equipment, you're running software from a company in California, and now you're installing the driver for a digital camera from a fourth company. You know, what are the odds that all of these are going to work flawlessly together for all 400 million people who have PCs? Zip," Pogue says.
"So, what do you do?" Kroft asks.
"You get unhappy. You develop software rage," Pogue says.
Anyone who has ever called a toll free help line knows what David Pogue is talking about, and it doesn't seem to make any difference whether you are talking to someone in Delhi or Dallas.
Software companies will try and convince you it's a hardware problem and hardware companies will do the reverse. According to one survey, 29 percent of all callers swear at their customer service representative, 21 percent just scream. The rest presumably are too exhausted to do either.
All the inconvenience and stress are a hidden tax on the low, low price you initially paid for the computer - the profit margin doesn't allow for customer service.
"Honestly, where do you go if you can't get it work? People buy this stuff and then [get] dropped. Where do they go for help?" Pogue asks.
It is this market niche that the geeks have filled. With more and more households discovering a need for tech support, they've become as valuable as a good plumber or electrician. On the low end, there are teenagers like Brandon von Koschembahr, who will be happy to come over and bail you out as long as it doesn't conflict with his shift at Starbucks. He can do it all, lives right down the street and his rates are reasonable - small market share.
On the high end, there is Paul Austi, geek to the stars. He will buy and install and all your electronics, integrate TV, cable, DVDs, music, climate control and lighting onto a single custom-built remote that even Kroft could operate. And all of this can be had for just a few hundred thousand dollars.
"How hard is it for an average person to go into a store and buy a high-def TV set and come back and work it," Kroft asks.
"I would say, in my client base, it would probably be less than five percent," Austi says.
Robert Stephens of the Geek Squad says more than a third of the wireless routers and modems purchased at Best Buy are returned because people think they are just too complicated.
"There's the do-it-yourselfers. There's the do-it-for-me. And what we're discovering is the even bigger market of 'I-thought-I-could-it-myself' crowd," Stephens tells Kroft.
New York school teacher David Barkhymer, who considers himself a bit of geek, fell into the last category: he spent three days trying to hook up his new 32 inch HDTV, plodding through menus and a manual that was almost certainly written by Korean engineers.
He finally gave up and sought profession help.
Dr. Donald Norman is an uber-geek - a professor at Northwestern University and one of the preeminent engineers in the country. He helped set the technical standards for high definition television in the U.S., but he had to hire a geek to set up his own TV.
"When people call up geeks to come and fix something or install it, a lot of them seem very apologetic for not being able to do it. Should they be apologetic?" Kroft asks.
"Absolutely not. No, it's not their fault. It's the damned designers of this stuff who have no understanding of real people, everyday people," Norman says.
Dr. Norman says the technology changes so fast and the competitive pressures are so great that products are pushed into the marketplace before engineers had a chance to simplify them.
"Someone complained to me, 'You'd need a degree, an engineering degree from MIT, to work this damn thing,'" Norman says. "Well, I have an engineering degree from MIT. And I couldn't work it."
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