I recently took my car to the shop to be repaired. When the mechanic needed my approval to purchase a part, I received an SMS notifying me that I needed to call. They also called my phone, but the number wasn’t saved as a contact, so I ignored it (which made the SMS very handy).
When I called about the part, I asked the person on the phone how they were doing. They responded, “I’m doing pretty good, but we’re still trying to get set up on this new computer system.”
A new software package that supports customer SMS notifications (likely out of the box) seems like a small thing when other companies have their own native applications, but to me it was a siren sound: a taste of the fact that technology is becoming so much cheaper and easier to use that a small, 3-person auto shop can accomplish things they possibly couldn’t afford or spend the time to figure out (or didn’t have the expertise to figure out).
I recently wrote about the impending ubiquity of the web and how “sheepherders in western Turkey have now equipped their donkeys to cart around solar panels that will enable them to be connected 24/7.”1
Every age in history has had fascinating patterns to observe, and technology’s grip on ours is no exception.
1. You can read the full post about the ubiquity of the web here.
