The Importance of Earnest Service

Thank goodness for early adopters. A friend’s husband was always the first to own the latest gadget and I admire adventurers like him, although I’ve rarely been one.

The most obvious reason is related to cost. The frugal shopper in me remembers paying a fortune for a calculator, which became a promo giveaway a few years later.

And then I experienced another reason to hold back: To let others iron out the kinks so when I buy the gizmo, gadget or new-fangled whatever, it’s flawless.

I helped launch an innovative home furnishings product that interior designers scrambled to be the first to install. We were thrilled to take photos of this innovative window shade in the wonderful settings they created. They loved the look.

And then the complaints began when the ground-breaking cord mechanism stuck and decorators and homeowners alike found that they couldn’t clean the shades as instructed.

So I remembered not to be first when I considered an electric car and then wondered where I’d find plugs to feed it during my travels [or even where I live]. If I hear of a new medication, I don’t want to be the one to exhibit side effects that didn’t come out in drug trials. 

The iPhone 4 brought this topic to mind. The New York Post headline, “Apple Slapped with ‘Death Grip’ Suits Calling Out the iPhone,” reflected some of the drama surrounding the sensitive antenna that frames the phone [on the left-hand corner] and causes dropped calls on the device that ranges in price from $700-$200. Some of the first adapters are suing Apple and AT&T, according to Emily Ngo and Michael Blaustein, who wrote the article, for “negligence, breach of implied warranty, knowingly selling a defective product and a slew of other charges.”

One of the phone owners Ngo and Blaustein quoted said he “felt like a guinea pig.” In my mind, that’s what early adopters are and have always been and that’s the service they provide us all. They often pay a lot of money to satisfy their adventurous and inquisitive natures so that the rest of us can enjoy the fruits of their support.

What has been your experience when you’ve been an early adopter and are you driven to be one?

Nature is boss and serves to keep things in perspective.

Along with the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004, hurricane Katrina and the January earthquake in Haiti, the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland is another reminder that in spite of all the remarkable technology we enjoy, we can’t control everything.

And what global financial impact nature–the volcanic ash–is having! Airports in Europe and England are still closed or crippled and millions of passengers are stranded with nowhere to sleep. The effect on the airline industry is devastating. Shipments of fragile cargo such as Dutch tulips and life-saving body parts are also marooned. People can’t get to their jobs or offices, to international meetings, conferences and trade shows.

Many otherwise blasé types are fascinated by and in awe of such natural phenomena and we don’t forget them. Tourists can’t visit Naples without a stop in Pompeii where in 79 AD the town was wiped out by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. When I was a teen visiting South America with my mom, we were in Chile when an earthquake struck. For years, when my nephews were small, they asked us to repeat the story umpteen times. It became part of family lore.

I was first made vividly aware that nature was in charge when I was caught in the undertow at The Lido in Italy. I was 11. After that I had far more respect for the waves at Jones Beach on Long Island where I’d gone my whole life, and I listened more carefully to news of riptides and got out when the waves became angry. A friend’s son wasn’t as lucky on that New York beach. A strapping man in his late 20s with years of swimming instruction and practice, he was caught up in a wave and slammed down on the sand in such a way that he broke his neck and was killed instantly.

Another friend was crossing his college campus during a thunderstorm and missed being hit by lightening that hit a tree nearby–the first wakeup call that proved he wasn’t invincible.

Our advantage today is that technology allows us to predict some disasters and sophisticated equipment helps in reconstruction. Charity is global and we have mechanisms to immediately send support in the way of money, water, blood, clothing, meds, and specialists from doctors to engineers.

When were you first aware of nature’s power and that you weren’t in total control? Do you think that with persistence man, through technology, will eventually meet all of nature’s challenges?