Dr. Neil Hair

Out with the old as they say. I can't be the only person on the planet who feels a slight sense of indignation that good money has (with time unfolding) been wasted on prevailing 'state of the art' technology. I am of course referring to my recent decision to discard a number of pieces of old technology (no batteries of course, that would be illegal!). The list seems these days to be endless; 1. A portable click drive (from those wonderful people at Iomega, who sold me 4 click disks for this drive each storing 40mb of space and a portable unit that took older smart media). The idea behind this was that my old JVC digital still camera could transfer its 16mb of pictures to these cheap disks saving me from having to buy more expensive smart media. I used this twice in its life (and only one of the click disks). 2. A solid state Sony dictaphone with 8mb of memory (6 hours) for digitally recording interviews. This worked for about a year before giving up the ghost ten minutes before I attempted to interview a CEO from Unisys Great Britain. Thankfully my Samsung phone picked up the pieces (and hell, I lost ten pounds in the space of about three minutes sat slumped up against the wheel of my hire car in an Uxbridge carpark). I remember last seeing it bouncing majestically across the M40 towards oncoming traffic at about 80 miles and hour on the return journey. Rest in pieces my old friend, rest in pieces. 3. A Siemens pen reader (£30 from a special mail order company) which used a serial connection (think hald the size of the old printer connections). Used once, traced across the abstract of some terribly important marketing journal at the commencement of my PhD. Last seen holding it's own as a book mark in that said journal in Cranfield. 4. A portable Zip drive (parallel port connector). Along with about 20 very portable 100mb zip disks. Together with a rather expensive 120v voltage adapter since the creators of the original drive didnt foresee international travelers using it any time soon. Last seen 'clicking' its way towards heaven (aided by anunceremonious thrashing against a back street wall in Sheffield). The said drive cost me two months of lost lecture materials. 5. A Commodore 64. This one hurt. Old faithful (together with about 200 disks crammed packed with the then latest games - persian prince [original], green beret and chucky egg amongst them) rediscovered in a disused wardrobe in my mothers garage sporting lovely shades of mildew 15 years after it was last used. It now sits proudly in some refuse land mass in southern Oxfordshire (along with the 200 games, a joystick that never really worked, a tape player, and a disk drive that was as slow as the tape player). Rest in piece my old friend, rest in piece. 6. A set of weird and wonderful cables consisting of lots of different colours and sizes that seem to display an unnatural desire to procreate at any given chance with no particular reason or purpose in mind. I am of course referring in this instance to the 17 cables (yes 17!) that were recently binned having made their way back from the US in 2001 to the UK, (some of them from the UK to the USA in 99) and then back again after a nice little holiday otherwise known as Neil's PhD hiatus, to the USA. I cannot be the only one in the world that feels this deep need to 'keep em just in case they come in handy!' pathology. Cables gone, revenge exacted with a pair of kitchen scissors. Likelihood of a visit to Radio Shack in the near future? High. Please - marketers of new technology take heed. Those of us in the game have long since recognized the damage that buyers remorse can inflict on relationships, loyalty and feelings of self worth. Give us another reason to love you. Asking us to recycle batteries is not enough! What about the rest of the crap you've sold us? I'm not asking you to pay me for it, I paid you after all for the privaledge of ownership! Just work on the after sale service, offer us a chance to recycle these items or donate them to people that still use or want them. Last time I checked there were five stages of the buyer behaviour process - post purchase behaviour being one of them (and the most important in terms of repeat purchases). You're missing a trick. Oh and I will never forgive Sony for making me throw away my 1st and THE 1st Walkman that was given to me by my mother in 1980. So what if it no longer played music in the left ear. Apple? Eat your heart out, coolness will forever live in the colours of blue, yellow and gray.