Book Summary Preview : TAMING TECHNOLOGY

The Big Idea
Taming Technology is one of the brilliantly written books by Brian J. Nichelsen, Ph. D. that enable us to deal and cope with technology 24/7 each day of the year.

This book gives us an in-depth understanding that technology need not be feared but with common sense savvy should enable us to harness its potentials to make us more productive and efficient.

Whether in the work place or at home we seek more satisfaction in the use of techno-gadgetry and simple electronic devices that we are prone to depend on daily in keeping our lives in-sync with the life style that we want and the seamless efficiency that it gives us in a business environment.

Dr. Nichelsen gives us 3 technology maxims to emphasize his thesis in this book that technology can be tamed, namely: (1), Technology is simpler than you think; (2), Technology equals people; and, (3) Technology is interconnected.

He also gives us a simple step-by-step procedure in dealing with technology in any form or substance that will enable people to get what they want done either at the work place or at home.

Dr. Nichelsen asserts that the key to harnessing successfully technology is for engineers, designers, software developers, and other members of the product development team to always consider the human interface that will use the product and to incorporate this factor in designing and manufacturing their products.

He stresses that a help menu should be able to help not confuse a software user and a customer service should be able to assist and answer the queries of the customer as intended.

Inabilities of the user to cope with the technology properly in using simple office gadgets could result in significant stress or antipathy towards the device, waste of time, money and resources and if replicated in several employees in several departments in a company for a year when left unchecked could lead to serious losses for that company.

Also a company buying technology need to conduct a thorough evaluation in terms of being user friendly, cost, obsolescence, upgradeability, reliability, productivity, and efficiency.

The six chapters written by Dr. Nichelsen enlighten people to control their fears of operating technology driven devices from computers to photocopiers, etc. that eventually ease the stress out of using them.

Introduction
Dr. Nichelsen stresses that we should take control of technology instead of us being controlled by it. And surely he posits that every technology challenges involve two important variables: technology and the people that use it.

Therefore it is important to design better human-centric technology and to help people gain the upper hand by letting them have a better understanding of how and why it affects people, and how they can control technology better.

Dr. Nichelsen says that to accomplish this we need to know the technology that is important to people, how people interact with technology, and the context within which technology works.
He then outlined his three maxims as follows

1. Technology is simpler than you think.
2. Technology equals people.
3. Technology is interconnected.
4. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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