I love Dilbert, and who doesn’t like Dogbert?
This strip is brilliant. Certainly, providing “hospice” service for companies who suffer from “Dying Technology” is a viable business plan.
I know that myself and several others from my team have been fighting too many wars against Internet Explorer 6 recently. If I could have a consultant visit any one of my clients who are still using XP and IE6, I would be a happy man.
Andy Stanley has been saying this for years, but this is still relevant:
Where are we manufacturing energy?
We pretend to be excited about the event coming up this week, but are secretly happy that we have to miss the event because we’re serving elsewhere.
Maybe we need to ease the suffering of these ministries and send them to hospice…!
oschurch says
Being the open source lover that I am, I loved the clip as well if for no other reason than I got to cut it out and hang “STEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS XP!” on my office wall. 😉
Seriously though, another way to look at this is why are we always pushing forward to new products and services? I know I’m not answering the real question you asked, but…
The sellers of these products obviously have motivation to keep moving you to upgrades because that’s how they generate revenue. I think if Microsoft could make everyone pay for the upgrade and just do it, they would. As a consumer though, I was much happier with Windows XP than I was with Vista (I haven’t tried 7 yet and don’t expect to). What are the motivating features that keep us coming back to pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars for new versions of software? Are the differences really that big or are they just a bunch of good marketing hype (I would put CS5 in this category)? Why don’t software companies try to make things more backward compatible across multiple releases? Are the new features of Office 2010 that much different than 2007 or 2003 or…??? But how compatible are they?!
Obviously, when a product market is new it changes fast and so upgrades are generally worth the price because of the many added features. But once a product has stabilized, the marginal value-adds of bloated software features generally become a hindrance rather than a help (Hi, Vista, yes I’m talking to you)…but still everything continues to move and not be backward compatible…funny how it works that way. It’s not an accident.
Maybe we as Christians should be the ones dragging our feet because we have an obligation to spend church money wisely? Maybe we should always be satisfied with less instead of always the marginally better (if not worse) newest?
Just some food for thought and I think you could apply it to the original question, but ask it in a different way…while I’m sure there are old, ineffective ministries we need to cut bait on, are we just making up new ministries when the current ones are effective? It seems like most of the world, the church included, is just stuck reinventing the wheel most of the time…but maybe that just part of the process of learning things for ourselves.
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
andydarnell says
Are the new features of Office 2010 that much different than 2007 or 2003 or…??? But how compatible are they?!
Agreed. Real life example from this. A new staffer got lucky with a new version of office. He created a word document with instructions for Sunday Morning creative needs and sent it to our team (team of 2… but still a team!) My partner in crime could not open it because it was a docx. The new staffer didn’t know how to save as a .doc (let’s not go there) and in the end, I had to convert the document while on vacation and send it “my team.” This is a perfect example of how something simple caused much more work for a limited crew with limited resources. I am ALL FOR open source, but then you have the folks who need the security blanket which is Microsoft.
To cover your point about cutting bait on ineffective ministries… I sorta jest. Never would I attempt to walk into a deacon’s meeting and say we need to get rid of Sunday School. However, the way we may currently handle it is not as effective as homegroups, smallgroups, lifegroups… whatever you call them.
There does come a time when you step back and question why we’re trying to save a ministry when it no longer serves the mission/purpose of the church.
Brent Lacy says
Love It!!
Thankfully have very few clients left to upgrade…
Andy Darnell says
The industry that I am in is so tightly connected to IE6, it is sickening. We really are just now seeing movement to IE8, and these are “early adopters” that are making the upgrades. Ugh.
PhillipGibb says
I use the bazooka for Windows XP, otherwise I aim the thermonuclear warhead towards Windows Vista, “Step away from that computer!”
lol
otherwise, I know what you mean: at some point you need to say enough is enough we cannot support that or waste our efforts trying to adapt to it. the same is true for certain programs at church that expend too much effort for no progress towards life change.
Andy Darnell says
Life Change is the goal!
Stuart says
There’s nothing wrong with XP.
It is still a viable OS as far as I’m concerned – sure if a new computer comes with 7 then use it, but there’s no need to panic and force an upgrade when it isn’t needed.
But IE6 should have been shot at birth.