Question: How do you deal with technology in a constantly changing world?

Answer: Embrace technology change as a constant.

Successful technology implementation requires a strategy and a tactical plan. Accepted practice for a digital strategy is three to five years and this works when you think of the trajectory of some salient technologies such as, iPhone (2007), iPad (2010), iPad Air/iPad Mini (2013), which represent some quantum changes in the development of this personal/productivity technology.

This begs the question of which came first, the 3-year strategy or the 3-year technology cycle?

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If you’re a museum technologist, there are six words that you hear from your Director on their first day back from a trip, that will instill fear and loathing:

I sat next to this guy…

You know what’s coming next:

… and he has this software…

Its at this point that your reptilian brain starts wrestling control as you envision reaching across the Director’s desk, and slapping him (because let’s face it, it usually is a “him”, “her”-type directors are not as easily swayed by men in suits peddling software) upside his head.

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My day job involves a lot of personnel-related duties, hiring in particular. Consequently, I see a lot of resumes and write and review more job postings than I care to count. I regard myself as a connoisseur of the resume and job posting. I have a theory about job postings which is that they are in fact an obituary of the previous incumbent, focusing on all the missing qualities and their lacking abilities. I believe this is largely due to peer pressure on the hiring manager to overcompensate those lacking attributes that the rest of the museum struggled with when trying to work with the, now departed, individual.

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