Email exchange with John Dvorak, columnist for PC Magazine, arising from my comments on his recent column, in which he presents his case for the uselessness of IM.

John Dvorak:

"I've heard this before...but you lost me with the dismissive summary: /In the final analysis, Dvorak just doesn't get it. IM adoption is a generational phenomenon, and his statements show that he is strictly '80s in his thinking: stuck in the inbox. Probably thinks blogging is a joke, too./

read this to understand why"

The article referenced suggests that many innovative trends behind technology trends are fueled by drugs and wild-eyed psuedo-religious cults, like EST:

"The world of mumbo-jumbo self-actualization hokum is important to the dot-com litany. Much of the computer revolution is tied up with such thinking systems. Their influence is here to stay, just as the influence of drugs—marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines—fuels many high-tech companies at one level or another. Just look at some of the boom-time business plans, in retrospect. The people who drew them up were snorting something. Welcome to California."

Stowe Boyd:

"John -

I thought my tone matched yours fairly well. You don't get the value proposition for IM, and think that it doesn't have a serious role in the enterprise, if anywhere. Your paragraph on IM was dismissive.

Re: your piece on "not getting it" and the rise of various faddish and bubblicious software crazes -- all innovations rise through the agency of "innovators" and "early adopters", both the successful and unsuccessful ones. In the piece, you mention a long series of innovations that didn't catch on, but I could have just as easily reeled off examples like PDAs (the Newton was a true failure, but the innovation has been proven), email, portable computers, cell phones, web conferencing, and, yes, instant messaging.

The gibes about drugs and EST aside, some people just don't "get" certain innovations, and this is often generational. While I agree that "paradigm shift" is overused, Thomas Kuhn's observations about scientific revolutions is completely apt relative to the generational shift to instant messaging:

"According to research conducted by AOL (America Online) about 93 percent of 13-to-17-year-olds use some kind of Internet instant messaging system, and 73 percent say they use instant messaging more than e-mail."
...
"Also according to AOL’s research, when given a choice between television, telephone, instant messaging and radio, and told they could have access to only one form of communication for a month, 41 percent of teens chose television, 33 percent chose instant messaging and just 17 percent chose the telephone." (http://www.corante.com/getreal/archives/001682.html)

Kids, teenagers, and hipsters simply use IM and appreciate its esthetic, while others are less likely to. There are many precedents that are a counterpoint to your examples of pen computing, and Pets.com. Ken Olsen stated flatly that "there is no need for a computer in the home," and as a result Digital completely missed the PC revolution. I was consulting for Novell when senior management collectively convinced themselves that the Internet was not a real threat to their networking business, and as a result the Groupwise product missed the boat for getting with the web, and Frankenburg lost his job. The 'get a horse' examples are endless.

The financial services industry is the leading sector where real-time messaging and collaboration technology has become a baseline requirement for everyday operations. In the trading community, hundreds of thousands of users are involved in IM-based interactions every day. The same will come to be the case in nearly all information intensive work in the future --- partly as a result of the hard benefits of real-time communications (such as presence and availability information, and increase productivity through time savings) but also as a result of the adoption of the style and form of real-time communication.

- Stowe"

John Dvorak:

"to tell you the truth these VC phrases such as "value proposition" -- which is a completely meaningless phrase -- do nothing to help your argument.

let's examine this idiotic term...

Value 1. a fair return or equivalent in goods, services, or money for something exchanged 2. the monetary worth of something *:* marketable price 3. relative worth, utility, or importance [a good /value/ at the price] [the /value/ of base stealing in baseball] [had nothing of /value/ to say]

Proposition
1. a (1) something offered for consideration or acceptance *: PROPOSAL (2) a. request for sexual intercourse b. the point to be discussed or maintained in argument usually stated in sentence form near the outset c. a theorem or problem to be demonstrated or performed 2 a. an expression in language or signs of something that can be believed, doubted, or denied or is either true or false b. the objective meaning of a proposition

combining these two words is nothing less than silly

I'm guessing that what you mean to use is "worth" as in I don't understand the worth of IM. This may be true. Or possibly I do understand it and reject it anyway. But instead of saying it simply you use the condescending language of Silicon Valley 20-something bullshitters trying to sound important. So how can I take this seriously?

Stowe Boyd [Who is not used to not being taken seriously]:

""Value proposition" is a well-understood marketing and management term, and my using it does not make me a bullshitter, 20-something or otherwise.

"Value proposition - 1. The unique added value an organization offers customers through their operations." [Carla O'Dell & C.Jackson Grayson]. "Value proposition: A clear, simple statement — resulting from a set of very disciplined choices — describing what a customer can expect from us in the way of goods and services (including quality, timeliness and innovation) and the price that customer is willing to pay." - Weyerhauser. Although I was applying the concept to a technology, the concept is the same.

I wasn't -- and still am not -- trying to be condescending, although I maintain that you don't agree with the (dare I say it) value proposition for IM."