Guidance, Insight and Ideas in a Time of Accelerating Change
While on the hunt for something completely different I came across this video on YouTube and offer it up as a public service. Just in case you are befuddled by that new dial on your telephone:
We can laugh about this all we want now, but I remember my grandparents talking about having party lines out in North and South Dakota and what a big deal it was when the rotary dial came in to being and they had an actual phone number they could give out to people, “Hey! You can now ‘direct dial’ me?“
About Steve BorschI'm CEO of Marketing Directions, Inc., a trend forecasting, consulting and publishing firm in Minnesota. Prior to that I was Vice President, Strategic Alliances at Lawson Software in St. Paul where I was responsible for all partnerships at this major vendor of enterprise resource planning software products and services. Read more about me here unless you're already weary of me telling you how incredible and awesome I am.
I’m CEO of Marketing Directions, Inc., a trend forecasting, consulting and publishing firm in Minnesota. Read more about me here if you’re curious.
I remember when a representative of THE phone company came to our small town 4th grade classroom with a pair of phones (wired together with a battery to power them) to teach dialing and phone etiquette. We had scripts to practice with and situations we had to ad lib. The town switch had just converted from 3-digit numbers to 5-digit numbers and many people were flummoxed. (A few years later we got 7-digit numbers and area codes!) As I recall, people beyond the city limits were served by an “independent” phone company and still didn’t have direct dial.
Like me, you’re dating yourself Ken!
Though many of we technologists like to bash Ma & the Baby Bells (sounds like a folk music group, heh?) when you think of the feat of engineering to wire the entire US and build a network that worked, it’s amazing.
Steve – on a related note – 80 years ago the US Senate considered banning direct-dial phones because it was beneath them “to perform the duties of telephone operators”.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Considers_Banning_Dial_Phones.htm
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100919/02284211072/back-when-the-senate-tried-to-ban-dial-telephones.shtml