Pavlov’s Dogs



Guest Blog – G. Uttrachi

UntitledWhen I see people respond to a cell phone ring, ding or vibration I am reminded of Pavlov’s experiments with dogs. By pressing a buzzer and then showing dogs food, they would salivate, knowing they would be fed. The dog will later come to associate the buzzer sound with the presentation of the food and salivate even with no food present. It appears to me, folks are becoming addicted to cell phones and respond, regardless of their environment, if prompted by a cell phone ring, ding or vibration! This is not just young people, although they appear worse than older folk, but I have watched this with business men at an airport and now even on the plane as they pay for internet access! It also appears to me that most of the dialog is really dribble! Some conversations may be useful, but while driving-I don’t think so! And it will get worse; Google Glass, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and Pebble Smartwatch will create even more distractions from driving. Perhaps the insurance companies should just jack-up the rates for those in an accident when talking on a phone or texting like they do for DUI! NSA probably has the needed data now to prove you were doing more than driving! Perhaps Google already has a plan to flash an attorney ad when it happens! Having never had an accident with another car in over 50 years of driving, I am most concerned about the Pavlov reaction, wheather responding to a phone call or worse text message. Don’t get me wrong, I have had several “off-the-road excursions” as I refer to them. In my 260Z, CJ5 Jeep and others. But these were not from being distracted, but rather finding the edge. My current daily driver is a new Corvette Stingray and my Street Rod has an 8.2 liter, 525+hp engine, so I do drive fast, where appropriate and when only I am at risk! However, I try not to be distracted and do not turn on my cell phone or use OnStar when driving.

Technology Background:

Don’t think this is just the ranting’s of an old man! (Skip unless you think I’m just not up on technology!):

I bought the 1st PC in the ‘70s when I managed an R&D group in Ohio. When I frequently called to inquire when the Tandy TRS-80, on order, was arriving the Radio Shack manager finally said “You’re getting the first one in the state of Ohio” – which we did, some months later! It was much better than the same priced TI-59 calculator I was using while all our engineers had TI-58s (same as the 59 less card reader.) One of the engineers was trying to have production workers use a TI-58 for a specific cost saving task. I knew that would not work-but the TRS-80, properly programed, might. Once it arrived I programed it to do the same function with simple inputs and even made a dot picture of the plant manager hollering when the data input showed the data input showed the product was out of spec!

Moved to corporate office and bought my own TRS-80 II, which now had 64K of ram versus 16 KB in Level I. When we became a separate business in 1985 bought my own IBM PC XT and Okidata dot matrix printer for the house (as I recall a $3500 investment.) PC’s were not in the workplace at that time. In fact when the IT department finally allowed PC’s to be used in the office I had one of the first and also the first laptop some years later.

Currently I have a desktop and laptop with Windows 7, an Apple iPad Air, an iPod as well as a Samsung III android phone (although I use the phone mostly for emails when I am out of town on short trips.) I also have an internet business which daughter (a computer whiz) helped me start with MS FrontPage 10 years ago. It now has 160 pages and many thousands of visits monthly (www.NetWelding.com.) Selling and licensing several recently patented products on the Net paid for the new Vette! Thanks to daughter’s skills, was able to switch the site to Dreamweaver this past December!

Must admit, I should be using text messaging more, as it can be answered like emails when I “decide to make the time,” as can my recipients response.

Business Folks Responding Like One of Pavlov’s Dog’s

Young folks, until they are of driving age, are not the problem, assuming it does not distract from their studies. Hopefully the use of a smart phone helps them explore new areas and gain useful knowledge in addition to communicating dribble! Guess it helps their self-esteem and makes them feel important when they get many requests to respond. Kind of like TV personalities who judge their worth (or the station management does) by the number of folks following their Twitter dribble! Frankly have a hard time believing anything useful can be communicated in 140 charterers! However my observation of some top corporate management responding like teenagers IS troubling!

Looking back, when I traveled or was at home it was my time to “think!” With a million miles on US Air (just received my certificate) and many miles on other airlines, I traveled extensively. I would always leave for the airport early (as I do now.) That was my time to relax, think about business issues, what the competitors might do, etc. When I traveled back from visiting customers, which was most of my travel, I thought about possible new products or changes that might be needed. For most of my career I was not “disturbed” by cell phones, PC’s etc.. When I was home, I could think about strategic business issues and not feel obligated to respond to emails and text messages! When I received my first laptop it did change my life somewhat, I was now working more than the 10 hours when at the office, when I was home the PC came out, composing and editing text etc. I recall two of my product managers request about 6 months after I had my PC and they wanted one. I said I would support it if they promised NOT to take them out until after their kids were in bed (my daughter was already grown and managing a college technology department!) I don’t believe they understood my concern, but they soon learned how it changed their lives!

I also thought about my weekends. I seldom went in to the office on a Saturday (or Sunday) since many of my direct reports were there and would come in to discuss issues. Perhaps some were important but most could wait until Monday and they were not strategic. I worked on Saturdays at home, but without responding to day to day issues, it was my time to also think strategically.

Must admit, in 1985, when we formed our small business from a fortune 500 bureaucratic company we had the IT group install Voice Mail on our main frame and I was hooked with that communication tool! I’m sure many of our 50 sales folk, as well as my marketing staff, had to listen too many of my long winded, frequent messages! However they could do that when they decided to “check for messages” not when I sent them. Also learned several years ago from my grandson, that he was using YouTube like I used Google to get information. That caused me to produce ~30 YouTube business videos and some of these have 90,000+ views. As I write this, I think, as with most of my communications, those videos are too long! Believe I’ll make a few more, very short with more focused information and less teaching dialog!

Bottom Line:

Hopefully some of the benefits of quality communication (and there are many) help offset the far to frequent and time consuming dribble. If folks learn not to respond like Pavlov’s dogs, the useless communications can probably be reduced 75% or more!


Leave a Reply