**GL Training – 4/28 at 2pm – HP and GovLoop present The 21st Century Desktop – Free Registration**
I still remember the first day my dad brought home a computer. Honestly, I had no idea what it was and what it was for. I don’t think he truly did – other than he thought it would be “good” for his kids.
My personal computing has evolved so substantially over the last 20+ years.
At first, it was incremental. We went from the 286 to a 386 to a 486. All of that was great but nothing really revolutionary. Graphics got better. Speed got better. My Star Wars videogames got better.
What really changed it was the combination of Internet and the personal computing. At first, we had Prodigy and dial-up and it was interesting but nothing game changing. It was just an occasional time waster – let’s randomly read a bunch about sports one day (and it took forever).
Broadband is what really did it for me. At college, with blazing fast Internet, we were always on the Internet. From being always on instant messenger to emailing high school friends to buying used textbooks to Napster, it was how we lived.
As I entered the workforce, my government agency was trying to adapt to the new technology. My first day I got a desktop and a flip phone (that I could use only for work calls). I installed specific software on that computer. Over the next 5 years, they worked to keep pace and I was issued newer desktops, a laptop, and eventually a Blackberry. We moved to a lot of web-based software. I still fought to get Firefox, Chrome and other tools I wanted on my computer.
It’s 2011 and the computing race continues. Knowledge workers need the tools to do their job and right now that’s a lot – from desktop to laptop to smartphone to tablet. They need the software across platforms, access to the social media tools to do their jobs.
Times aren’t easy for the CIO shops that try to balance giving the right tools with security and the rapidly changing times.
On 4/28 at 2pm come learn more about how to enable the 21st Century Knowledge Worker with the tools they need.
Should be a fun hour as we hear from federal, state/local, and private sector on how to enable knowledge workers in 2011. Free RSVP
Tell your story – What was your first computer? How has computing changed in your career?
My computing evolution:
1) IBM w/ DOS (late 80s, early 90s) — played asteroids
2) Gateway with AOL dialup (1996) — AOL Instant Messenger
3) Dell laptop for college (2003) — fast internet
4) Facebook came to my college (2005) — changed it all
Apple IIe with a single disk drive…I wrote many, many papers with that computer!