Having grown up in the 50's and 60's, today's technology was not even dreamed of by most people. We thought high technology was found in things like the first Mercury 7 Rocket that took Alan Shepherd into space in 1961. Today's iPhone has more computing power in your pocket than that rocket had!
My personal technology journal probably started when I acquired an original Atari Pong Game that hooked up to the television. We stayed up many nights marveling at the ability to play an electronic game on our television. Soon, more advanced games were on the horizon. Because of my Toy Industry connections, we soon had Mattel's Intellivision, Coleco's Colecovision, and advanced Atari Units. We were able to play arcade games on our television!! Then in 1984 or so, a company out of Japan, Nintendo, decided to market their new console and picked Boston as their test market. Having a lot of stores in the Boston area, we, at Child World, worked closely with them to bring Nintendo to market. Wow, we now had access to Mario, PacMan, Frogger and others.
The early to mid 80's was also the beginning of personal computers to the masses, In 1984 or so, I had spent a whole weekend at my kitchen table, working on annual budgets. With my green 12 column accounting pad, a pencil and a handheld calculator, I toiled over the minutia of that budget, writing, calculating, erasing and recalculating. I knew there was a better way. On Monday morning I dropped the whole package on the CEO's desk and told him that this was the last time I would do budgets without a desktop computer. Well, he called my bluff...at 4:00 that afternoon the IT department delivered this big box with a cathode ray monitor to my office and set it up on my credenza. But, I had no idea how to use it!!
In our Financial planning office, there was a newly minted Harvard MBA, that surely had the knowledge I needed. Offering to buy him dinner for several nights, he came to my office and taught me how to use Lotus123. I became an expert, and while my counterparts in other departments continued with their antiquated methods, I was off and running! Having the video game and PC categories under my purveyance, I became very familiar with the ins and outs of personal computers. While we were unsuccessful in getting Apple and IBM to sell to us (they didn't want their computers to be viewed as Toys), we were successful with Commodore and an Apple knockoff from Franklin Computers. I became obsessed with learning about how to get the most out of these new technologies.
By the time we started The Sports Authority in 1987, having personal computers on my desk was a necessity, not a luxury. I reveled in the opportunity to teach others how to use Lotus (this is before Excel) and the ins and outs of the Windows operating system. Of course, I had a personal computer at home and began doing my personal finances and other chores, using the Windows based PC. My friends would turn to me if they were having computer problems and I could usually figure out how to get them out of a jam.
This period was also the beginning of the cell phone revolution, and my first cell phone was a huge block that I could move from my car to my boat or just to carry around. We bought a new Lexus in 1990 that came with a built-in cell phone!! Then, cell phones became smaller and smaller and the flip phones that could also text became a thing. From there, we went to The Blackberry, a wonderful device that made text communication easier. I went nowhere without my Blackberry and was loathe to give it up!
However, in 2007, Apple unveiled the most talked about device that they had been developing since 2005..The iPhone 1. In my view, this changed EVERYTHING. Now, we had a computer, a phone and a text device that could also access the World Wide Web in our pocket. While it took a little while for me to give up my Blackberry, I was an early adaptor of this new technology. And that led to other things...My daughter convinced me to switch from a Windows Based PC to an Apple PC and eventually adding an iPad, so that the PC, the tablet and the Phone could all share the same information. Would wonders never cease to amaze? There were many discussions within my peer group as to whether it was better to be an Apple person or a Microsoft devotee. I became an Apple person and have never regretted it.
The World Wide Web was actually first developed in Europe in 1991 although there had been earlier data share programs used by the military. However it was not until 1993 that it was placed in the public domain and could be accessed using Netscape or Mosaic, that it really got recognized as a tool for business and personal use. But even then, there was less than a few thousand web sites that you could access. As web access increased in the mid 1990's, companies such as AOL and Yahoo began the commercialization of the internet.
So, why am I writing about internet history? Because it all leads up to my latest curiosity...Artificial Intelligence -AI. Not knowing much about AI chats etc, I turned to a new friend of mine with some questions. One of which was, if I fed all of my blogs into an AI bot and asked them to analyze those blogs and suggest topics to write about, would they be able to do that. He encouraged me to give it a try. (Thanks Will!)
So I downloaded Chat GPT, CoPilot, Gemini and the latest, Claude (thanks for this suggestion, Brad!) and fed them the same exact instructions: "Analyze the blogs at http://roysjourney.blogspot.com and suggest new topics to write about." I was most impressed with the results I got from CoPilot and Claude. I thought they did a good job of capturing the essence and writing style of my previous Blogs and had good specific suggestions for future blogs. Gemini (Google) had the least useful analysis and ChatGP was pretty thorough once it went to the correct website..for some reason it initially picked up writings from another roysjourney at another website not related to blogspot!
Claude said "Roy's best writing happens when he combines a specific memory with a bigger truth. He writes with warmth, humor and real depth across several distinct themes." It then goes on to break down those themes and give specific topic suggestions.
CoPilot said - "Your blog has three powerful pillars -personal health, nostalgic storytelling and social/political reflection -and you can expand each of them into fresh, compelling topics that keep your voice at the center. Your strongest posts combine personal story + cultural reflection. Lean into that intersection." It then gave very specific Blog titles and ideas.
ChatGP said - "Your blog reads much more like a personal chronicle of lived experience. In short:this is real-world experience-based insight, not abstract philosophy." It continues with things that are strong and where the blog can be stronger. It also goes into very specific suggestions.
Bottom line...Going forward, I will take some of their suggestions of topics and maybe this foundation will help make the blog more enjoyable for all. However, I don't plan on letting any of these Bots do my writing for me...it is my therapy and that would defeat the whole purpose of writing this blog.
And The Journey continues..........
PS: As always, if you want to be removed from my distribution list, just let me know...Also, if you have friends that might benefit from or enjoy getting these, just send me their email address. I don't post it on Facebook any longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment