John Tate is befuddled by the vast array of choice available when making a new technology investment.
New Year's Day 2015 and I wake up with a technology problem. It’s 8.30am and there is far too much noise.
Some years ago I purchased a very nice analogue radio with a combined alarm that my wife and I use to wake us up each morning. Unfortunately, after loyal service the volume control has become dodgy.
We can easily tune the level so it is silent, and equally easily so it is very loud. However, to get the volume to wake you up as nicely as possible with BBC Radio 4 is next to impossible.
We had a social commitment we had to prepare for on 1 January, but it was not pleasant being woken up to a high-decibel Today programme. Although, being positive, it was at least better than not being roused with silence.
No chance of repair
What to do next? Well, of course, I should get it repaired. So off I went to that shop up the road that has always been there, is full of clutter and does electrical repairs – it once successfully fixed our vacuum cleaner. Oh dear – I found out it closed down over ten years ago. The shopkeeper next door commented that “people don’t repair stuff anymore”.
I reluctantly realised it was time to buy a new radio. Decisions, decisions. However, it was good timing as CES, one of the largest technology shows in the world, kicked off in Las Vegas on 6 January. My budget didn’t permit a trip to the US but a web search of ‘CES and radios’ opened up some interesting options.
There are now web and bluetooth-enabled radios; smartphone-type screens have been added to some to give a ‘rich user experience’; and all sorts of other new features are on offer – for instance, your radio can have telephone connectivity and some can be charged wirelessly from up to 20 feet away. But hang on a moment – all I want is a radio that has an alarm facility and will play BBC Radio 4 at the right volume.
So I had to go back to basics again. Do I get an analogue or digital radio? Working in the technology industry I felt I had to go for a digital device – but which make and model? An internet search of “what digital radio to buy” reveals 73 million results (yes really). So I spoke to a couple of friends and discovered a problem.
Many digital radios make a low humming noise when turned off which can be very annoying if you are trying to sleep. A web search this time of “humming noises on digital radios” produced a mere 179,000 results, but also confirmed how widespread this problem is and how difficult it is going to be to find a suitable device.
How then to find a really quiet radio? It was ironic that my main criterion in purchasing a device that is designed to produce thousands of hours of high-quality sound was to be silent.
So off I went to John Lewis, and during the January sales – one of my worst nightmares. I would like to apologise to the John Lewis shop staff – it was not their fault I was in a bad mood, and asking for advice about buying a silent radio was childish and silly. Despite this, the assistant was very helpful but unfortunately lacked knowledge on my specialist subject.
A full department store in January-sale mode is not a good time to test a radio for silence. So, unfortunately, the model I selected was not as quiet as I’d hoped and is now sitting in a box looking for a new home.
VFM elusive
More research ensued, and at last a friend who is a dedicated technology fan came up with an answer. He has a Tivoli radio of fantastic quality, which looks beautiful, is 100 per cent silent and costs only £499.
Ok, I admit that is probably more than ten times what I paid for my old model, but it’s worth every penny for a good night’s sleep. Hasn’t technology come on leaps and bounds?
Of course the business lesson from this little domestic experience is that, while it’s easier than ever to find a dazzling number of new technology solutions to meet your needs, identifying the right value-for-money solution is getting ever harder.
This is a challenge for every charity. Welcome to 2015.
John Tate is a business consultant, and a visiting lecturer at Cass Business School
