“Hi, My Name Is Jeff, and I’m a TechTard” – “Hi Jeff!”

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Back in the day I was in a perpetual state of frustration when it came to pretty much anything hi-tech. Not only because I couldn’t use it, or that it almost always failed to deliver anything close to the multiple miracles promised, but because I simply couldn’t understand — at almost any level. Outside of the computer in general, obviously the all-time best hi-tech tool for real estate agents, most of the so-called technological breakthroughs have been anything but.

I first used a computer effectively on the job back in 1987 or so. Leased an IBM 286 with a proprietary program installed. It allowed me to download property files via DataQuik using a phone connection. The only other task for which it had any value whatsoever was writing, and printing for mass direct mailings. The printer was a tractor feed. More fun than a hayride. 🙂

Lookin’ back, that piece a crap ‘puter was the best bang for the buck with which technology ever blessed me ’till about a decade later. You know the chronology after that.

What’s really happened though in the last 15 years or so? Sure, a buncha software has made our jobs incrementally easier. Don’t mistake that last sentence to mean I’m downplaying the value of a lotta those ‘incremental’ timesavers — I’m not. But real bona fide breakthroughs? Show me.

Agreed, getting leads online at the astounding rate some do, is indeed magnificent.

I guess what I’m tryin’ to say, and poorly at that, is if we look back at technology’s so-called breakthroughs, they pretty much, with the obviously rare exceptions, mimic the invention of the backhoe. Shovels could be engineered to the nth degree. Digging techniques could be honed to efficient perfection. Backhoes did the work of many men, more quickly, and uniformly. Though the backhoe isn’t nearly as versatile as the computer, you get the idea.

Here’s a technological game changer for me. My first set of hearing aids, bought five or six years ago, were digital, and pretty much state of the art back then. They reopened a world I’d almost forgotten. It was magnificent, especially for business. Recently though, they were goin’ downhill, evidenced by my family’s insistence I’ve been sayin’ ‘what’ WAY too much lately. 🙂

So I made an appointment with my trusted audiologist. She said there was such a leap in technology, I’d be overwhelmed with what’s possible now. “Right” I said. “Just like all the web-geeks keep sayin’ about whatever new miracle they’ve created.” She just smirked, and told me to ‘put these on’.

Oh my freakin’ God in Heaven!!

Won’t bore ya here with all the specifics, but the dang things are intuitive — really. They figure out what I probably wanna hear, then aim most of their power that way. Crowded restaurant? If I’m talkin’ with you across the table, the crowd noise is buffered while your voice is amplified. How cool is that?

Wait! There’s more!

I’ve always used a low tech $15 earbud directly plugged into my cell phone, so as to increase the chances of hearing you better. What a gigantic pain in the ass that is, what with hearing aids already stuffed in my ear. They move around, or sometimes even fall out.

The new aids have bluetooth!! Phone rings, I push a button on the small device hangin’ from its cloth ‘chain’ under my shirt, and voila! I’m hearin’ ya in perfectly clear stereo. The phone stays in my pants pocket, on my desk, or wherever else I have it. That, my friends, is what I call a game changer — at least from where I sit. But it gets better.

It’s now connected to the TV too. The sound comes through like it’s from God’s lips to my ears. The Boss is thrilled, to say the least. 🙂 They’ll pretty much connect to any device equipped with bluetooth capability — which includes my computer. Haven’t figured that one out yet, but I will, and soon. Remember, I’m a TechTard.

For the record, this massive improvement in hearing aid technology costs about 12% less than I paid for the aids I first had. Their cost/benefit ratio seems to have improved much like most hi-tech stuff has.

What real life game changers has technology brought to your life/job?