Demand on Demand

Just like Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we have become a society that expect our demands to be met immediately. Unfortunately it is now normal behaviour to request something and receive it almost instantly. The Internet and smartphones have changed the way we work, and faster processors and Internet connections have meant we get what we want sooner.

Now when a web page or application takes a few seconds to load we find it almost unbearable. The issue is that we don’t restrict ourselves to just technology – our impatience spills out into society. Think about sitting in traffic, or getting service in a shop or restaurant. If something doesn’t happen in those same few seconds we become flustered and irate.

As consumers we are able to get content on demand through various media service providers and devices. We watch and listen to what we want, when we want. Personally I listen to music streaming from Zune while driving. If there’s an interruption to my Faith No More (yes, I’m a product of the 90’s) my forehead changes colour.

The same happens in the business world as well. Users aren’t aware of the incredibly complex path their information and services have to take down the series of tubes known as the Internet.

The leviathans of cloud (Amazon, Google and Microsoft) have all experienced various outages and service degradations to their platforms. This will keep happening. Sure the services will continue to improve and the providers will learn from their mistakes – but everything in this world is fallible, especially humans.

So the humans on the other end of the tube need realise that not everything will happen straight away. Just because they can’t log in to their Gmail or connect to Exchange Online does not mean that the Mayans were right – it just means something has happened and at some point the service will work again. Until then, find something else to do.

As a society we are become far too comfortable with everything being available on demand and almost instantaneous. When it doesn’t, take one of these and don’t call me in the morning – my phone will be off!