No, I’m not talking about the [alleged] cancer-inducing radiation they emit … nor am I going on about their [supposed] ability to crash a plane … and I’m not even referring to the Paris Hilton friendly colours they are coming in [that is NOT my phone by the way] … I am talking about how predictive text [and the speed of life ] can conspire to get you into a shitload of trouble.
To explain what I mean, I have to do abit of a ‘back-story’ …
For the last 6 weeks, I have been working on a massive presentation for a Japanese client of ours. They have asked me/us to fundamentally change their brand direction and this paper is the blueprint for their global board. Nothing too important then eh!
So yesterday I was busy working away when I got an SMS from the client saying … “Hello Robert. How Is The Presentation Going. Could I Have A Synopsis Of It?”.
Soooooo, in a moment of efficiency, I grabbed my phone and quickly tapped back … “All Good, I’m Sending The Preso Over Now”
However, because of stupid predictive text [and the fact my fingers are quicker than my eyes], instead of saying ‘PRESO’… it actually said ‘SPERM’ and I only realised as my soddin’, stupid phone happily said, ‘Sending’.
Of course I tried to stop it, but it was to no avail so I immediately sent about 268 SMS’s apologising for saying, “All Good, I’m Sending The Sperm Over Now”
Luckily, if you’re a client of mine/ours, you expect the odd ‘interesting interaction’ [and it still isn’t as bad as vomiting all over a clients desk on your first meeting – which my colleague did!!!] but for all you others out there, don’t let technology lull you into a false sense of security, it can have horrid ramifications.
Saying that, Nokia, Motorola, LG, Philips, Samsung and SONY Ericsson should all be greatful to me – if I was American, I would probably sue them for ‘causing undue distress’!