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OFFICERS President Art Rectenwald Rectenwald Brothers Construction, Inc. Vice President Mike Wolff Timberwolff Construction, Inc. Secretary/Treasurer Robert Moore Gray-I.C.E. Builders, Inc. Immediate Past President Matthew Schimenti Schimenti Construction Company BOARD OF DIRECTORS Brad Bogart Bogart Construction, Inc. Dan DeJager 2014 DeJager Construction, Inc. 2013 Michael Kolakowski 2013 KBE Building Corporation Mike McBride Westwood Contractors Kent Moon 2013 Lakeview Construction, Inc. Robert Moore Gray-I.C.E. Builders, Inc. Matt Pichette Russco, Inc. Art Rectenwald 2015 2015 2014 Rectenwald Brothers Construction, Inc. Chandler Weekes 2016 Weekes Construction, Inc. Rick Winkel Winkel Construction, Inc. Mike Wolff 2013 2016 Timberwolff Construction, Inc. W. L. Winkel Robert D. Benda John S. Elder Ronald M. Martinez Jack E. Sims Michael H. Ratner Barry Shames Win Johnson Dean Olivieri Thomas Eckinger James Healy Robert D. Benda K. Eugene Colley Matthew Schimenti 2 2015 PAST PRESIDENTS David Weekes 1990-1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004-2006 2006-2008 2008-2012 Technology Has Changed Since Mad Men. Has Yours? By Gene Marks, The Marks Group, P.C. Sexist comments. Bourbon at 10:00 am. Lighting up a Pall Mall whenever you want. No, this isn't the Red Sox locker room. It's the way of life on the TV show "Mad Men", which was recently nominated for 17 Emmy Awards. Those guys at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (the show's fictional advertising firm) had it made. Times were good. But times change. Most of us who work in an office have noticed something else on Mad Men. It's the technology. Or lack of it. You don't see those big, black phones anymore. Or those IBM typewriters. A copy ma- chine was newfangled. If Don Draper, the firm's Creative Director, was suddenly transported to today's office, he would be shocked by how much of the technology he used every day in 1963 is no longer used at all. Would the same happen to a business owner from today if he was also transported ahead 50 years? Absolutely. In fact, try five years. Because in just that short amount of time, a lot of the technology we're using today won't be around as Gene Marks much. So if you're thinking of investing in something new, you may want to stop and consider a few technologies that are changing right before our eyes. For starters, we're in a completely wireless world. Are you still connecting cables? Then you probably voted for Goldwater. Most of my clients are using wireless technology for just about everything: headsets, keyboards, mouses, printers, and monitors. Sure, we'll all have brain cancer within the next decade, but at least we'll be able to undergo chemotherapy "hands free". Thanks Bluetooth! Presentation tools have also changed significantly. In Mad Men, the account team would have a big face-to-face meeting with the client and put on a big face-to-face presentation with boring story boards. Now we have the internet, projectors, web conferencing, and boring Powerpoints. Things really have changed since then. And they're going to change even more. Unless it's an emergency, I wouldn't buy that new projector you were thinking of. Tablets and smart phones are now coming equipped1 onto a wall or hooked up to a large flat screen monitor. Imagine what the boys at Sterling Cooper could've done with this stuff! When Don went to California on a business trip a couple of seasons ago no one could reach him for days. Today it's a different, and still changing, story. I still see lots of business owners buying GPS units for their service techs in the field. Please don't. The GPS technology in Android and iPhone devices keeps getting better and better. You'll be using those old GPS devices as shuffleboard disks before you know it. If Don was traveling just a few years ago he'd be dragging his laptop full of data with him. That's changing too. Carrying around data is out. Web sharing slides with an inexpensive technology like GoToMeeting5 , AIM3 or Skype4 or Join.Me6 and either projecting projectors. And the whole visual side of meetings is changing too. Just look at today's teenagers: They're all iChatting away on their Macbooks and iPads. Screens, projectors, and phone devices are being replaced with just a plain old computer running an iChat2 with built in access is in. Today's people on the road carry tablets, laptops, netbooks, or just their phones and are doing everything online. The technology is real and popular, and it's the norm. And do you know what else is the norm? Apple and Google technology is becoming the norm. There's a whole new generation weaned on Macbooks and Android devices hitting the job market. And a whole new generation of technology that easily gets these devices onto Windows-based networks or even runs Windows side by side7 home and abroad. Websites like Guru11 Elance12 Cooper, every manager had a secretary. Nowadays, with all this technology, we've got one administrator doing the work of many. That's going to change even more. The office will continue to shrink over the next five years. Remote control and desktop sharing technology10 One final thing that's going to change the office? That's the office. At Sterling stuff is becoming less and less taboo in the business world. The IBM typewriter moved over for the PC and the PC is slowly but surely sharing the space with Apple and Google technology. Windows still dominates the desktop8 though. In 1963, secretaries were touching typewriter keys. In 2012, we're just touching screens – and will be doing more of it once Windows 8 appears in October9 . let us find people to do ad hoc work around the world. Hosted applications allow us to share data wherever we are. Office space now rents by the hour, rather than the year. Sterling Cooper would look a lot different today, and in five years, than it did in the early 1960's. allows people to do the work from and The characters on Mad Men have no idea what terrible things lie ahead of them in the next five to ten years of their time: assassinations, race riots, the Vietnam War, Sonny & Cher. Our future does not look so terrible. Especially when it comes to business technology. So spend wisely. type application, 1 http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/26/samsung-announces- galaxy-note-10-1-and-projector-smartphone 2 http://www.apple.com/macosx/apps/all.html 3 http://www.aim.com 4 http://www.skype.com 5 http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/ 6 https://join.me/ 7 http://www.macwindows.com/emulator.html 8 http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market- share.aspx?qprid=9 9 http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/11/2701270/microsoft- windows-8-release-date-october 10 http://www.gotomypc.com/remote_access/remote_access 11 http://www.guru.com/ 12 http://www.elance.com/ Gene Marks is a columnist, author, and small business owner. His weekly columns and blogs for The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Philadelphia Magazine are read by thousands of small and medium sized business owners around the country. Marks was a speaker at the RCA 2012 Annual Meeting. www.marksgroup.net . Investing in this