Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Research Blogs -> Stephen's Lighthouse

Legal Research

: Stephen's Lighthouse

Maslow's Hierarchy of WiFi

David at Joho the Blog put out a challenge this week. He reminded us of Abraham Maslow iwho is famous for his Hierarchy of Human Needs:

You remember:

Self-actualization
Esteem
Love/
Safety
Physiological

Anyway, David and Thomas Crampton, were tryig to come up with the Hierarchy of Traveling Geek Needs and could only come up with two:

Free wifi
Power outlets

That?s as far as they could get. I don't know if they're thinking about the whole trip or just the abusive airport experience...

I'd love to see:

Free WiFi on the plane and not just in the airports. I had this on a flight to China once and it was awesome since you could get so much work done and start the trip without hundreds of e-mails and RSS feeds.

I'd love to see more power outlets on all planes. Gee, they have big generators on the wings, how hard can it be? And why do some planes have outloets that can only take a car lighter adaptor - how bizarre is that.

I'd love to actually know that laptops are as dangerous as the TSA treats them. It's such a pain to pull them out all the time and occasionally turn them on. The only bad electronics I've heard have actually brought down planes were ghetto blasters but they just sail through security.

I'd like my satellite wireless card to work on the plane.

I'd like my own phone to work on the plane. I have to turn it off now just so the battery doesn't die while it roams for a signal. Can't someone's ingenuity fix the problem?

I'd like my laptop to power up and down quickly like instant-on TV so that when I have to take it to the airport washroom (Yep, this is a real problem on multi-hour layovers and delays). Why hasn't the boot time issue been fixed?

I'd love to have a simple kit of wires and converters that didn't try to knit itself into a sweater when it's left alone in my bag. I'd also love it if they didn't form themselves into the shapes of bombs and terrorist toys. And come to think of it, why on earth can't they standardize laptop power cords and mobile phone chargers? The variety adds absolutely no value and just irritates when you forget your cords. Try to find a stupid Dell part anywhere retailwise on the road. (Hint: Front desks at hotels usually have a huge box of recharger cords and laptop cords that they'll let you borrow! Wonder where they got those?)

I'd also like to see decent printing stations in every hotel and airport. Fedex Kinkos is great but why can't I just do this where I'm staying? Why are airports mostly print free zones - even in the club lounges? Paperless world, yeah, right. And by the way, there's no way you need to charge $.25/page, that's a rip off and we think less of your hotel when you do that.

Anyway, congratulations to Starbucks in the US for getting the $5 latte/free wireless connection. They've saved me on the road many times. Libraries too when they let visitors to their fine cities partake in their hospitality. And shame on Starbucks in most other countries for charging. Are you listening Starbucks Canada?

Anyone else have some geek hierarchy suggestions...? Use the comments.

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on December 12, 2008 (boomark / email).