Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
The IT guy and, um, a friend.
HPE/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNETThey're miserable creatures.
They crawl around the office -- when they can get away from the video games they're playing -- and say "no" to everyone who asks them a question.
"What if we pull customer insights from the data in real time?" asks an important person. "Nah," burps the IT guy.
"What if you got yourself a lover for once in your life?" asks another important person. "No way," mutters the IT guy.
Actually, that last question was my own. The one before it comes from a new campaign emitted by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It wants to change the image of IT personnel who just say "no."
HPE wants to turn them into something every corporation appreciates: Yes Men. Oddly enough, in the two ads produced, the IT personnel are, indeed, both men. Of a sort.
In one, the IT guy is a robot who says no to everything. Until HPE comes along and turns him into, gosh, a human being. A nerdy-looking human being, but still. How does HPE do it? Apparently, it can turn your company's legacy technology into something that works with its new hybrid IT offering.
In a second ad, the IT guy is called Brian and has an enormous bobbling head.
I don't believe this is an allusion to sense of self-worth. Rather, it symbolizes all the problems he must carry inside his cranium every day.
At least this IT guy has a recognizable human face. A completely miserable human face, that is. But gosh, that smile when HPE comes along.
In essence, then, IT guys are mere prisoners. They're trapped inside their company's lack of investment. They're hostages to their company's myopic, ancient thinking.
Release them, or who knows what might happen.
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