Vince Ciotti summarizes his trip retracing his 1972 honeymoon across Europe with his wife. He compares the technology of transportation like planes, cars, and boats from 40 years ago to now. Planes were similar in speed but lacked amenities like WiFi today. Cars were fully manual versus now being automated and integrated with GPS. Boats have changed from hovercraft to tunnel transportation. While some technology like cell phones distract from experiences, digital photography has greatly improved. Next week's episode will profile the history of CPSI, a leading healthcare IT vendor.

1. H.I.S.-tory
by Vince Ciotti
Episode #75:
Technology
Then & Now
© 2012 by H.I.S. Professionals, LLC, all rights reserved.

2. An HIS Diversion…
• If you’ve been following these HIS-tory episodes on HIS-talk, you
might have wondered where they’ve been the past few weeks…
– (Or you may have thought “good riddance”!?)
• Well, my poor wife just suffered through
her 40th year putting up with me and we
decided to retrace our honeymoon from
1972 when we rented a VW Beetle and
drove all over Europe for a month.
• I was pretty much out of touch duringthe
trip, so for fun this week I’ll cover how
technology has evolved in those 40 years –
not so much in HIT, as I was lucky enough to
avoid European hospitals, but in common,
everyday things like cars & boats & planes...

3. Terror In The Skies!
• The trip started with the terrifying experience of this dimwIT
leaving his laptop in the Denver airport the week before we left!
• Now, like a good IT pro, I back up my laptop regularly, but had
spent several days on the road writing emails, updating SSs, etc.
• You busy CIOs can imaging how much time you’d waste if you lost
2-3 days worth of work and had to re-do everything, so you’ll
know how thrilled I was to receive this message the next day:
– “This is officer O’Donnell from the Denver police – we have a
your Apple MacBookPro laptop if you would please call…”
• Someone had advised me a few years back
to tape a business card to the keyboard in
case it got lost, so let me pass the advice on
to you all: it’s cheap, low-tech and
amazingly effective! So the panic subsided
and we headed off to Europe with my Mac!

4. Planes Then & Now
• We flew over on a massive Delta Airbus A330-300 at ≈600MPH,
with the usual array of today’s high-tech stuff: on-board WiFi,
noise-cancelling headsets, movies/CDs on a personal screen, etc.
• From memory, back in 1972 we were on a TWA Boeing 707 that
also did 600MPH, but with nary an electronic amenity. Being
newlyweds we spent a lot of time kibitzing to pass the 8 hours, but
I sadly noted how this year with all the electric do-dads, we barely
spoke on the flight. Some oldsters married as long as I might say
“So what?” but it’s a sad side-effect of our 2012 e-progress...
• Aviation buffs may recognize this photo I took in
1972 of an Air France Concorde at the Paris Orly
airport – we couldn’t afford it’s $2K tickets back
then, when it did Mach 2 or about 1,200 MPH,
cutting the flight time in half! The fleet was
sadly retired after a tragic accident a few years
back, with no supersonic replacement planned.

5. Automobiles Then
• Back in ‘72, we rented this VW Beetle, a bit of
a let-down from the ‘67 Austin Healey 3000
we drove back in the states. But the bug got
great mileage (≈30 MPG), critical in light of
Europe’s $5/gallon gas, and actually drew
crowds in back-water towns of France & Italy!
• It was totally manual, i.e., nothing was “power:”
- Brakes, steering, trans, windows, me, etc.
• The dash was so simple you barely noticed it: a
speedometer was the only instrument – not
even a fuel gauge! It held about 10 gallons so
you bought gas about every 300 miles or else.
• Performance was pathetic: it took forever to
wind through the 4-speed manual gears, so you
were forced to look at the beautiful country…

6. Automobiles Now
• This year we rented a Peugeot 308cc Diesel,
that also got 30+ MPG, sorely needed in light
of today’s $9 per gallon gasoline (diesel was
“only” ≈$7/gallon). It came with so much
automation I actually thought about reading
the owners manual… but never did – I was
too busy trying various buttons & switches!
• Event the roof was power-driven, as was everything else on the car
(except me): steering, brakes, trans, windows – even the rear-view
mirrors could retract at the push of a button – handy on some of
the incredibly tight side streets of Marseilles, Milan, Nice, etc.
• The most amazing level of
automation was the dashboard,
dominated by a GPS screen that
not only gave directions, but also
controlled the radio and alerts.

7. Dashboard “EMR”
• “Alerts” you ask? Check the screen above
to see how the screen beeped loudly and
flashed a warning icon when the right front
corner of the car was too close to another
car while I was trying to park in a tight
space in Arles (yes, Van Gogh’s joint!)
• The shots on the right show how these
marvelous devices are still programmed by
humans, however. The “roads” it would
take us on were sometimes little more than
one-lane alleys or even driveways! Some
fascinating parallels to our (over?) reliance
on EMR order sets, medical alerts, etc.

8. Cell “Phonies”
• One of the best parts of the trip was that my el cheapo Verizon cell
phone did not work in Europe (wrong SIM card). Even if it did, at $2
per minute for international calls, I would’ve never turned it on!
• Sadly, just like us, Europeans today are totally taken by these
handheld addictions, as witnessed by this street scene on the
Champs-Elysees in Paris which by luck I had snapped 40 years ago
from the same spot. Note how the trees have grown since then to
block the Arc De Triomphe, but that same red awning is still there.
• Saddest of all, note
how today’s Parisians
and tourists are
totally absorbed in
their PDAs, oblivious
to the people &
beauty nearby…
1972 2012

9. Boats, Then & Now
• We were lucky enough to take a “Hovercraft” to cross the English
channel from Calais to Dover 40 years ago, and captured it in this
shot below. An amazing vessel, it flew (literally!) across the waves
at about 80MPH with nary a bump or shimmy from the waves.
• These amazing craft carried 50
cars and several hundred
passenger, our only complaint
being the trip was so short we
barely got to enjoy the view!
• They were retired after 30 years
of service in 1998 and replaced
by the “Chunnel.” See the next
slide for the view today while
driving through this modern
engineering replacement…

10. View From the Chunnel
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11. Reformed Luddite
• Lest I sound too much like a Luddite, there is one area of
technology that today is so much better I’m enthralled with it:
• Digital Photography! – the grainy pictures on the left from 1972
were taken on a Kodak “Instamatic” camera we borrowed from a
friend back then, scanned and retouched via Photoshop today.
• By contrast (no pun
intended), take a look at
how much better the
Notre Dame Cathedral
looks on the right
compared to the
pathetic, hand-aligned
panorama I pieced
together 40 years ago –
Vive La Difference!

12. Next Week
• Back to business, as we return to the thrilling days of yesteryear
and the roots of today’s leading vendors, picking up with CPSI.
• Test Question: how many people know the meaning of those four
letters without Googling the answer?
• Well, I was privileged to steal an hour of two CPSI veterans on the
phone to chronicle the amazing story of this tiny vendor that has
since overtaken both Keane &QuadraMed in annual revenue:
– David Dye, former CEO and current Chairman of the Board
– Scott Schneider – former VP of Marketing and current EVP
• They promised some pictures of the firm’s 1979 founders, “Kenny
and Denny,” two names I had never even heard of before, so stay
tuned to catch this fascinating story next week. And if you have
any gems to share about CPSI, please forward them to
vciotti@hispros.com – I’ll give you all due credit (or blame!)