I am stuck in the middle. I have all these years of experience and knowledge that I try to scale and to monetize.

Conversely, I read about, discuss and consider the future relentlessly, so that I can catapult myself and my team into the future of work, so that we are relevant, we are leaders.

The marriage of these two processes or approaches is the secret sauce of relevance in the workplace today. It is a conundrum: mapping them is very difficult.

At the same time, I am trying to merge two other opposites together in my house. I have repatriated a lot of my old vinyl from the UK (it is the only thing of mine left there). Yet I have nothing to play it on, until Santa brought me a turntable with bluetooth!

I have also in recent times got rid of my wired speakers and stereo, and instead relied on streaming audio and bluetooth speakers, a light and scalable combination.

So here I am, with “future” hardware technology; and “legacy” software (vinyl). Mapping the two together is my genius bit of household planning for 2015 – only, it doesn’t work!

The Ion Air LP turntable bluetooth does not work; and I have spent a frustrating week trying the same thing over and again, trying to pair the bluetooth to various bluetooth speakers, so that I can recycle my wired speakers once and for all.

It should work; it should be simple; it should be effortless (with a little planning). Instead, it is full of friction, angst and disappointment.

The promised future is not available; and the customer support is repetitively telling me “to follow the set-up process” that I have tried 100 times already.

So, I am planning the return the product – what else is there to do? The vinyl will stay in the cupboard.

The music value I expected to unlock by streaming throughout the house – to the delight of me, at least, kids maybe not – remains tantilisingly out of reach. The system still requires wires and plugs and space, and feels out of date.

Sound familiar?

I am stuck in the middle.

←This Much We Know.→