Warning: Technology Punditry Contains a High Concentration of Hype

The Egyptian pyramids, slow drivers in the left lane and the tech beat. Few things in this world are more puzzling.

And yet the general public expects technology reporters to have the answers to the latter. They must know how to decipher and decode, interpret and understand, and then translate in clear terms that which seemed to exist only in imaginations and big-budget sci-fi flicks -- all at a pace unlike at any other beat.

Sounds difficult, right? Actually, the tougher task is not letting context get lost in that translation.

Tech reporters feel pressure to keep a constant handle on the industry's fickle choices and wavering moods. (The PC will be the country's pet contraption. Naw, the PC is passé, head to the stores for your latest PDA with a cell phone. Wait, forget cell phones, we're moving to VOIP.)

Sometimes tech reporters surrender context in the daily race to describe the coolness they cover. But next to cheap parties and unemployment, the tech boom-then-bust's most painful reality is that technology must be more than just cool: It must serve some purpose.

Every tech story needs that context at its core -- sections that slow down the marketing spin, explaining where, and frankly whether, this gadget and that e-craze can realistically fit into our daily lives.

I also must confess to the egregious sin of naiveté. I had once proclaimed a tech startup as the dot-com darling, its CEO as an ingenious tech icon, its software, a revolutionary shift. I hopped the bandwagon straight to Gushville rather than stopping at the right questions.

Four months later, I paid for it. I found myself typing stories on how that darling, spurned by the economy, laid off a quarter of its staff and quietly sent feelers to foreign corporate suitors to buy it and its heavy financial baggage. This time, I asked the right questions. I told the whole story.

For tech reporters, building credibility isn't easy in a field full of virtuosos with their own vocabulary. But that credibility is our currency. Don't spend it all on a splashy cover story that can't hold up a mere few months later. I never did again.

So how do we stay ahead?

First, the question of keeping up. Technology moves quickly -- within the last decade of the Internet's introduction to the mass audience, we saw the economy balloon to unbelievable heights, and then plummet into a recession riddled with unemployment and scandal. And in that time, a veritable parade of high-tech products and predictions meandered through business sections to front pages.

Staying a step ahead of that parade isn't easy. But the best methods also aren't brain surgery. The key: plugged-in sources and a late-night reading list of national business sections, tech trade pubs, analyst reports and a tangle of listserves that specialize in anything from network security to wireless LANs (local area networks to you non-geeks).

Sometimes it's as simple as scanning electronics store aisles or listening to your buddies go on and on about the highs and lows of TiVo or HDTV.

If you read about a national tech fad, chances are folks in your coverage area are buying into it. Find them and make it a local story.

And one handy showroom of potential stories? Trade shows. COMDEX. International Consumer Electronics Show. TechExpo. Wander across rows of products that'll likely be stories for the next year and chat with people who'll likely be sources for well beyond that.

These places are press-release heaven. Pick up a couple, but then walk, do not run, to the nearest regular employees at the booths if you want more substance than spin.

And don't worry, an online search pops up shows that dissect the innards of every possible sector of technology, from Internet search engines to instant messaging. Often, companies peg these shows to launch their latest gizmos.

Finally, when you're done interviewing sources on one story, don't forget to chat them up about others. Ask them what trends they're noticing in the field, which companies are popping up, what products are getting more play.

The beauty of technology is its reach across the community. Your sources on what's hot could come from a Wall Street analyst, a reader's e-mail or your ex-college roommate.

So what do we do with the information we get?

Just because you've got folks to tell you their definition of the latest and greatest, doesn't mean you automatically repeat it in your business pages.

Along with the demand to stay ahead of some of society's fastest-moving trends is the risk of hyping that trend as society's biggest turning point.

That only embarrasses you and misleads your readers. But hey, you've handed over a megaphone to the self-serving company going hoarse trying to tout that trend on its own.

Like, remember when e-tailing -- from our cell phones, no less -- was supposed to empty out our neighborhood malls? Or when we'd download more movies on our PCs than we'd rent from local video stores, shutting 'em down? Somehow analysts forgot that social transformations take several years, not months, even in the Internet era.

"There is no greater hype machine than technology," warns Walter Mossberg, a columnist who reviews consumer technology products at The Wall Street Journal. "I think (tech companies) put more resources in marketing and PR than in developing their product."

He looks for two things to determine whether a press release can produce a mass trend: Will the product have market success and will it change consumer behavior?

Indeed, some of your most balanced -- and, often, most sidelined -- sources are those consumers. Regular people can ground any tech story with their good, bad and ugly experiences with those costly gadgets. Hunt for those folks around store aisles, in online chat rooms or through friends of neighbors of co-workers of friends.

When interviewing the tech gurus, maintain control over your geeky side and ask the skeptic's questions. Focus on impact: How can real people use this technology in daily life? How will this technology change your market? How will the technology itself change over time? How can your audience use this technology 10 years from now?

Mossberg's favorites deal with the innovation: Why should anyone buy this? Why is this better than that of your competitor? Or better than your own last version? Or better than the traditional non-techie way?

In fact, Mossberg skips the PR-powered PowerPoints altogether, preferring to fiddle with the technology himself or chat more informally with company execs. "I just want to hear them talk," he says. "Right away, the terms of the encounter are more realistic, less razzle-dazzle."

Just as the story oughta be.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism