They are like country doctors who treat technophobia.

These high-tech priests, speaking in the tongues of the digerati, will also exorcise the Luddite in you.

They are geeks, they are in the house and they want to cure your technological illiteracy -- for a fee.

A growing cottage industry of home technology service people want to set up your flat panel TV, install your wireless computer network and once and for all get that blinking, blinking "12:00" off your VCR -- especially if it means selling you on the latest home technology.

Wearing clip-on neckties, PDAs and video cell phones instead of taped horn-rimmed glasses and pocket protectors, today's geeks make house calls because you can't -- or won't -- keep up with the technology you want to use.

They also want to get into your home to see what you've got to determine what additional high-tech stuff they can sell you to further perpetuate demand for their services.

Yes it's a gimmick, but it makes for a good business plan.

"You have a right to unify your home technology," says Best Buy's Geek Squad, a group of geeks that are a cross between helpful Matrix agents and gumshoes who sleuth for electronic clues to solve the crime of technological ignorance in your home.

Best Buy recently expanded the Squad to deploy in 425 stores in 45 markets to fix and customize computers as an outgrowth of driving growth through value-added services, according to Kline & Co., a business consulting firm.

Insisting "You have a right to email your daughter from the backyard," the squad travels in geekmobiles that include a 1963 Renault Dauphine, a 1970 Postal AM General Postal Vehicle painted "SWAT" black and a 1958 Simca Aronde Elysee, but mostly VW Beetles, all painted squad car black and white.

In your home, they teach you to back up your hard drive, show you how to hook up your wireless network and they tell you, "You have a right to trust your computer with your life," among a host of other technological truisms and skills they impart.

For fees ranging from $100 or more, the Squad isn't along beating a path to your door to perform "random acts of technology" assistance.

CompUSA offers installation and/or in-home support for computers, MP3 players and computer networking gear, video-game consoles and flat-panel TVs.

Circuit City has long offered home-theater installation plans to expand to offer TiVo setups, wireless networks, flat-panel TV mounting and more.

The business plan isn't lost on non-technology retailers.

Home Depot recently acquired three flooring installation companies.

PETsMART positioned itself as the "preferred provider for the total lifetime needs of pets."

"Retailers aren't unique in their search for new revenue sources," says Susan Babinsky, senior vice president of international business consulting firm Kline & Company.

"Most markets today are highly competitive, and many are near saturation levels while facing sluggish demand. Companies across virtually all industries are being challenged to meet stakeholder growth expectations in very difficult environments," she added.

And then there are your inalienable technology rights.

"You have a right to change the world by pressing send," says the Geek Squad.

Published: June 2, 2004

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.