Technology – it’s all about the choices
There is always a choice and while the options might not always be to our liking or centered upon our interests a decision is always made. Hopefully the basis of the majority of our decisions is based upon facts and that is where I’ll begin. Facts are what you make of them and in the face of all the things that command our attention in business today there is a growing interest, and dare I say requirement, in not making the time to fully understand some choices. The pace of life has given more substance to what economists call “Rational Ignorance.”
Over the years it has become apparent to me that everyone has a favorite word they like to place in the choice above. The choice varies with time, their place in the company, their age, their education, the temperature outside, if it is raining, is the coffee still hot, and so on. When all of these adjectives are narrowed to both business and today the more common ones are “all about” and “______”
When it is “all about” the technology the person saying this has made a choice and these words reflect an acceptance that technology can have a positive impact on their business. These people might not spend the most money or have the newest items installed or even really care that much about the specifics of what they have. What they do understand is that there is value to their organization, to the people that make up the organization and their customers in the technology choices they made. As a side note these businesses while not immune from all problems that seem to originate in technology they often have more understanding.
For every right there is a left and there are many more organizations and individuals that look upon technology and choose to use _____. Like the previous group these people have made a choice and their choice reflects their choice to not make, dare I say accept, technology as a part of doing business today. Often times these organizations can be heard to say “Until the users complain they do not need anything new” or “These machines are just as good as what I have at home.” These organizations also tend to expect that business will not suffer, will be very competitive and enjoy the same value of technology as those that have accepted it as a positive part of their business.
In closing the framework here is about choosing. The idea is not that technology must be a certain thing inside your business or that you need to change your business to fit. Rather it is all about acceptance and acknowledgement. Let me put it this way:
It took some time for me to realize that I love old cars and they like my money. Well when it comes to technology the same can be said. It’s not that you cannot use old technology in a business but change is happening so fast and the needs of new software plus job demands have made older machines and software quite unproductive plus business unfriendly in a mere three-and-a-half years on average.