Technology Can't Do It Without You
I need to lose weight for my upcoming wedding that I need to plan in 2 months. FitnessPal and Pinterest to the rescue! I'm an aspiring producer and want to become a world famous DJ. Lucky you, there's SoundCloud and Youtube to actualize your dreams! Our company needs to cut back on technology costs if we want higher margins. Implement a million dollar, enterprise-wise costing tool!
Ok, the exclamations may have been a bit dramatic and facetious, but the recent surge of technology and its notably powerful capabilities is concocting the idealistic notion that "technology alone can fix all. And though it can't solve everything, I'm not denying the fact that technological advances can and will come pretty close to alleviating many of our problems. I hope it does! My concern is that our extreme reliability on technology sometimes blinds the fact that...'we' are a critical part of that technology solution. Looking at this issue on a personal level, how many times have I downloaded the Calorie Counter and Nike Fit app because I wanted to lose weight? I'll save you the trouble of guessing - too many times. And no, I still can go through a whole pack of Oreos and hate running with a passion. So why didn’t I have the perfect bikini body for the summer? I downloaded the apps!!
Again, an exaggerated scenario, but you start to get the point. Let's look at this on a corporate level. You're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company that is in dire need to cut back on IT costs, so you immediately plan to rollout a multimillion dollar financial tool that will automatically provide analytics and in-depth reports of your costs. Sounds great in theory, but did you think about how the tool is going to impact your 20,000 employees' daily work and how you plan to teach them to use the tool, analytics, and reports effectively?
I'm not blaming humans - me obviously included - for being lazy and naive in assuming technology can fix our problem. But from my little personal experience and observation of technology in the workplace and in personal lives, I see a growing assumption that technology alone can fix our problems and technology is always the best solution. Sometimes we forget a crucial element of the solution - us - because we are too focused on the technology. In the case of the Fortune 500 company, there needs to be change management - the managing of the people-side of the change - alongside the tool implementation so that employees are aware of the change, managers understand how use the reports to lower costs, and senior leaders know how to use the data to make better decisions. In the case of losing weight, maybe the best solution is to ask your best friend to be an accountability buddy, or invest in a water bottle to replace your morning latte. Sure, there are limitless apps to facilitate your journey, but sometimes we are so quick to rely on an app or gadget to solve our problems; we don't realize that sometimes all we need is to reach out to the person next to us.
Technology is incredible, powerful, inspiring, and the key to unlocking so many puzzles of this world, but sometimes we need to unravel ourselves from our tech-ridden society, take a step back and remember we are the one's that created the beautiful partnership between us and technology. Yes, a partnership, an interaction between us and technology. We are a crucial part of the equation - don't you ever forget it.
