A Balanced View of Technology

I was just reading an interesting blog post at NBRI called 5 Factors That Affect Your Employee’s Productivity.  The 4th item on the list, entitled “It’s the Tech Tools, Stupid,” starts off by stating: “All the feel-good, psychological methods of improving employee productivity are great, but they’re useless without the right tools. And the right tools mean the right technology.”  As a techie guy myself, I couldn’t agree more.  Technology is advancing so rapidly nowadays that it has become a challenge not to fall behind, and I think good management understands this.

As always though, it’s a question of balance.  Obviously management cannot simply give a perpetual blank check to the I.T. dept., but at the same time it must constantly make sure their competitors are not outpacing them due to their own outdated technology.  This can become a problem where management presonnel must rely on the I.T. personnel to keep them apprised of current technology needs vs. wants and where the I.T. personnel have a hard time making that distinction.  Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s better.  (As I write this it occurs to me that I’m typing on a laptop computer I bought in 2000 and that is running Windows 98; it serves its purpose well in that for which I use it.)

Anyway, it is food for thought, and that blog post was an interesting read.