Notes

Is Modern Technology BEST FOR Your Business?
We all use technology in our businesses, at least to some degree, but is technology best for your business, or your health?

Nowadays technology influences our lives and businesses in lots of different and subtle ways. We're very much accustomed to using it that it is an easy task to forget that a decade ago most of it wasn't even invented. You might use DVDs, Podcasts or the Internet for the learning material. You'll probably use spreadsheets to track different aspects of one's business and word processors to create documentation.

Then t here 's email, social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc) not to mention the flat screen monitor you're probably reading this on. All good stuff you may be thinking and it sure makes your life easier, right?

Yes I agree, until it goes wrong and it goes wrong a whole lot, continuously, but why?

Are You Fighting Bad Technology Too?

I've been mixed up in software industry for about 20 years now and I am using the internet because the early 1990s, prior to a lot of people knew it existed. I consider myself reasonably tech savvy as a result.

I think that most (but not all) people will agree that technology has changed our lives, usually for the better. However, the reason I'm writing this post at all is basically because I still think it performs badly. I'll offer you some examples as to the reasons, going back no more than the final two days.

Yesterday, Excel crashed on me losing half an hours work, auto save failed so it was gone for good. As of yesterday evening Facebook no more lets me post to my very own account from my ipod itouch.

I did a little key word research before writing this post and the tool crashed, taking ages to close properly and restart.

The web connection I'm using is extremely slow and drops out occasionally losing it altogether for a few minutes at a time. Whilst attempting to submit some articles to a website earlier I had to give up because I saw nothing but "timed out" errors and I lost yet more work.

Oh, and my wireless mouse stops working every couple of days with a set battery and my spare (with a wire) includes a mind of it's own.

I'm sure there's more and there will be by enough time I manage to publish this, but I'm sure you obtain the picture.

This isn't designed to be considered a rant, because believe it or not the last few days haven't been particularly bad so far as fighting technology can be involved.

But it does feel just like a fight sometimes, with more time and effort being taken fighting the tools to create them work than solving the original problem or performing the duty at hand.

Why Is Technology So Bad?

Having used computers given that they first appeared in the house I'll use them for example as to why I think technology does not work most of the time.

I believe it's for just two main reasons:

Software - computers (and several other gadgets) run plenty of software nowadays, they run it simultaneously, it's often from different providers and it's really very complex.

Technology is young - although we're at the cutting edge with computers and software you can forget that it's still very young, extremely young in fact.

It's both of these reasons which cause so many issues with modern technology. The majority of it runs software, your phone, your vehicle, your washing machine, your TV. Software by its very nature is complex and incredibly prone to errors.

Most technology around now wasn't even invented a decade ago. We're only at the very beginning of the info Age. It may feel like we're well involved with it sometimes but we're really not.

If this were the Industrial Age (which is long gone now) we wouldn't have even invented steam powered machinery yet, we'd still be peddling the machinery ourselves.

So, is technology good for your business? I still think Yes when it works, but when it breaks it stops being a help and may cause you some immense stress.

Do I think things will improve anytime soon? I'm afraid not. While we remain at the leading edge and on the fast, exciting part of the curve we'll always be a few steps ahead of what we can actually do well.

Technology will continue steadily to advance at an astonishing rate, but it'll continue steadily to fail and cause us problems at a similar rate.

However, unless we intend to reside in a cave we just have to live with it because in this day and age it's near impossible in order to avoid technology, especially in business.

Jason is really a freelance Software Engineer who's an enthusiastic blogger, has run a number of online businesses and is particularly in the property letting business. His interests include researching and teaching the business mindset, his goal being to learn all there is to learn about how to be a successful entrepreneur and to pass this information on to others. For more information visit: http://BusinessMindsetExpert.com or follow him at http://Twitter.com/JRKtm
Here's my website: https://unsplash.com/@mchugh00stiles