Confessions of a Techno Junkie

The first step towards solving a problem rests with admitting that you have one. I am writing today to confess that I have a technology problem, although I feel some comfort in the knowledge that I must not be alone. I'm of above average intelligence, college educated, have held executive positions with high tech companies, am not necessarily an early adopter, and pride myself on making logical, rational decisions, even when it involves acquisition decisions. OK, so I read David Taber's article in the February Parallax, ("The Taber Report: Customer Behavior"), which suggests that personal purchase decisions are 80 percent emotional, but still I can aspire, right? Before you read on, understand that this is no anti-technology polemic, but rather a statement on our collective struggle to absorb the technology streaming at us.

Anyway, my problem is best described as technology overdose. Specifically, I currently own more electronics technology than I can personally absorb in five lifetimes, and yet technology and I are far from finished. In my corporate life, although I always tried to make fiscally responsible technology decisions that improved competitiveness and delivered shareholder value, I must admit to being part of more than one attempted technology transition that ended with less than expected results. Scientific studies suggest that Man only uses 8 percent of his effective brainpower, so perhaps there is some direct correlation between our inefficiencies in neurological and technological utilization. I estimate that I effectively use 20 percent of the technological capability that I own, so hey, I'm way ahead of the curve! In a desperate attempt to improve my technological competence, I've even taken a subscription to Wired magazine to keep abreast of the latest in technological trends. It remains to be seen if this will really increase my utilization of currently owned technology or conversely just inspire me to buy more (digital radio, ipod, etc.).

Besides just the simple fact that I own more technology than I apparently need, I have deduced several other themes in my technology ownership. First, the devices that I use most effectively fulfill core needs in my life and somehow deliver lifestyle freedom. Second, because they are increasingly useful or even vital to my daily regimen, I use them more frequently which has concurrently motivated me to learn to take greater advantage of their technological offerings. Indeed, the lifecycle of technology evolves for me from interesting to useful to vital to replacement or obsolescence. My techno devices all fall somewhere in the useful to vital category, since I do generally manage to avoid buying at the interesting stage. The not so evident conclusion is hidden in those devices which I own (e.g., cell phone) with low utilization rates where I may have a vital need in buying that device, but received a lot more concomitant technology than I needed. For example, my state-of-the-art cell phone represents the best example of this. No mere phone, I can take pictures and instantly e-mail them, manage e-mail, peruse the Internet, send text messages, and use it anywhere in the world, except of course, in my home in Texas which is officially located in a "no coverage zone"!

Figure 2: When do you buy technology?

Technology as a business antidote

Now that I've made light of my personal experiences as a technology consumer, let's leap to the arena of corporate technology acquisition and discuss any parallels. Without the benefit of scientific analysis, most of us would probably agree that businesses do an equally poor job of purchasing and assimilating technology into the workplace to achieve intended benefits. We all have war stories of failed software and hardware implementations, and significant technology investments gone awry. Early in my career, I once worked for a company where we sadly joked that we owned more software licenses for applications that we had not implemented than for applications that were implemented. During the heyday of the dot-com era, "supply chain software" seemed to take a parallel maniacal trajectory and proliferated at a high rate. The difficulty as a practitioner rested in ferreting out what the core functionality of any of these packages actually contained and how they might fit into an overall supply chain IT infrastructure. Talk about techno confusion!

Many reasons contribute to the struggles which businesses have in assimilating new technology including poor technology or partner selection, lack of structured 3Pe analysis and redesign, incompetent project management, etc. But more fundamental than any of these, I believe, lies in the delusion that so many companies have suffered so much that they will buy a technological solution to their business problems. Yes, corporate entities, just like consumers, can get "drunk" on technology in their quest for success and mistake enabler for total solution. Corporations, much like we techno junkies, could probably stand some version of a 12-step program to right themselves in the battle for techno sanity.