Every year, I say, “This is it. I am done adopting new technology. It’s too expensive and how can I truly become an expert if I am constantly abandoning last year’s technology and adopting something new?”
The luddite way seems simple – stick with what you know. Then the newest gadget or website convinces me I will be more efficient or somehow my life will be better. And I make the move. This year, it was a new Blackberry and visual voice mail by AT&T. Finally – someone improved upon the answering machine. The countless iterations of voice mail over the years have always required checking messages. Calling in, knowing the right codes to play, skip, replay, fast forward, delete, etc. It’s different on all systems. Now the messages appear on my Blackberry like an e-mail. I can simple select the message and make choices from a simple menu. This was indeed a change for the better.
No, I have not yet jumped all the way in and gone to something like Google voice, where my voice mails would be transcribed. But who knows? I have come a long way. Twenty years ago, I attended a junior college that taught classes about how to operate a printing press. It was fascinating to me but, thank goodness, I was more interested in the Macintosh SE30 that was set up in the corner. Running a printing press seemed like a simple and safe career. All of our knowledge and information was printed in books and a large amount of marketing was conveyed through print. We all know how that ended, as the Web and computers replace much of what was done on printing presses.
Being an early adopter is now less about using the newest gadget and more about forging a new future. That college that suggested I become a pressmen right after high school, Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, recently announced that IBM would be collaborating with them to create a green data-center management degree.
New technology represents new opportunity. When you see opportunity, grab it. My fascination with the early generation Macintosh allowed me to be on the cutting edge of the printing industry for many years. I’m not sure what the new Blackberry will do for me 20 years from now, but I know it is worth the investment to continue to learn new ways of doing what I have done for years.
In fact, in my own business this year I had to do exactly that. I have been teaching Communicate to Win in a live workshop environment for years. The popularity of the class was far ahead of my bandwidth. So, this year the workshop went online so anyone can access the class. Seizing opportunity is not usually simple or safe, but it is required unless you want to go the way of the printing press.
After completing the Communicate to Win workshop, you will have the most compelling argument and the best ideas. With this complete package, you will gain the tools necessary to guarantee that you have the best ideas and that you can present them confidently so you will WIN. Read what participants say.
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photo by Katrina Snaps. Used by permission.