Using technology as a business tool...
Technology, what a concept. |
Using technology as a business tool... Technology, what a concept. |
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Oliver Wendell Holmes is given credit for the thought, "Man's mind once stretched never goes back to it's original dimension." That thought is ever so true when it comes to technology. We all know technology has changed how we do things, but until we stop and think about it, do we realize just how much it has? I'd like to get you to think about technology in a new way. If you were thinking about a new house, would you be thinking about a hammer and saw, or would you be picturing in your mind or would you be thinking about wall coverings and floor coverings molded together to form rooms? Too often when people think of technology they think of computers and the internet, rather than applications and tasks. Remember back when the office manager was the person who made sure you had enough of paper for the typewriter, and file folders to file the completed paperwork? In many cases are you now working for a company that has an information manager that makes sure you have enough hard drive space to store your files. No matter what you do, information is the heart and soul of your business. All those records you keep, product files, inventory information, customer files, accounting and book keeping information. The key is to start thinking "information flow," not a "paper trail." Information is all those scraps of paper you have reminding you to do things, all those notes cards, file folders full of paper, telling you all about your customers and products. Technology is replacing all that paper with floppy drives, hard drives, cd-rom drives, and optical drives. Paperless does not always equate to more efficient, but stretching your mind to look at getting organized in ways you never have before. Remember when we had to track down the person that paper was intended for, and had to hand it to them? Maybe they had a plastic bin that we put it in, or maybe the paper was just stacked in piles on their desk.. As we go from paper pushers, to technology pushers, tools of the past and present get muddied into the technology of the future. The fax machine was developed to sent photographs over phone lines, its now used to sent much, "routine mail" across town or across the country. To realize just how main stream the fax machine is, think about the restaurant that will allow you to fax in your lunch order, or the local radio station that allows you to place you lunch time music request via fax. But are the days of the fax machine already numbered? Let's go one better, e-mail it to me. With e-mail the information can be more that just words or a picture. We can e-mail large files such as a database, a complete business report, color photographs, audio sound bites, and just about any thing that can be stored electronically, can easily be e-mailed. What effect does this have on the shipping business? Or better yet, on the way you do business? Banks have replaced live tellers with automated tellers. The banking industry has taken us from bank by mail, to bank by phone to bank from home computer. Other financial services, such as brokerage house also have may on line services. There's electronic filing of tax returns, and our own governments hope for reducing paperwork. With all this information going over the phone lines, soon there will be classes of data lines that most of us will be buying, and phone lines will be left for those people in remote areas that are still waiting for cable TV. Stretch your minds, and think where can this technology take you. Think about information out there in the cloud, information for a job hunter looking for a job or an employer looking to hire. What about all those books and references from a library across town , the library of congress, or a large university library across the world, now available to your desktop anywhere. Think about how professional you'll look when you e-mail that prospective client that proposal with color slides and sound bites. Or let's get practical here, the restaurant across town can update their menu regularly and never print a paper copy, you can access it electronically, and e-mail your order for a tuna sandwich on whole wheat. Lunch ala internet. ... Technology, What a concept !!!This article is based on a work shop and Newsletter copyright 1991, by Tom Peracchio. The text gets freshened up from time to time, but the concept remains the same. |
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