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January 11, 2012 at 10:03 AM
I’ve written before about my “Aha!” moment years ago, listening to Paul Saffo of Stanford University’s Institute for the Future tell an audience of magazine editors that “it takes people about 100 years to figure out the highest and best uses for major technology advances.” (Think the printing press, the internal combustion engine, electricity and, now, the Internet.) I bring this up again as a follow-up to my Dec. 21 blog on New Year’s Resolutions, in which I resolved to improve my relationship with the technology in my life.
Bruce Johnston of DJB Associates in Tuttle, Oklahoma, was kind enough to add a comment of encouragement, noting that “the purpose of improving this relationship is to improve one’s productivity and we have certainly witnessed a host of new productivity tools entering advisor’s lives. The challenge of course is how do advisors evaluate and implement these new productivity tools quickly and effectively.”
As usual, Bruce hits the keyboard on the command key (that is, the nail on the head), although I’m not sure “quickly” and “effectively” should be used in the same sentence here. As Dr. Saffo pointed out some 20 years ago, it takes a while to sort out the best usesof major innovations such as digital technology and social media. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that home shopping, online porn, tweets about grocery shopping, and YouTubes on how Hitler reacts to the Broncos beating the Steelers aren’t important. I’m merely suggesting that maybe, just maybe, there are better uses for “mankind’s greatest invention” and that it may take bit longer to figure out what thy are.
I’m also wondering if this might be especially true when it comes to technology in advisory practices. Seems to me that adopting new technologies “effectively” is the opposite of investing in the stock market—where “first in, first out” is often a profitable strategy. Independent advisors don’t have a lot of resources (either financial, or more important, time and effort) to be wasted on trial-and-error technology strategies to see what sticks to the wall. Is posting on FaceBook the key to marketing in the new Millennia? Is Tweeting? How about streaming video? For my money, the reviews aren’t in yet.
Perhaps more troubling is the effect that major innovations have on the lives of people who use them. Bruce Johnston is quite right that, like the printing press and electricity, the Internet has tremendous potential to increase our productivity; both in terms of communications and access to information. I certainly couldn’t do what I do from Santa Fe if I had to use snail mail (although whether I’ve actually increased my productivity greatly depends upon whom you ask).
