The Solution
Learn a little at a time.
Formal or Informal Learning?
There are some workshops and seminars, and even entire academic curricula out there that will teach you what you need to know if you're willing to devote weeks, months or years to the pursuit; and shell out quite a bit of money. Many people feel that the time spent away from their businesses would be detrimental, and worse, that during the time spent learning, new versions of everything will be coming out, making their new-minted education obsolete. The trick is to get on top of the wave in a way that's relevant to the business you're in.
If you do choose a formal program, make sure it's short, flexible and general enough to be applicable to what you want to do. Unless you want to undergo a major career change and become a pocket-protector wearing specialist, make sure that the program understands what you want to do with the technology and is not just teaching technology for its own sake. In fact, many 4-year computer science programs are criticized for not being "current." A lot of technology takes place in four years. Many MBA and even technically-slanted MBA programs are criticized for being "stuck in classical pastures." In our opinion, there is much be gained from formal education, but they are better at other sciences and humanities than technology.
Whether or not you pursue formal education in technology is up to you. This article focuses on informal learning- stuff you can pick up in the course of your daily business. Starting with reading this article.
The Nature of Evolution
Technology has undergone an evolution of sorts, to the point where it has become almost a force of nature. From a very humble beginning, it now promises to revolutionize the way we work.
I remember dreading "computer lab" in elementary school. We would troop down to a musty storage room converted to the "lab," and sit in the green glow of black monitors that showed only text. We worked three to a computer, learning the basics of "basic." It seemed to me that it took infinitely more work to program the computer to perform a computation than it took to simply do the problem yourself with a pencil and scratch paper. It astonished me that some a couple of boys in my class really enjoyed spending endless hours after school coding simple tic tac toe games. Of course, those two boys have probably made millions by now. At the time though, their interest seemed completely pointless to me. Echoes of the green-and-white computer lab came to my mind whenever I thought about computers for years.
After landing a job in advertising, however, I was introduced to a new world where the computer actually became useful for something besides the mental exercises of bored kids. I could draw, color, shrink, grow, flip, and replicate images with incredible ease. I bought a computer for myself and built a very simple web page, published it, and soon was getting hits from Singapore. It was incredibly addicting.
I am reminded of learning about the history of the automobile in that same elementary school. When the automobile was first introduced, the infrastructure didn't support it. They were noisy and smelly (although probably not as smelly as several hundred horses.) and dangerous, because people didn't understand the concept of the internal combustion engine or understand the safety practices necessary with gasoline. Many roads were not paved, there were few, if any gas stations. People thought that automobiles were frivolous playthings of the rich.
As it turns out, very few people who drive understand the internal workings of a car. They just get in and drive it. Use of computers has become very similar. Elementary school kids who have never heard of binary (the original computer language) are happily researching dinosaurs and compiling animated book reports. It has become a common activity for 14 year olds to gather in "chat rooms" with peers from Europe, Asia and Australia to discuss the merits of Star Wars Episode I; or to play complex role-playing and action fantasy games with a group of people they've never met while parked in front of a PC in a suburban basement.
Idea is piled upon idea to the point of critical mass. The more people become involved, even as users, the more this trend is fed. In spite of what Bill Gates may tell you, there is not a single individual who is essential to this speedup of technology. It has a life of its own.
What Do I Do About It?
In the spirit of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," you can benefit from technical advances without stepping too far out of your comfort zone.
Play With It
Children and teenagers are some of the sharpest PC users I've seen. I've purchased Java solutions from a 12-year-old. My 9-year-old son and his friends are routinely doing things that I had no idea could be done with the software on his PC. I think much of their savvy comes from a lack of preoccupation with "how" it works. They keep an open mind and have the patience to poke around until something does what they want it to.
Create a "safe zone" for yourself to play with. If you are buying a new PC, get as much disk space as you can- this will provide for future expansion (you always end up using more than you think you will ever need) and also provide the "breathing room" to experiment a with new software. Many software manufacturers offer "30-day free trial" versions that cease to operate if you don't register the software, or "lite" versions that don't include full functionality or don't allow you to save the results of your work.
Frequent websites, newsgroups, and other "technical" venues for your line of work. There are sites and software specifically for nearly every profession- health care, managing rental properties, accounting, manufacturing, etc. etc. etc. Visit the ones that are relevant to you, read software reviews, download trial or demo versions, and play with them. Try to perform tasks that you normally perform in a different way. Computers are best at automating repetitive tasks, performing calculations, and sending and manipulating information to be used by multiple people for multiple purposes. Go through an average day and make a mental note every time you or your staff do something more than once, (like type a client's name) and then look for a way that someone has automated that task for you.
What vs How
Relax your natural inclination to be distrustful of things you don't understand. Be more concerned with the fact that it works, rather than "how" it works. You can learn more if you want to, but the most important point is to be sure it works for your purposes.
When you drove your car to work this morning, did you obsess about the activity of spark plugs and pistons, or did you spend more energy navigating through traffic? Take the same approach with technology.
Of course, the more you know about the WAY a car works, the smarter decisions you can make about buying and maintaining a car in a cost-effective way. But most of us wouldn't go to the trouble of learning how efficient a radiator is, or how fuel injection works if it were not for the fact that it improves our quality of life.
Talk to Young People
You can become more technology-savvy by simply listening to young people. Your children or relatives probably look at things, and even approach problems differently than you do, because many of them have never lived in a world where information was more than a few clicks away.
One manager I know tries to set up project teams with a demographic mix of people. He feels this causes the team to be able to draw on a wide variety of perspectives and mind sets. The mind set of people under 30 tends to be much more open to technology, and much more informed about it. Including these folks in your circle of usual acquaintances will probably raise your enthusiasm level and your knowledge level by association.
Read Newsletters and Magazines
There are lots of books on the market about technology, but reading a book is a pretty significant time investment. You could break that time up over several days or weeks of reading smaller pieces of more current information and get a better overview of the state of the technical world. Choose publications appropriate to your level of knowledge and move up as they get to be too elementary for you. If they all seem to be full of jargon and technobabble, be patient. Continue to read them for a few weeks and it will start to seem more natural.
Keep Business Principles Foremost
You are successful in business because of the things you know. There is no substitute for business acumen and people skills. No amount of technical knowledge can make up for a lack in either of those areas.
The Web has become infamous for "flaming logos" and other technical
tricks that do little to meet business needs or extend business principles.
Don't be guilty of adding more, simply because you can. If a technical
feat doesn't contribute to the way you do business, it's not worth it,
other than as an academic exercise. The key is "application"-
Applying technology in a way that adds value or reduces time or redundancy.
Conclusion
The technological revolution, like any change, is likely to cause some
discomfort and confusion. However, we're convinced that it promises to change the world
for the better. Adapting your current skills and business practices to some minor
improvements can be done in a way that's painless and very worthwhile.
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