How To Become a Better Technology Manger
It seems the better technology gets, the dumber we become. The more we rely on spell check and grammar check and wiki references and auto templates and speech recognition and apps to make us sharper and wittier and more relevant, the worse we become at the things we are supposed to be getting better at.... thinking, creating, deducing, reasoning, writing.
Have you seen all the crap churned out by Hollywood over the past 3 years? Most of it is so embarrassing and unwatchable that I don't understand how someone invested in it. Can investors read? Are scripts so irrelevant that money is put up based solely on an elevator pitch?
Have you listened to the lyrics of the top 100 pop songs? Oooh ooh baby, we are dumb and getting dumber.
Why can't we remember anything? Why do we have more news resources than ever before and yet half the people on the street don't know the name of their senator? Hey, I'm too busy to think about that right now. I'll put it in a folder and review it later. Maybe.
The other day, one of my people sent me a brochure for final approval. I read the headline and laughed. I asked him how there could be a spelling mistake in a bold headline. He told me it was impossible. after all, he ran spell check. I then showed him the headline on my screen and said, "What is a Content Manger?" He stared at the headline "The New Improved Content Manger" and mouthed it quizzically, shaking his head in embarrassment. "Sorry, I don't know how that happened. I guess spell check missed it." I looked at him in disbelief. "Because manger is a word." i said. It took a while for him to understand and think back to all the Christmas stories of baby Jesus in the manger before he sheepishly acknowleged the goof.
So, here we are. In the future at last. In the world of technology making life easier. Giving us more free time. Making us all rich and happy. Yet, everyone I know, is working harder than ever. Just keeping up with the emails, and meetings, and action items and follow-ups is a full time job. And I don't think it's going to get any easier.
Maybe WE have to start looking at the whole thing differently. Maybe we have to do what we do and let the tech catch up to us. Maybe we have to actually use our brains to think. To understand. To focus. Instead of relying on computers, maybe we can figure out a way to have them rely on us?
Now that would be something. Engage brain.
Machines don't make mistakes, they just pass them along for us to mange.
