Putting Technology In Perspective

Technology has certainly done wonders for all of us in the Sales and Marketing professions.  Personally I love technology and using the latest and greatest tools.  I use many of them and have extracted a ton of value from them.  In fact. I've written about the underutilization of great sales and marketing tools.

At some point though, we (including me) need to get back to a more balanced approach.  Balanced between people, process and technology ... almost on a 1/3 : 1/3 : 1/3 basis.

I was watching a 60 Minutes segment with Prince Charles this past Sunday and something he said struck a chord with me.  He made a statement along that lines that in many regards technology has destroyed our socialization skills, our sense of human-ness.  My thought was that technology didn't do this but the way in which we use, and rely upon, technology has.

In the people/process/technology triad, my experience is that the people part of that equation is the most important part AND it has been the first-to-go as we become more technology reliant.  This applies equally, if not more so, at the management level than at the individual contributor level. Additionally, people skills are the most difficult to master and improve upon.  Whenever I don't feel like trying to work on "people" guess what I do?  I play around with technology.  So much so that my 1/3:1/3:1/3 balance is tilted way too much toward technology.

The challenge is getting us back to a state of equilibrium.

A good friend of mine, Kevin Ashworth, sent this to me the other day.  It talks a little bit about how relationships and friends used to be such an integral part of our lives:
Download TO_ALL_THE_KIDS_WHO_SURVIVED.doc (24.5K)

Comments

[Paul Brown]

Sales Managers have a wide variety of responsibilities in today's competitive landscape that they are faced with. This certainly makes finding the time for sales management and sales planning a challenge. In sales management we know the importance of executing sales with a sales plan. To ensure the passing of this skill to sales reps, we need to teach them to create a successful sales plan and execution strategy. Since time is limited, using sales templates and tools will help to maximize the interaction with Sales Reps to get the most measurable performance gains for the time spent.

[amanda]

Hi, You have an interesting blog. Hey do you want to access Salesforce.com when you are away from your pc???? You can do it through your mobile and your phone doesn’t need to support internet or GPRS for this. Check out this MoDazzle site. http://modazzle.com/cms/modazzleLp2.html?channel=CM&camp=SalesForceja MoDazzle gives you the opportunity to access SalesForce on your mobile via SMS and email without internet or GPRS. You can also access Linkedin and Facebook and other online services like Google maps Starbucks etc. Happy New Year.

[U Little]

Hey buddy! Nice blog that you maintain here.. I just chanced upon your blog surfing the blogosphere. I was thinking.. you could try out some interesting widgets on your page and spice it up with more relevant information. E.g try out the poster widget on http://www.widgetmate.com with your relevant keywords. It has some of the best images i have ever seen.

[Shailesh Naik]

Technology is a media of communication . Whether it helps to socialize across continents or gets people away from each other in terms of physical interaction is a debate GEN NEXT ( future consumers ) feel more comfortable in interacting thru this media . They in future will buy , sell etc more thru tech media . So we all need to be ready for this change too

[Scott Jones]

Chris ... great comments. Don't even get me started on IMs. Great for quick thoughts for people located remotely. Not designed for conversation and in fact almost ensures a real conversation won't take place. It's almost like we are scared to actually talk and relate to one another. Perhaps it's an insecurity issue?

[Chris Hamoen]

Reminds me of the late 90's, when people started to believe that everyone would purchase online, increasing the value of marketing, and negating the need for a traditional field sales rep. Relationships are still very important! On another note - what do you think about co-workers IM'ing each other when they are 10 ft away?