Confessions of a Non-Techie — Part 4
Welcome back!
When we use technology in the right way it can be a tremendous blessing. This, too, is an “opinonated” topic, but I tried as best I could to find aspects that were solidly postive that even I couldn’t refute. Here’s what I came up with.
Information Access - We can access all kinds of important information - the kind that won’t be dangerous to anybody. We can look up everything from important directions to weather conditions; telephone numbers in a pinch to job banks; local churches to news of all sorts. Much of this is merely convenience, but if we use it in the right way it can become a very useful tool, especially when it’s more “obscure” information, or perhaps not readily available in our particular geographic location.
Education - People may also be able to better educate themselves, anything from online tutorials, to actual college and university courses. There are a number of good sites online to help us plan events, and you can find out tips about cleaning, recipes, finances, definitions, etc if you don’t have a book or other resources on hand. There is a good side to blogs too. People who might not be able to afford mailing news and updates to all their friends and family can create blogs to keep everyone “in the know” about things like weddings, new babies, moving to a new home, and life in general.
Ease of communication - This is fantastic, especially over great distances. I am proud to announce that since Part 1 I have become Skype-efficient. At the office we can have people join in on meetings, at home I can talk to people halfway around the globe. And I gotta say, I love the incoming-call song. The one caveat is that when we rely on technical communcation too much we lose the fine art of letter writing, and real correspondence. (e.g. an e-mail full of “ttyl”s, “thnx”s, and “gtg”s is probably not the same way we would write a real letter, and I am a firm believer in sending real Christmas cards.) Aside from that though, the way technology facilitates communication is definitely a true marvel.
Emergencies - I think one of the best uses of technology is in emergencies, especially when there is a medical need. Having cell phones and systems like GPS can aid response teams and save lives. Rescue teams can coordinate efforts and get assistance where it is needed. We can also get important messages out quickly, like the Amber Alert system, severe weather warnings, or security announcements.
A note on moot points - There are also some sides that sort of cancel each other out. While technology has created many jobs, it has eliminated many as well. Technology can make us more efficient while working, but we also spend lots of time battling slow or crashed servers, and are so dependent on office machines that anytime there’s a problem work nearly stops.
So that’s what I thought about – what do you think are some really good uses of technology? Please come back next week will I will be concluding my series by looking at how we at Silas Partners and our clients are using technology – for good ends!
