Get To Know Technology

One topic that I don't cover in Welcome To The Beehive is technology. It's a shame because although the ten lessons in the book are tried and true the issue of technology speaks to a challenge of the modern age. Twenty years ago an executive could get by without too much knowledge of the latest hardware and software. Those days are long gone though.

In recent years I have met more than a few executive types who claim ignorance when it comes to the Microsoft Office suite or Internet technology like cloud storage (Dropbox, Amazon Web Services, etc.) and online meetings (GoToMeeting, WebEx, etc.). As a result they have cost their companies a significant amount of time and money. Perhaps they decided to handle work "the old fashioned way." Or maybe they hired an assistant to help format a presentation or create a spreadsheet with some calculations. Either way, inefficiency was introduced due to a failure to understand what technology to use and how to use it.

The aforementioned approach won't work for you as you rise through the ranks in the career of your choice. At the very least the last of the technology hold outs will look to you to help get things done quickly and with quality. Expectations will be high but technology will give you the leverage you need to turn ideas into results in a timely manner. Technology will also help you to create something that looks like it was created by a designer when it was really done yourself for a fraction of the cost. Your knowledge of technology and how to use it in business will help you to stand out from the crowd.

After all that you may be surprised to hear that enthusiasm for technology will give you a greater advantage than you know in the world of business. While there are many younger people who are quite adept with new technologies there are just as many who don't have much of a clue. I saw this situation first hand when I was studying for my MBA. Some of the younger students knew how to use Microsoft Office applications at a very basic level but they also couldn't do much more than the most basic things with the software. Likewise there were many students who were clueless about some of the more promising collaborative and cloud-based technologies and services. These are things that employers rarely mention in job descriptions (which is probably why they are not taught much in school) but they are critical to getting jobs done with quality.

I'm going to end this post with a true story from one of my elective courses in graduate school. I was making a presentation on the importance of technological savvy and one fellow student commented, "Well that only applies to people who work for technology companies." Here's the revelation I shared with that person. Every company is a technology company. Every company needs to understand and apply technology better than their competitors if they want to stay in business.

Since every company is a technology company, every good employee should be a technology enthusiast who is committed to understanding and improving on their ability to use technologies that can help to move their business forward.