eBusiness Naturally

In this 1995 interview with Neil Postman (on YouTube.com), and in many of his texts, especially his book Technopoly, Postman emphasizes how culture is irrevocably changed with the adaptation of new technologies. Because people have a tendency to generate positive excitement around new technologies, he chooses to focus on how technologies are damaging to culture to balance the scale — that while new technologies give us something important, they also take away something equally important, and this is usually unanticipated.

For example, we originally thought that the creation if the Internet was the solution to many of our societies ills — that faster access to more information would solve the great social divides caused by a lack of information. But we find instead that people are overloaded with information, much of with they don’t know what to do with or whether it’s relevant or coherent.
“If crime is rampant,” Postman says, “or if people are getting divorced…or mistreating children…it has nothing to do with lack of information.”

— How This Applies To Your Business —

Before you run out and buy the latest Blackberry, the newest fashion in office furniture or another computer that promises to be faster with more file storage and sexier graphics, Postman says we should ask ourselves certain questions.

This is particularly critical when considering both your relationship with clients and associates, which are literally the social aspects of your business — and the brand of your business, the manifest of your business culture.

For example, if you position your business on highly personalized interactions with your client, meaning many face-to-face meetings, and they come to expect this, you may be confronted with a brand integrity problem if you choose to begin conducting teleconferences in lieu of flying out to visit.

So here is Postman’s advice. When considering whether to implement a new technology, ask the following questions:

1. What is the problem which the technology proposes to solve?

2. Whose problem is it actually? (Is the problem really relevant to me?)

3. If there is a legitimate problem being solved, what other problems will be created by using the technology?

4. Are you using the technology or is the technology using you?