Now don't get me wrong. I love tech, and I'm just as guilty as the next techie when it comes to being svengalied by it. So here's my real issue with all this: we're forgetting that we're human. Tech is supposed to be a tool. You know, something we pick up and use….something that makes life easier. A good tool is an extension to your body so seamless you even forget its there: it allows you to concentrate on the task at hand. A bad tool constantly reminds you that you're using it, like a dull razor that keeps knickin' ya (I'll rant more on this topic later). In my not-so-humble opinion, a really bad tool isn't even a tool at all. So what's a really bad tool?

Some companies love video conferencing. They buy $100k Polycom installations, and presto change-o, no more meeting face to face. Sure you save a lot of money in travel expenses, but you've just replaced humans. You haven't made their lives better, you've changed them into droids. In case anyone hasn't noticed, its not just the meetings that make a team work, its the time between. The mingling, the joking, the drinks after work that make the meetings work. People aren't computers. You can't just feed a sales figure in here, and performance number in there, turn the crank and get a whiz bang product. So what's a really bad tool? Anything that takes the spontaneous out of the human experience. Anything that drains the “can't quite put it into words” from everyday life. So yes, video conferencing is a really bad tool in this application.

It seems to me when we come out with a gee whiz new technology, we need ask ourselves does this enrich the human experience? Or does it attempt to replace it? I'll be back with more rantings on this.

John Legend:Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing:Hitch (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)[4:44]