Are you...

Better off, worse off or about the same?

Decide on one.

Back in the day, we worked with a master manager who had the exceptional gift of common sense. This slogan was his mantra as it applied to any meeting, learning experience or various information advances. The key was to measure and weigh the experience carefully and not casually or passively.

With that as a backdrop, let’s apply that scale to the universe of sales and marketing (industry neutral) over the last ten years to weigh where we are and where we may be headed. Are we…

Better off: From technology with the resulting apps and revolutionary advances? Some of the gains are information and document retrieval, wireless hardware portability, instant and digital speeds, graphic developments, social and networked communications, limitless storage capacities, micro sizing and nano tech, universal web platforms, to name a few. Going forward, we can get ready for the multi-dimensional virtual world to come…

Worse off: Considering indeterminate learning curves...Hardware and software expenses...Initial and maintenance costs...Constant upgrades…Supplier and manufacturer criteria…Legal, informational personal and intellectual property exposures…Relentless regulations and interventions...Unpredictable markets…(the short list).

About the same: We are still us. We resist changes coming too quickly...Senior friendly options are continually perishable…Political intrusion sucks as usual…Our appetite to blindly buy-in remains skeptical…We seem to still be vulnerable to herd mentality…We typically fear Big Brother…(consider your own POV).

In all, if we had to choose just one option, we would clearly be better off from the evolutionary advances of technology as they apply to sales and marketing. Yes, the negatives are there, but nothing revolutionary is built on negatives, and the positives outweigh them by a zillion.

Question: What do we do with these assets?

Simple answer: Use the product of what has been created. There is little down side to employing the technology of sites, blogs, e-publications, networks, graphics, podcasts, data mining, software apps for everything, and the latest hardware to name a few.

That is the carve out to sales and marketing in general. What about the application to your industry, your position as owners, managers and producers (and all others)?

The technology is now here…Are we better off? You decide.

ZDT Author’s comments:
“I’m thankful for PhotoShop surgical procedures…”

ZDT peek into the next few years:
Consider that “I’m not my Avatar’s Keeper” yields 2,000,000 search results today. What does that say about the direction of the future?