Technology:FindingaBalance

One of the hardest things to advise my shoppers about is finding the balance between technology and their own skills. Since I struggle with this myself, I thought it a good topic to address. A lot of us struggle to find that balance, and I've seen evidence of this in many situations.

I participated in a discussion recently about the lost art of letter writing. I do feel that emails and text messages, IMs and PMs are faster and more efficient at times. However, I also feel that something is "lost in translation." Emails and letters, texts and instant messages can have a tone and be described in many different ways. They can be abrupt and elaborate, complex and simple, professional and unprofessional, appropriate and inappropriate, and in this case, even long-winded. However, they can also be misinterpreted. Type is type, and print is print; you cannot always get a good indication of emotion, feeling, or intent, regardless of the mechanism, but I do feel that a handwritten letter, if there is an indication of these things, is a better conveyance. I believe that it takes more time, thought, and intent to write a letter. You can sometimes tell if someone is angry by the firmness of their hand, in a hurry by the chaos of their script, or judge other emotions by observing handwriting. Again, this isn't foolproof, but it is possible. I feel a general warmth when I receive a written letter because of the extra "effort" it takes to write one. Growing up, I never thought I'd view letter writing or note taking as a chore or an effort; I guess that right there is an indication of where technology has taken us. All too often our daily lives seem to be about finding what's better, stronger, faster, smaller, and more efficient, but I do wonder what we lose in the process. I remember sitting in math class not so many years ago and doing long division with paper and pencil. Calculators were not permitted, and typically the only students who had them were those of us who were trigonometry, statistics, and calculus students. It amazes me that now they are the norm. The days of slide rules were replaced with "New Math," and now there's a calculator in every backpack. I recently discussed the loss of in-person business meetings, working lunches, and

business card exchanges. It's the same thing; when working with clients and doing business over great distances, or doing business with multiple clients, web conferencing, conference calls, and Skype is not only easy but sometimes a necessity. I realize as well as anyone how few hours there are in the day and how much business we actually have to do these days just to cover expenses, when competition is so fierce and the economy so unstable. Many times jobs are taken

for a ridiculous amount of profit that wouldn't even cover the amount of time spent on the project. The only way to make a living in those circumstances is with volume, which increases the amount we have to do yet doesn't afford us any additional time to do it. It makes me wonder about a lot of things, this cycle, like loss of personalization, cut corners, reduced quality, and other things that I see so often. I was editing reports today and began thinking about how difficult that balance can be to find. I was writing about the use of spell check in reports, reminding shoppers that words spelled correctly, but not used correctly, will not be flagged by a spell checker. I was thinking about how easy it can be to forget to review things visually, double check a calculation by hand, or look at a map when the GPS isn't up to date with construction or additions. It's the balance between relying on technology too much and our own eyes too little, and it's very hard to find. In fact, I wonder if it's ever really achieved or if with ever-changing technology and ever-increasing demands, we're all just trying to keep up.