Business Is Bad? Yes . . . It's YOU.

Once a month, I go to an incredible meeting of 100+ successful executives who get together to talk business. The person who runs the show is an incredible personality — full of vigor, experience, and knowledge. His ability to speak in front of the group each month is a pleasure to watch. Unfortunately, his ability to put together a professional looking presentation is clearly missing and he also doesn’t know how to work his own laptop for the presentation (he consistently runs into mishaps and problems).

This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. There’s a lot of competent professionals and executives out there with ugly, cheesy, and just plain awful logos, images, and presentations. And to top it off, they have no technical experience to operate their own machines.

Their excuse is they’re not competent with the tools at their disposal, they ‘just don’t have the eye’ for design, or they don’t have the money to hire someone who has the ability to make their stuff great.

Guess what? You Are In Business. Everything about your business needs to not only be great, but look great too. It also needs the ability to communicate effectively to your audience. Stop hiding behind the old and antiquated belief ‘you’re above all that mundane stuff’ — you’re too important/elevated to have to know/understand your own technology. Or the phrase I love, "It's worked for me for many years."

Here are some excuses I run into:

“I don’t need to know how to run my laptop...” — Yes you do. It’s your business. If you look like an idiot in front of an audience because you don’t pre-plan and ensure everything is working fine, it’s YOUR fault. Grow up and learn your tools inside out. It’s not an overhead projector, it’s a laptop.

“I know we need to make our website look better...” — Yes you do. You should have done it YEARS ago. It’s almost 2011, not 1998. Your site is the first location most people encounter your image and information. Screw this up and you cut your sales dramatically.

“I have to have my logo/business cards redone...” — Yes, they suck. You look like a hobbyist, unprofessional, and you are wandering through business with an unprofessional image for all of us to endure. Hire a competent creative to redo your entire look. Today. See this post.

“It’s the best I can do or I was too busy to get it done right...” — Are you an idiot? Would you say that to a client? I’m giving my time and energy to meet, greet or go to your presentation — hire someone who can do it for you or take the time to do it. Stop acting like a child.

I know I’ve been a little harsh about this topic, but I meet/greet many people in my day-to-day business. Many have their act together. But there is a wide swath of professionals and executives who are damaging their image and business (and hurting my eyes) when they don’t fix what is clearly and apparently wrong with their image and business. And their attitude is they are ‘too above’ this issue to worry about it — bottom line, YOU’RE NOT.

This is not rocket science folks. Hire a competent creative or designer (I know many great ones) who can help you look INCREDIBLE. Don’t hinder or hurt your message with bad design, tools or planning.

Are We Experiencing A Technology Tsunami?

Over the past 25 to 30 years, technology has been zipping along the mainframe to desktop route and the entire tech institution has been riding along with it (and profiting greatly from it). Lately, I find as each month progresses, I am leveraging the old basics of business and office technology less and less.

Some examples:

1. I never load software anymore - in fact I don't even use my CD/DVD player. With the advent of the App Store this week, I see it going away.
2. I carry my laptop less and less. I use my iPhone and look forward to the iPad2.
3. I can carry most key files I need on my 64GB Flash Drive (duplicates of course).
4. I don't have as many problems/issues/blowups as I used to with tech even 3-5 years ago.
5. More (if not all) of my tools and files are on the cloud, not on my laptop.
6. I hardly print anymore. Thus, no files or file cabinet.
7. Email is slowly going away for me - I text message and call more often.
8. Hardware is getting cheaper by the minute. A $500 backup HD a few years ago is $99 today.

I parallel this change in my life (and business) with the car industry. When I was growing up, cars broke down frequently — there were repair shops all over the place fixing almost every part on a car. Nowadays, it's rare to have to fix your car (maintenance excluded - I have Hondas/Acuras). Engineering, design, materials, and service just got better.

Is the same thing happening in the tech industry and all ancillary organizations who attach themselves like barnacles to tech? If so, what is the impact on the industry? What's the impact on organizations like Symantec (virus), Gartner/Forrester (advisory), HP (printing), and Microsoft (operating systems)?

How is technology changing for you? Is it getting cheaper? More efficient? Concentrated? Expanded?

I run my own business and own all Apple products. All of this is happening very quickly and I fully embrace the change. In fact, I lease all my equipment — by the time the lease runs out, the tech is obsolete anyway.

Do you see corporate tech shops getting smaller as more and more systems are simplified and delivered via the cloud? As moving parts disappear (CD's, Software, Wires, Hard Drives) do the systems, personnel, costs, support and focus also decline?

Open disclosure: I worked for Gartner for six years and was a client for seven.