Reading: Chapter 7: Technology Accelerators
Assignment - Deadline: Friday, November 7. 2014
A. Post two paragraphs inspired by one or more of the study guide questions/thoughts for the week.
B. Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.
Questions – Technology Accelerators
- If technology cannot make or break a company's level of greatness, but only serves as an accelerator of greatness or demise already in progress, then why did everyone fall in love with technology for technology's sake during the 1990s?
- Why is there so much hype and fear about new technologies, and what can you do to view new technologies with objective equanimity?
Source: “Jim Collins – Good to Great: Discussion Guide.” http://www.jimcollins.com/tools/discussion-guide.html
I chose to write about the question concerning why there is so much hype and fear about new technologies. Within my lifetime, I have seen major technological innovations affecting our professional and personal lives. Not too long ago while on the staff of Detroit 300 (1999-2001), there was an older staff member in his late 50’s who refused to learn how to use a computer on a regular basis. He rarely accessed the Internet and used an IBM typewriter coupled with lots of liquid paper to correct his mistakes. Unlike his previous position with a public school system, our workplace had no secretary or assistant available who could type and revise his documents for him. Each week, you could see him growing more frustrated with his inability to grasp the new technology. Consequently, after a year on staff, he resigned because he could not keep up with the workload using a typewriter and an aversion to the Internet as a resource.
ReplyDeleteWithin this context, I think the author overstates his point in the chapter, “Technology Accelerators,” in which he contends the adoption of new technology alone will not make your organization great. In reality, those organizations that do not keep up with ever changing innovations will be doomed to obsolesce. Therefore, I believe the author should have concluded that staying abreast of technological innovations in one’s field is a prerequisite to becoming a great organization.
I chose to address the question of "If technology cannot make or break a company's level of greatness, but only serves as an accelerator of greatness or demise already in progress, then why did everyone fall in love with technology for technology's sake during the 1990s?"
ReplyDeleteAlthough difficult to summarize in just a paragraph or two, I do believe there is an overall explanation of the aforementioned question. During the technology and internet boom of the 1990s, every company, whether headed for greatness or doomed from the get-go, all believe they had one or both of these two concepts: (1) they had next great idea of how to incorporate new technology into their business to take it from good to great. (2) Regardless of how practical new technology was to a business, many, out of pure ignorance of its limitations, believed it was the answer to all business models. Whether it was going to save a failing business or propel an existing idea into a whole new market, not all businesses realized that technology would only accelerate greatness, not create it.
A quick, simple example of this was Nintendo. As successful as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super NES and Game Boy were, Nintendo tried to launch virtual reality gaming with "Virtual Boy" in the mid-to-late 1990s. Although the technology was in its infancy, Nintendo invested millions of dollars into this new gaming technology. With limitations even noticeable to the consumer, the system was failure, never producing more than 14 games and overall console sales never toped 780,000.