Strategic Technology

A brilliant little line in this note by Ian Lurie titled: Ignore the influencers: The dangers of a social media world

Don’t try to record my advice. Listen to it. Process it. Combine my advice with your reality. Then write down the result

Forget the web 2.0 bingo that Ian is describing, in the small to medium business this advice applies in other ways as well.

It can be too easy to look for the silver bullet prescription to running our businesses, yes, that includes our IT.

There is no prescription!

I have tried to emphasize that as SME’s, we are not all the same. What works for one business at one point in time, may be the complete wrong idea for a second business.

Consultants come and go with their theory of the week about how they will fix everything for your if you follow their advice.

Me?

Unless that consultant knows your business as well as you do?

I echo Ian,

Combine their advice with your reality.

The warning;

This does not mean that burying your head in the sand is the correct answer.

This does not mean that because you have always done it this way, you should not change.

This does not mean that you should avoid the difficult tasks required to look at your business holistically to see where changes could benefit.

But this does mean that because a consultant (or blogger) says ACME did this and saved $$$ that you consider carefully if there is any sense at all in comparing your market, your demographics and your business model with ACME’s