You’re aware, as all guerrillas are, of how technology can strengthen your marketing. You’ve also got to be aware of its limitations and of the new advancements that are taking place at breakneck speed. Don’t let those advancements overwhelm you. Very little becomes obsolete, but nearly everything becomes improved.

Technology, for all the wondrous things about it, can also be a major distraction and a drain on your time if you focus on the technology itself rather than on the benefits it can bring to your business.

As "Net Benefits" author Kim Elton reminds us, "Business is life and life is messy. Like a kitchen sink full of dirty dishes, you know that when you’ve finally cleaned them up, someone will burn a tuna casserole and you’ll be back in sudsy water up to your elbows with a Brillo pad in no time. But if the kids are growing up healthy and strong -- and helping out with the dishes now and then -- it’s all worth the effort. Soon you’ll get a dishwasher and you can shift the mess from the sink to the dishwasher. The dishes still have to be cleaned. The technology eases the labor and takes away some of the pain, but it doesn’t relieve the duty."

That’s the insight that I want you to take from this column. Technology helps with the job but doesn’t do the job. That’s your task. In order for you to understand how technology can help you, it’s not necessary for you to learn the technical jargon, the nerdy part of technology. But you must comprehend the impact of technology and the ways it can transform a squirt gun into a cannon.

To cash in on the transformation, you must be in close touch with your needs. Technology will help you meet them. You must know how best to utilize the technology in which you’ve invested to get the maximum benefit for the money you’ve put forth. You’ve got to recognize hype for just what it is and solid science for just what it is.

You wouldn’t dream of running a business without using a telephone. The computer will be just as endemic as phones. Using technology will be as easy as making a phone call. It’s already well in its way. Investment research company Robertson Stephens, no longer in business, but right in this regard, stated it this way:

"Communicating is becoming the primary role of computers after four decades of number crunching. We stand at a technology crossroads and are witnessing a technological metamorphosis....In our opinion, computers, originally designed for number crunching and applied to computing tasks for nearly 50 years, will be used in the future primarily for communicating." The future is now the present.

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