"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." I've encountered several variations of this well-known quote by Abraham Maslow over the years, but I can't recall having heard the inverse: "If you view all problems as nails, you'll try to use every tool as a hammer."
The latter maxim, unfortunately, typifies the mindset that shackles many of us when we are confronted with cutting-edge information technologies. New hardware and software solutions are appearing on the market almost everyday, technologies that will enable us to do new things, and perform tasksthat we haven't been able to accomplish before -- including some tasks thatprobably we had never even considered doing, but which have the potentialto fundamentally change the way we work and do business.
Yet when a new tool comes along, instead of stepping back to analyze its potential and determining creative and novel ways in which it might be used we all-too-often blithely grasp our new drill and use it as a hammer topound on the same old problems. Our minds are so firmly set on "doingwhat we do" better or faster that we don't stop to ask whether we might reach the same goals by doing things in a completely different way -- or even accomplish new objectives that could prove more productive (and profitable) than the old.
To paraphrase an admonition I heard at a recent NTT intranet seminar: Too many of us persist in using smart technologies to do dumb things; success awaits the innovative few who learn to use dumb technologies to do smart things.
In today's business (and job) marketplace, change is the only constant. Why do this job that way? If the only answer is, "because that's the way we've always done it," look over your shoulder: the competition is gaining fast. As Will Rogers observed, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
Searching for a one-stop source of online IT magazines? Try Internet Valley's "Top 100 Computer Magazines" (updated monthly) at http://www.internetvalley.com/top100mag.html. Here, you'll find links to the Web sites of such magazines as Byte, CIO, Information Week, LAN Magazine, PC Magazine, PC World... and Computing Japan. I'm proud to say that we've been part of Internet Valley's Top 100 since the list was started in late '95.
And if you're looking for Japan-related information, a good place to start your search is the Stanford University/NTT-sponsored Japan Window Project, at http://jw.nttam.com/HOME/index_t.html. And while you're there, be sure to check out the Japan Window "This Week's Top 10 Japan Web Sites" at http://jw.nttam.com/JNEWS/NEWS/top10.html. For the week of July 19, Computing Japan ranked number 1 on the Japan Window list. If you haven't visited our Web site (http://www.computingjapan.com/) recently, give us a look. All articles from all of our 26 issues are now online (the three most recent months for subscribers only), and the content is fully searchable.
