Use the right tool
Peroty linked to a video that cracks me up. It’s a video of a guy trying to use the Vista Speech Recognition software to program a simple script. It does not work very well. It’s frustrating for the guy but funny at the same time. One thing is obvious: he’s using the wrong tool to accomplish the job…and that ain’t funny.
People do this all the time personally and professionally. Let’s look at it personally: Mary and John are in a relationship. It’s a serious thing. John makes Mary mad. Mary talks to her friend Celine about it. Umm…Celine isn’t the key to solving the problem. John is - talk the the right person fool. Another example:
Horace wants to redo a room, specifically he wants to paint it. Problem is it has wallpaper on it so it needs to be scrapped, so he starts to scrap it. The wallpaper comes off but it’s a lot of work and the drywall/plaster underneath is taking a beating. Meaning he’ll have to patch all the nicks for it to look right. Or…he could have gotten the appropriate tools to scrap off the wallpaper without doubling the work.
Professional examples:
Karen wants to start a blog network and decided to use WordPress because it’s free. Not because WordPress is the best tool to do the job, it’s free. 30 blogs later Karen realizes there are some limitations to WordPress that Expression Engine or Textpattern (also free) doesn’t have. Converting to the right tool? Karen realized how challenging that would be. Another example…
Marvin decided he wants to advertise his furniture company. He heard about Web 2.0 and decided that Web 2.0 people have money, so he bought advertising on Web 2.0 sites to grab the Web 2.0 crowd, disregarding any other form of targeting.
Could all of these scenarios possibly work? Sure. Is it the hard way? Sure is. The above scenarios are all examples of..
Wait for it…
Making the wrong decisions!
Success requires making the right decisions…the first time. We’ve all done it but the question is: are you still doing it. If you are, why? I’m trying to stop doing this myself…
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