Yesterday I wrote about users who expect technology to be magic — and then find out it’s not. (That post was written and posted December 19, 2022.)
Later yesterday I was catching up on some old episodes of Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast. Episode 604 is titled “SPI 604 – I Really Wanted to Believe This” and it’s dated August 19, 2022. It’s about almost exactly the same thing: technology is not magic.
Flynn uses a good analogy of an amateur photographer who buys a new camera lens and hopes that will make all of his pictures better. At best the lens only showcases the photographer’s skill at timing and framing and composing. At worst it becomes a distraction and another thing to clutter up the photographer’s bag.
Flynn calls this “squirrel syndrome.” I’ve also seen it referred to as “shiny object syndrome.” By either name or any other name, the hope is the same: I get this and everything becomes easier or better. Flynn even uses the word “magic” to describe this hoped-for effect.
But technology doesn’t work that way. It’s not magic. It’s only a tool.
It was nice to hear someone else say that. And a bit of synchronicity to hear that old podcast episode cover the exact same thing I had just written about.
On one side note, that was a good podcast episode. Flynn suggests that everyone do an audit of the tools they currently own and be really honest about how many they actually use, how many they actually need, and how much money they are paying for tools which are subscription-based.
On a second side note, I originally planned to write about product standards today. That’s a post I still intend to write.