Technology Drives Breakfast Group Crazy

At a meeting of our Masterminds Breakfast Club for business consultants, we featured a topic about CRM and online collaboration software. The eight professionals present, between us, used thirty-four different software packages and online helper services, ranging from Salesforce, Mail Chimp and Constant Contact, to DropBox and CrashPlan to Wufoo Form Builder. While all of these technologies are exciting in themselves, most of the consultants at the table visibly drooped with the daunting prospect of researching, learning, selecting and implementing the various solutions. And, many expressed frustration that the process of learning about these solutions is actually four or five steps removed from actually doing any work for clients, or building the business.

When we tried to decide on a platform to use for inter-group collaboration, we had eight different opinions, all valid, and thirty four software options, all valid. And that's just scratching the surface of what's available.

So, there's lots of innovation going on out there in the market and the selection is almost endless. But, it's also extremely inefficient when there's no generally-accepted standard. And, it's tiring and cumbersome to collaborate with different groups, when each group has adopted a different set of solutions or a different platform.

Variety may be the spice of life, but our businesses are wasting too much time on choosing the spices and not enough time on preparing and serving the main course. If the market could cooperate more and decide on some standards, our lives could get a whole lot easier. And, our businesses would get a whole lot more productive.