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Cisco talks about “The Internet of Everything” proclaiming that before 2020 everything (all electronic devices) will be connected to everything.  It is mind boggling to consider the implications of Cisco’s proclamation.  Given the pace of technological developments it seems as though being connected to everything will only accelerate “what and how we do things”.  The question is whether “connecting everything and moving faster” will be good or bad for relationships.

I don’t know about you, but today’s pace of change seems to put people in the mind set of expecting everything to get done faster. I know that at DevDigital, our team is constantly trying to anticipate the next move because clients expect things to get done faster. But doing things faster isn’t always a good thing.

Here are some things that shouldn’t be done faster-

1. Building a relationship that lasts

2. Listening to understand rather than to hear

3. Creating a solution before you understand the problem

For years I’ve heard people tell us that their previous technology provider wasn’t available to fix things after the project was done. In other words they weren’t interested in a relationship just the revenue.

Many people get frustrated with technology people because they pretend to hear but don’t understand. People need to know that those that develop technological solutions understand the problems that need technical solutions.

Markets are Conversations

The “Internet of Everything” connects a lot more than things.  It connects people to solutions, solutions to people and enables relationships to be formed.

Business is about understanding problems and helping people or organizations find or create solutions that work.  It takes a two way conversation to understand problems and create solutions.  In my experience most of the firms that sell technology services are guilty of telling clients the answer before they understand the problem. Subsequently the client buys into the answer only to end up with more problems than solutions.

We get a lot of organizations coming to us asking if we can fix a problem caused by their previous technology provider who tried to create a solution to the first problem.

Technology can do a lot of things, but it can’t create a relationship that lasts until both parties understand the objectives. Once the objectives are clear, then delivering a solution that is less costly and better than expected is how business relationships last.