07 July

When You Have a Hammer Everything Looks Like a Nail

Today, Mark Cuban blogged about the old saying, “When You Have a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail“. Too often in todays world we try to make the internet a solution to everything, just because we as technologists understand it, can control it, and have access to it.

While I am definitely an advocate for more internet proliferation and believe that Africa still desperately needs more of it, it’s use and application doesn’t always make it the silver bullet to all of our productivity and business problems.  As an Internet Service Provider we see ourselves as “enablers”, rather than “fixers”, more like a hammer manufacturer rather than the one wielding the hammer. Our clients use our Data Centre’s, our broadband and our other services in order to deliver their own solutions or to solve a business need.

Today, in our Cape Town office we installed a whiteboard in our sales team area in order to track, communicate and monitor the progress of our sales team. We could have used an online system or built a system ourselves, but the R 950 whiteboard just does the job better than anything else!

Dont get me wrong, Facebook is cool and I am all for social bookmarking and online collaboration but how, when and for what tasks you use the internet will ultimately define you and your overall success.

We as service providers are going to keep enabling! How will you be using what we provide?