If you're like many organizations one of your primary goals is to keep pace with current technologic trends. There are usually several reasons for doing this.

First, you firmly believe that "to stand still is to fall behind" and falling behind means losing precious ground to more aggressive competitors. The contradiction, however, is that resources poured into developing technologies vaporize down a million blind alleys long before any benefits can be realized.

Organizations seem to associate growth and success with technologic innovation, sacrificing common sense in the process.

Perhaps the greatest oxymoron of the information revolution is that chasing leading edge technology will drive up the bottom line and boost productivity. In reality, productivity is a purely mental process, not a technological one. The bottom line has scaled new heights because organizations are shedding the excess labor baggage accumulated during the 80's. Discarding the least productive end of your labor force will by default drive up the productivity curve.

Second, most organizations have been brainwashed into believing that information is the key to success. Unfortunately, more is not better. The chief trade-off to this intensified volume of Internet information is twofold.

First, faced by a huge volume of available information, how do I sift out the specific information that's pertinent to my needs? "Information overload" is another modern oxymoron. Information overload only occurs to people incapable of managing information in the first place. The real key to volume is knowing what's good and what's not.

The second trade-off is credibility. Authoritative information has given way to nameless and often questionable opinions that serve only to confuse and misdirect. The challenge, then, is to effectively filter out and isolate the information that's pertinent and ignore the rest. To most Americans who aimlessly surf the web that goal is unattainable but to the business executive it's imperative.

Finally, the sheer speed of technologic change has instilled an attitude of quick decision making and short term business horizons. Entrepreneurial urgency is applying pressure to once stable and well planned organizations to make quick business decisions based on limited knowledge against a moving target. The result is ambiguous planning and questionable goals.

Even the giant corporations like AT&T, IBM and Motorola have fallen prey to this "blind leading the blind" mentality. The curious thing about this new attitude is the false belief that business pressures instigated by awakening technologies that have neither structure or function are forcing them to make these decisions.

It's a lot like putting the cart before the horse. Sink resources and R&D into a new technologic trend before the market has demonstrated an interest. This use to be the realm of start-up entrepreneurial companies who had little to lose. When the giants adopt this approach and fail, major economic problems can result.

It's business as usual for companies with the sense to maintain a balance between new technology and organizational missions. Keeping one foot in the past helps to maintain balance while keeping one foot in the future helps to determine a healthy direction.

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