A few years ago I came upon an article extolling the virtues of running DOS on modern computers when browsing through one of the more popular fitness industry magazines. This being 1998 or so, I have to admit to being more than a bit surprised that anyone would still be defending an operating system that had died several years earlier (DOS ran computers before Windows was created). The reason for this misplaced commitment became clear only at the end of the article when it turned out that the author was still in the business of selling DOS software!
While this is a bit of an extreme case, it is not surprising that people and companies tend to stay rooted in technologies they have already mastered since it takes real work to stay current with the pace of technical change. In addition, when measured against the cost in both dollars and time, many new technologies do not pay immediate dividends and some even prove to be dead-ends that suck up enormous resources only to be discarded in a few years. The problem, of course, is that if you do not deploy appropriate technology, you’ll surely find that your business suffers. In a competitive marketplace it is no exaggeration to say that a poor Information Technology (IT) strategy can cripple or even doom your business.
In this series we will help you to make sense of the broad sweep of technological change so that you can see how information technology can help you run a leaner, tighter and more profitable club while avoiding dead ends and unproductive investments. You will not hear much in the way of cheerleading – there are already plenty of starry-eyed computing magazines for that. Our objective is to help you create a coherent and effective technology strategy that works to your benefit rather than simply pouring money into Dell, IBM or any of the myriad fitness software companies. Web or Windows?
A few years ago some people were convinced that selling dog food over the Internet was such an incredibly compelling idea that they actually invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in it! Of course, the folks at Pets.com were models of fiscal conservatism compared to the people who invested in some of the other Internet companies springing up at the time. In the end, the mania got so wildly overheated that its collapse was given its own name: the Dot-Bomb.
The essential idea behind the “Internet Revolution” was that the Internet could offer new “enabling technologies” unlike anything ever seen before: direct connectivity between vendors and customers, “social” computing that permitted people to spontaneously create common interest groups, and “zeroweight” software systems where an entire IT infrastructure could be purchased and deployed without installing or managing any software. The business case for club owners was usually expressed in terms of letting the vendor worry about technical details so that the owner or manager can “focus on business.” There is more than a little truth to this idea: installing and upgrading software, for example, can be difficult and time consuming. Indeed, in many ways, all of the promises of the internet revolution have largely proven true. Nonetheless, all of the popular predictions that Windows software would die in the Internet age much as DOS had died when Windows came along have proven completely wrong: more Windows software is sold today than ever. Why?
What many technology pundits didn’t seem to grasp at the height of the Internet mania is that there are also some very real advantages to running software on your own computer: control, speed, and userinterface innovations that simply have no parallel on the Web. In particular, any task that involves manipulating, analyzing and reporting on data or words is painfully slow and frustrating when performed over the web (even with a fast connection). In addition, “Social Computing” turned out to have a very real downside: in addition to collaborating with customers and prospects, it also meant dealing with hackers whose intent was destroying your computer or spying on your business. So, are we back where we were in 1998? Should you ignore the Web and consider only local Windows applications for your business? Not even close! The key is to focus on the strengths of each environment and to tear down some of the barriers that limit your ideas about how best to use the Internet (hint – the Internet is more than just web pages and email). Much like working with a computer, this is an interactive task. Once you know a bit more about the strengths, weaknesses and new innovations in each technology, you will have a firmer foundation for planning a coherent information strategy. As your information strategy begins to take shape, you will be in an excellent position to intelligently select appropriate technology solutions and to deploy them in support of your strategy. Next month we’ll explore each technology in a bit more detail and we’ll launch into a case study where we’ll see how a coherent information strategy can be crafted. Throughout the process, we’ll strive to ensure that you walk away with practical tools for defining your business strategy and for selecting a technology or technologies to match.
Dr. Mark Brittingham is the President of BSDI. He can be contacted at 888.BSDI.FIT, or by email at Info@BSDI.cc, or visithttp://BSDI.cc.
