Applying Technology

I was recently texting a friend to wish her Happy Birthday when a message popped up on my phone.

Do you want to add this birthday to your contacts list?

When I clicked yes, the person's name from my Contacts appeared, and one click later, her birthday was added to her file for future reference.

Next year, I won't need to go on Facebook to be reminded of my friend's birthday...

... my phone will do it for me.

What impressed me here wasn't the WHAT: asking me if I wanted to add additional information to an existing file. That part is boring.

It was the HOW.

The HOW was seamless.

And relevant.

And useful!

I likely wouldn't have thought to add my friend's birthday to her contacts file in that moment.

But my phone anticipated that doing so would make sense, and that I MIGHT like to do it if the thought had occurred to me. So it made the suggestion and, when I agreed, enabled the action with a single click.

I read a lot about these big, bold things that technology will soon enable.

And I'm excited for them. (Well, for most of them, anyway.)

But I'm also really, really happy when existing technology gets used in the right way.

Applying technology for technology's sake isn't useful for your customers.

What's useful is applying technology to address the issues your customers face.

And what's really useful is applying technology to address the issues your customers are about to face before they're even aware that those issues exist.