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The true art of automation is not to do more with less, In fact the opposite is truer.

Enable the company or client to do less and get more done,
and you will have built a better mousetrap.

Has anyone ever really done more with less? I’d like to meet the guy who coined that phrase, I think he was being sarcastic and they took him seriously. Who really does more with less? Is it like the small chips at the bottom of a Doritos bag? You pick at them until you can hold 40 or 50 between your fingers and then spill half on the way to your mouth? You figure it all tastes the same, so the numbers of chips in the bag are infinite as long as you are willing to fish around for them in the airtight corners. This is the illusion we present when we say we are doing more with less.

The introduction of the personal computer in the early 1980’s was considered to be the companion for those who had to do more with less. For the first time you could store work, quickly regenerate letters, calculations, or presentations. You could make changes without starting over. Everyone said it would speed things up, but it didn’t. The ability to generate perfect documents had people printing a dozen versions of a letter, where before they only revised it once or twice. Perfection was not the goal, getting it done on time was. Eventually the computer grew up and things began to move quicker. E-mail, the Internet and other applications started to change how business was transacted.

The computer was becoming the enemy to those who saw it from afar. It would replace the jobs of many, just look at what ATM’s had done to banking tellers. A computer has rarely ever replaced a person’s job, and if it did, it wasn’t much of a job worth saving. Computers run programs; they do the mundane and repetitive tasks so that the user can be more efficient. The result is not what you would expect. A marketing program might convince someone that buying a computer will get their work done for them, quickly. They will have more free time and be less taxed by their duties. And for the first two weeks or so, they see how this magical box is truly changing their work practice.

About this time, they find out a few things that come with the computer that they didn’t expect. Software upgrades, maintenance problems, connectivity issues, and lost files. The intimidation factor rises, and they seek help, take classes or make friends with the nerd they picked on High School.

And in time, the learning curve subsides and they use the computer to accomplish everything. The time savings is measurable and impressive. The boss notices and gives them something they also weren’t expecting. More work. The computer revolution made everyone do more in less time. The gradual increase in expected efficiency has reached a saturation point and we need programs to be more intuitive, faster systems and more services to sell, buy or connect with.

This is why there are a half million unfilled IT related positions in the United States today. Everywhere you look automation is a given fact of life. Who will run, repair and install all of this hardware? Companies throw loads of money at problems and end up with a system that has the “cure world hunger” solution to all of its problems. Unfortunately the system requires constant attention, adjustments, maintenance, back-ups and preventive maintenance. More jobs, not less.

Imagine the ripple effect now in motion, as we become more dependants on the machine, we become more indebted to those who can keep it running. In the future computer specialists will be more valued than the professionals of today, because a professional person can call in sick and everyone understands. If a main computer system fails, no one understands and wants to know how long until it will be back up! One person can call in sick and the workers adjust to fill the void. If the computer system fails, all services, functions and business can slow to a halt until it is restored. How often has that happened by one person on a sick day? Unless of course it’s your IT pro who called in.

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