It's NOT not not about the technology

James Robertson on Andrew McAfee

One difference I would highlight is that perhaps Andrew has only met with more enlightened organisations when he says: "I very rarely come across anyone these days who thinks that technologies are magic bullets." In my direct personal experience, I'm sadly still coming across plenty of organisations that are definitely still following the "magic bullet" approach...

"Magic bullet" thinking is a form of wish fulfillment found in two groups of people:

• Business people with a pressing problem and a weak understanding of the technology in question. Like a terminal cancer patient going to a faith healer to ward off imminent death - and indeed like all of us to some extent or another - people believe what they want (or need) to believe.
• Technology people with a wonderful tool and a weak understanding of the business in question. These people are like the faith healers - they have invested so much of themselves in their chosen path that it has to be miraculous. If only the lost could see that...
• There is a third group - possibly the biggest - who don't believe any of this but benefit from the delusions of the first two. Why be a party pooper and say what you really think?

N.B.I deliberately chose a religious metaphor as we all need something to believe in and technology provides many in the supposedly hard-nosed world of business with a beacon for the future - an eschatology if you will.

Where AM original post's gets interesting is that INATT (nice acronym) is used as a rhetorical move. And it can be used in several ways:

• To suggest that the best course of action is doing nothing as all this technology is the same and it didn't work the last time we tried it eh? (AM's comment)
• It can also be used to show that the speaker is harder of nose and more business-focused than their opponent (and we all know that the person that proves they are the most business-focused wins as those are the rules).
• It can be used to cover up ignorance on the part of the speaker - let's talk about something I actually understand rather than this technology malarky.

P.S. INATT reminds me of the "We just make music for ourselves and if anyone likes it, that's a bonus" line trotted out by bands (& universally loathed by music journos).