The Tools Need Someone to Use Them

Pablo Picasso once said, "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."

Granted, Picasso (who died in 1973) made this statement at a time when most computers were sophisticated calculators or analog machines used by corporations, universities, research labs, and military intelligence. This was before personal computers, before Apple, before graphical user interface, before 99.99% of humans knew what the "Internet" was, before MS-DOS, before the World Wide Web, before the dot-com bubble, before Web 2.0, before Adobe Photoshop and digital video and social media and Google and online news channels and - gasp! - blogs.

But even despite Picasso's assumed ignorance of the world of functionality that computers would one day offer, he makes a worthy point. Computers are tools. The Internet is a tool. Social media is a tool. Tools are useless until they are put into the hands of somebody who will use them.

Computers (software, networks, Internet, and other technology included) can provide you with information. Worthwhile information - about news, sports, politics, events, entertainment, products, services, advice, companies, customers, supply and demand, what customers want, how people live. They can connect you to people. Create channels of communication. Give you eyes, ears, and a voice to the rest of the world.

But computers can't make decisions for you. The entire Adobe Creative Suite can't create brilliantly designed marketing materials for you. The Internet and email and blogs can't build your brand for you. Social media can't generate followers for you.

You are the human. You are the one who has been designed to create. You are the one who generates ideas. You are the one who builds relationships. You are the one with the responsibility to add value to the world.

So use your tools. They are no good without you, the driver and creator and inventor and communicator and painter.