I was recently invited to speak to a board of directors.  The company was considering investing in technology. It was not an easy decision for them.

Through the years, the company had managed to sustain itself amongst heftier competitors, but they weren’t thriving and it was clear they needed solutions.  The company had that old-school feel about it, and had the kind of stale bureaucracy that festers over a long period of time.

So there I was, invited by one executive, to make a case for the proposed network upgrade.  About half of the Board were dead set against it and their questions were intended to torpedo the project:

“If we decide to move forward with this project, we will have to be trained on how to use it, right?” one exec asked, as if it mean the kiss of death.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Then that means some staff will have to learn it, too…They are not gonna want to do that!”

“Yes, they will need training,”  I replied while quietly thinking it would be ok to let them go if they didn’t embrace the training.

“And then they’ll have to use it.  On top of everything else they do…”

“Yes, they will have to use it,” I said.  That’s what they get paid to do.

None of the questions focused on the bigger issues like how will this solution improve our operations, how will it boost productivity, and how will it enable us to do what we do even better.

As business owners, we need to push ourselves, our employees and our companies to incessantly explore technology – even if it’s just for the sake of exploration.  Why?  Because it will make your business more competitive.

Companies fail because they stop learning.  People fail because they stop developing new skills.  Comfort breeds complacency, and complacency is the precursor to decline.

We are helping one of our clients develop a new browser.  I strongly encouraged him to by an iPhone and start using – if for no other reason than to understand why/how the world has purchased some 30 million units and downloaded more than a billion items.

The same is true for Twitter (http://twitter.com/).  As business owner, you may not have time to do it faithfully every day, but you should make the time to play with it – if only to see what appeals to the 12 million or so people who have signed up for it.

As an employee, when was the last time you picked up a new tech skill just for the sake of learning something new?  The next time you have 30 minutes free during lunch, hop online and check out Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/) or Zoho Wiki (http://wiki.zoho.com/).  You will become more knowledgeable and more marketable.  You may also discover a new tool for doing your work even better.

Is your business in good shape?  Regardless of answer, poke even deeper into technology.  Gte uncomfortable with it.  You may discover something your competitor hasn’t.

James Kerr is Chief Geek at SuperGeeks.  Follow him on Twitter: SuperGeeks