Nice piece tucked away in Adage Digital which reminds us that however we get excited by the promise of particular technologies, the answer normally lies in some all-too-human stuff that we might otherwise overlook. All too often (NHS database project, ID cards) we look to big tech stuff to solve the problems in front of us, rather than thinking about simple, human-scale answers that might get us much of the way there, quicker and cheaper, too. Technology as 'magic' science...?
So rather than getting overexcited by the technological equivalent of Frodo's magic Ring - in this case using twitter and twitter analytics to market your goods and services proactively - it's often better just to sit and listen hard to what customers are doing and saying. From this you might even work out how to make the thing better and worth your customers interacting with each other around...