I had expected to see more of Drew Barrymore in the film He’s Just Not That Into You, which my wife and I decided to see on a rare date night last night. She’s at least a B-list star, she’s prominent in the poster and she’s a consistently endearing performer. In the movie, though, she’s relegated to clichéd rants about how technology is ruining relationships.
At one point, bemoaning her inability to connect with a man, Barrymore’s character describes how she left a message on a prospective date’s voice mail, only to get a response to her BlackBerry, which urged her to text his cell phone, and so on. “Whatever happened to the days where all you had was one answering machine and it had one cassette tape?” she wails.
It’s not that Barrymore’s character resists technology exactly – she’s an ad sales manager for a gay magazine who deals with many clients virtually – but that the technology provides more blind alleys than actual connections. This is a Gen X story, of course. Had the cast been pegged just a little younger, we might have seen better use of IM, Facebook, or even LavaLife as a way of finding romantic companions.
Of course, the “he’s just not that into you” effect can work just as well among business users of mobile and collaboration technology. There are clients who want to avoid making commitments more than any promiscuous bachelor. There are others who demand more support than any emotional girlfriend. Perhaps most common are those who let technology collect messages while they procrastinate on project milestones. It’s not always what we’re not into you; we’re just not always into deadlines.
IT managers can’t really referee how mobile and collaboration tools get used, but they need to be aware of how successful they are among coworkers so that the business cases they have made or the goals they set out for those IT investments will prove themselves out. That will help them avoid, for example, setting up an intranet that no one uses or equipping field sales people with BlackBerries they leave sitting in a desk drawer.
Barrymore’s character seemed to have particular difficulty not with any particular technology or device but in the plethora of choices, and the difficulty of keeping up with the electronic journey of a conversation. That’s another critical area for IT managers. We need to do a better job of mapping how information flows not only within our own organization but among customers, suppliers and partners. Only then can we optimize response times, determine which modes of communication deserve the highest priority and become more proactive. That’s what I think Barrymore’s character wanted to do.
The constant message in He’s Just Not That Into You is that if a guy wants to get in touch with a girl, he’ll find a way. Technology has added new challenges for the ones left waiting. It’s not so much a case of being in the right place at the right time. It’s being on the right device at the right time.