Technology is embedded in modern living, and these days our magic mobile phones run our lives. This is mostly a good thing, and sometimes a less-than-good thing. The point I hammer home in my latest book 64 Shots: Leadership in a Crazy World and in presentations is to make technology your slave, and not to become its slave. Having TQ (technology quotient) is not about being a nerd or a technophile. It is about knowing what tech is out there, staying on top of it, and bending it to your will in business and in life.
On that note I thoroughly enjoyed a column in the January issue of SportsTravel magazine. It’s by my good friend, sports fanatic Bob Latham, a rugby-playing Texas lawyer. Bob is a former Chairman of the Board at USA Rugby, former member of the United States Olympic Committee board of directors, and is the author of Winners & Losers: Rants, Riffs & Reflections on the World of Sports.
In his column, Bob recounts a tale of misfortune turned into fortune. It’s a witty and prescient tale around how the loss of a phone at the Rio Olympics leads to an epiphany about how live sports should be experienced. The phone was ‘separated’ from Bob, as he describes it, so at various Rio events (and also later on at Wrigley Field during the world series), Bob just sat and watched. Around him in Rio the masses went crazy snapping, tweeting and the rest of it. Alone in the present, iPhone-less, Bob was totally focussed on the moment, engrossed by the competition, and totally present absorbing the action through the lenses of his own eyes. This, of course, is what live sports is all about. A fun article on the best approach to live sports-approaching. Nice score, Bob.
