How many tools are in YOUR toolbox?

You know me. I’m ALL for your having incredibly high standards. I’m ALL for your having your processes and calling clients to step into your world so you can do your best work (the customer doesn’t second-guess the plumber on what tools he uses to do his job, and a client really ought not second-guess you on what you use to do yours!).

But the flip side of all of that is that you can end up with a very narrow world. You don’t have to end up there, but it’s really easy to have it happen. And that’s what I wanted to talk about today.

An example: I use Groove. I love Groove. I’m uber efficient with Groove. It works with the way I view the world. In my experience, there’s no collaboration tool for every-day use that can touch it.

Bit O’Moxie: Having reached that decision, I can refuse to consider any other collaboration tools and require my clients get on board with using Groove—which they may or may not do. OR…I can learn several tools, each of which I’ll like more or less than the others. And then I can choose the best of the whole bunch, so that I can both present options to my client (should I need to) from a knowledgeable place, and still ultimately end up using a tool that works for me.

And that, my friends, is a glorious win/win.Yep--it requires more work. You have to learn more. You have to be more open to possibilities. You have to be a kick-ass investigator. You have to be willing to suspend disbelief until you've tried a thing for yourself and know whether it's good or not so. But that's part of becoming great at what you do. That's part of knowing vs. having listened to the opinions of others. And the ultimate best thing about that knowing (other than that it prevents you from getting shut into a box of your own making) is that it makes you absolutely more valuable in the marketplace.

How many tools are in YOUR toolbox? And what are your favs?

Comments

[Kim]

A tool not available for Mac is not a true collaboration tool.

[Stacy]

That's actually quite a delightfully specious argument!

It's like saying a fish that can't live all kinds of water isn't a fish. Or a screwdriver that doesn't work with all screws isn't a screwdriver.

Groove is a perfectly "true" collaborative tool for those who are able to use it--including those Mac users who partition their hard drives to avail themselves of ALL that technology has to offer (and doesn't that just make the point of my post?).

And I'm *really* sorry that it's not available for Mac. But then, lots of stuff isn't. And I do know what I'm talking about--I boot both ways!

S