Why automation is a zero sum game, Tim Hughes

I wrote an blog back in 2014 called "why don't we automate social media and go back to doing our day jobs". You will find the blog here on my first wordpress blog. Sorry, indulge me, a little bit of nostalgia.

The blog was written about a senior manager at a company that said "why don't we automate social media and go back to doing our day jobs" at a meeting.

Fast forward 6 years and I just had a conversation with Adam Gray my business partner, here at DLA Ignite and he shared some of his wizdom.

This is what he said.

"People go onto LinkedIn, to sell something and for me to sell something, that means somebody needs to be on LinkedIn to buy something."

This I agree with, buying and selling make the world go around, after all. Then Adam went onto say.

"Let's assume, either I don't feel I have the time to go onto LinkedIn to sell, or I cannot be bothered, so I buy a tool that enables me to automate what I do. Now, I'm not going to be the only one that does this."

"Let's assume therefore if one person does it, then we all do it".

That's one of the many problems with tools, they more people that buy them the less of a competitive advantage there is. In the past I sold accounting systems and I could never understand why competing companies bought the same accounting system, where is the competitive advantage?

Adam then went onto say..

"If we all use automation then there will be nobody to buy and the whole thing falls down"

So apart from the fact that automation shows you cannot be bothered, you don't have time for me, you have other priorities and it isn't authentic .... automation also is a zero sum game.

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