November 25, 2007

Should You Do Things Yourself Just Because Technolgy Enables You To?

I was recently having a look at the "create your own video service" Spotzer, which competes with Spotrunner to help you create your own TV advertisements.

The rise of the Internet has enabled companies to take what traditionally has been a "black box" and only available to professionals and enable literally anyone to do it. This is good - in some ways.

However, it got me thinking - just because you can create your own TV advertisement, should you? Would the advertisement you create on your own, be as good as, or as effective as one created by a professional?

Let's consider web site development.

I've used Microsoft FrontPage for years to develop Smallbiztechnology.com. However, recently I invested a few thousand dollars for a professional web developer to make it much better. Why? The professional web developer could make the web site much better than I could ever do.

While web development tools - online services or software - are very useful to build your first web site, if you want to develop the web site beyond the basics you might need a professional to help you.

Consider your network. On your own (if you are really technically inclined) you could probably install a server such as Microsoft Small Business Server, Nitix, Novell or some other server. But in order to build a network that is built with features beyond "the basics" and that is as secure as possible - it's best to hire an expert.

Lesson learned?

Technology is great and you'll find many services cropping up which enable you to do so much on your own. But pause. Just because you can do it yourself, doesn't mean you should.

Imagine, buying a do it yourself home building kit. Unless you're a master contractor it's best you leave it to experts to build.

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