Technology vs. A Personal Touch: When a Human is Still Better Than a Computer

Photo credit: Jami3.org via Flickr

I love technology.  I really do.  I may have a slight addiction to the internet.  So trust that I understand how great it is to have so much information at our finger tips.  For years, technology has been growing all around us, letting us get a whole lot done for ourselves that we may not have done ourselves before.  But as so much has become automated, there comes a time when you step back and think, is the tech version always the right choice for me?

Here’s the thing.  You start thinking of needing a vacation, so you head to Google.  You type “cheap vacations” or maybe “Caribbean vacation” and what happens?  A gazillion results pop up.  Alright, so now you start sifting through all those results.  What do you find?  More lists of places, more prices, more deals, more everything.  So what you’ve got is thousands upon thousands of options and it takes forever to sort through it all to find what you really wanted.  What if you had a an expert to do that for you?  A real person?  Someone to listen to you say, “So I’m thinking of going on vacation.  Maybe the Caribbean” and knows to ask in return, “What kind experience are you hoping for?  What did you love about your previous vacations?  Do you like more of a relaxed beach experience or a more adventurous experience?  What’s your ideal budget range?”  And so forth.  See, in that little bit, a travel consultant can narrow a lot down, and then spend their time researching to find the very best options.  You just saved yourself hours and hours and hours of research – for free.

What actually got me thinking about this was fashion.  Fashion is everywhere online.  I can read about the latest styles, see magazine websites with outfits put together, browse endless online shops.  I could, in theory, learn about being stylish on the internet.  Is there a real life alternative?  Yup!  It’s called a personal stylist, and it makes quite a difference.  I happen to know an excellent one.  Her name is Jennifer Saul, and she is way better than the internet.  Why?  Because Jen will get to know my personal tastes, my lifestyle and my budget, and she will help me find clothing and accessories that are exactly my style, every time.   A personal stylist saves her clients time and even saves them money by helping you avoid those items you buy that then hang in your closet for years, never to be worn.

Examples are everywhere.  What if you want to buy or sell a house?  Certainly, there are homes for sale by owner, and you can scout out houses on your own online.  You can search Craigslist and many other sites.  But there’s a reason that real estate agents exist, and I suspect most of us are using one to complete these transactions.  Why?  Because they are experts in this field, trained to help get you through all the information you need and their job is to help their clients find the best house or make the best sale.  Despite the fact that you COULD do this yourself, you probably aren’t, because you value the knowledge a real estate agent has, the time they’ll save you and the advice they can give.

So while we love browsing Pinterest for new craft ideas and Foodgawker for new recipes, consider that a vacation is a large investment.  You can spend hours upon hours to DIY and take the chance on it turning out lovely (like that one recipe you tried) or seriously awful (like when you tried that really cute Christmas craft that looked absolutely ridiculous when you were done with it).  You can take your chances googling “cheap vacation” or “Hawaii hotel…”  Or, you can have a travel consultant whose job it is to know the industry and get to know your preferences and travel style, take care of it all for you.