If you don’t like the outcome, don’t blame the app or the tool
If you don’t like the outcome, are you blaming the app, the tool, or taking a look at your own approach? Are you asking yourself if you’re using the right input, giving clear prompts, or even using the right tool for the job? In this episode, I dig into why blaming technology often misses the real cause, and how getting better results might be more about how you use the tool—not the tool itself.
Listen to this new 6-minute episode for a quick mindset shift on getting better results by focusing on your approach, not just the technology.
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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/
If you don’t like the outcome, don’t blame the app or the tool. See where I’m going. Hey, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. Doing some editing, Just finishing up, actually finishing up, trying to the Spanish translation of AI for the real world. My new AI book and one of the chapters is titled Don’t Blame the Tool. In other words, if you’re not getting the results you want from this particular AI platform, don’t blame it. Look in the mirror and say, what could I do differently, right? How could I prompt differently? Because that’s what it is, right? The recurring theme throughout the book, it’s at the end of most of the chapters, is if you don’t like the output, change the input, or.
The first rule of computers that I ever heard back in high school was garbage in, garbage out. If you give it garbage, you get garbage. And just like any other new tool, to become proficient at it, you have to work at it, you have to hone it, and you have to learn different skills. And AI is no different with that. If you’re not getting good result from a physical tool, physical application, right? Or electronic application, maybe you’re just not giving it the right input. Maybe you’re not using it the right way. I can think of so many different apps that I use, so many different programs that I use that, you know, once I became a little bit more proficient at them, I got much, much better results from it. And then there’s other ones.
I just. I just don’t take the time to learn. I was going to say I can’t, but that’s not true. It’s just that I haven’t taken the time to learn. Just about every app we have now is adding AI to it, isn’t it? It just seems like that way. And one of them, Evernote, the one I use, my. My Note app, that one, I have four unread messages from them which are talking about all their AI functions in there now. And I’m like, my brain just doesn’t have room for another way to use AI.
I’m sure it’ll be great. I’m sure there’ll be things I could use. I just haven’t made a priority that I want to do that. I’ve. What I’ve made a priority is the ones that I do use, right? So I’m using ChatGPT and I’m using Claude, and I’m using Perplexity. I’m using Gemini and Nano, Banana and Gamma and Notebook, Lm and I’m sure I’m forgetting some others in here or Cast Magic Deeple. I just working on the translation of my book. It’s six, seven, eight different AI tools.
I don’t need to learn another one right now. But I also learned that giving a better prompt, because that’s what that’s called prompt engineering. Just giving better prompts. You’re going to get better outputs there. But you know, so many people like, oh, this, this thing is broken, right? My mom, you know, may she rest in peace, my mom, that used to be her thing, it’s broken. And then you find out, no, mom, you just, you have to push this button here or you didn’t plug it in all the way or, or whatever. She wasn’t the most technical, but it was always it’s broken. And it was rarely broken.
It was just. A lot of times it was. We say the error is somewhere between the chair and the keyboard or it’s in the mirror, right? That’s where it is that, you know, we need to do something better here. And listen, technology is tough for some people, especially you didn’t grow up with it. I am a digital immigrant. I just happen to love technology. I’m an early adopter, but not the earliest adopter. Like when Apple comes up with a new operating system.
I don’t want the version point zero. I kind of want the 0.1 or the 0.2. Let some of the bugs come out of that one over there. But I like to be early because I like to have the new features and functions right. Even like this. When I’m recording this, if you’re watching the video, the camera is on the screen. It’s not above the screen. That’s my backup cameras above the screen.
And I used to have to look up at the camera to make it look like I was looking right into the camera. This one is right on the screen, right next to my face. So when I’m talking with someone on Zoom, it’s right next to their face. So I can look at the camera, I can look at the screen at the same time, I can see what’s on the screen. It’s a new technology, it’s just different. But I don’t blame the tool when it doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, a couple of weeks ago, I went to have. I was on somebody else’s podcast.
The camera wouldn’t work, the mic wouldn’t work, nothing would work. And I’m starting to, you know, is it blaming the tool? Blaming the tool is it time for a new camera, a new microphone. I’m ready to go on Amazon and realized it was my USB hub, the USB hub that all those USB things plugged into, because, of course, your computer gives you, you know, a limited number of inputs. And that went bad. And it had started to do it a couple of times, and I again, didn’t think it was the USB hub. I thought it was the microphone or I thought it was the camera. And it turned out it was that. Because everything’s working perfectly now when I get a new one, newer technology, more powerful, all those different things.
So let’s not blame the tool, let’s not blame the app. If we’re not getting the outcome that we want, we could be using the wrong tool, that’s for sure. Now, that’s not the tool’s fault. You know, what’s the old saying? If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Maybe you’re trying to get a tool to do something it wasn’t intended to do and it just won’t be good at that. Right? Because you can probably use a hammer to turn a screw, but probably not really well. And you can use a screwdriver as a hammer, but not nearly as good as a hammer. So maybe you need a different tool.
Maybe it’s time to invest in that. Listen to the episode I did on sunk cost, where sometimes it’s time to move on from things even though you’ve invested in it. I was talking to somebody the other day that told me about the CRM system that they. That they had built, I don’t know, 10, 15 years ago, and they’re still using it, but it doesn’t have the features a new one does. It’s harder to work with it. And that’s a sunk cost. Right. Move on.
You know, don’t blame the tool there, blame the operator. Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected] or you can text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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