A new woodworking tool, in the hands of a master, makes the master more than he was before. In the hands of a fool, it makes the person more foolish.
—Patrick J. Lamb, Chicago trial lawyer, storied Irish-American, business law visionary, master woodworker.
We think the answer is–generally–yes. We’ve noticed that people keep mistaking their laptops and Smartphones for their brain. Rather than make work easier, e-tools may raise the bar for using your brain.
If e-tools and e-gadgets allow you to do better problem-solving, that may be because they help “open up” and expose the problem you are working on. In other words, the tools–from multiple regression analysis programs to WestlawNext and Lexis to Google Scholar and more–may reveal a different problem: more nuanced and complex, deeper, even bigger.
Now solving the problem will take more time than if you hadn’t used them in the first place. There is more of, in and to your problem to sift through and analyze–but you are much, much better off. Good news: you have a bigger and better picture. Those e-tools work great. The bad news: there is more work to do.
That vast arsenal of Digital Tools. They just made your problem a lot fancier–but easier to fathom, and way more clear, even elegantly clear. Now start using your brain (and your e-tools, too) on the problem again. But don’t tell us you were done the first time through. You’re weren’t.
Writer-lawyer-Renaissance man
Peter Friedman in a good mood.