Even My Wife Likes My Blog

I don’t typically talk much about my family on this blog.

There’s no particular reason for this. I mean, I love my family. Between my wife, our 4 kids and me (not to mention my in-laws who moved in with us last February), we have a boisterous, rip-roaring household here and, while I sometimes use work as an excuse to hide in my office, I love every minute with them.

I guess the reason I don’t talk about them is because I work hard to stay focused on the core mission of this blog (if you forgot, it’s, “Helping you use technology to achieve business success”), and while my family gives so much to me in so many ways, they really don’t have much to add to the conversation around that mission.

But that all changed yesterday.

A Bit of Background

My wife Meredith (a.k.a. Mimi), is, and I apologize for the bit of sappiness here, my soulmate.

Whether it comes to life, beliefs, raising our children and everything else, she is truly my partner in all things; all things that is, except technology.

With technology, my wife is tolerant, but it does not fascinate her nearly as much as it does me and when I try to discuss a cool tool or the latest gadget, all she does is roll her eyes and act very, very patient.

And that’s fine because it goes both ways. Mimi is a wedding fanatic; she loves the romance, the clothes, the invites, the table arrangements and every small detail that goes into planning and holding a wedding. Yes, my eyes roll too and I also act very, very patient.

The Ultimate Validation

So what changed yesterday?

As I sat down to lunch, Mimi walked up and said the words I never thought I would hear, “I really like the posts you’ve been writing for your blog. They’re interesting to read and I just keep moving from one to the next because they all interest me.”

There was a stunned silence and then I stuttered out a, “Th-Thank you.”

The smile stayed on my face all day.

Then I got to thinking. Was I really that happy that my wife liked my blog?

Well, yeah, because my wife is important to me and value her opinion very highly.

But it goes beyond that.

My wife, who really has no true interest in technology, liked my posts which means that she did not see them as being about technology.

And that’s the whole point of Matt About Business.

The Story is Not About Technology

At the top of each page of this blog, you can read my motto which is, “The story is not about technology, it’s about how people use technology to achieve business success.”

Now, if you know me, or have read my writing for very long, you may suspect that this is a bit of a sham. The story for me is really about technology; I am all about technology.

But you guys are not and that was the dichotomy from which Matt About Business was born.

Technology is important to your business, yes, but only when it serves a business need. I learned this the hard way:

1. I spent years in IT departments where no one asked the question, “What business goal does this technology effort support?”. Technology came before business time and time again.
2. I used to try to sell online services to brick-and-mortar businesses who shut me out because they were tired of hearing grandiose promises and vague threats of what will happen if they did not create a presence online.

Both of these are failing propositions because at the heart of it, all business technology should be developed, bought and used with one goal in mind: helping your business achieve success. If the technology does not serve that purpose, it has no place in your organization.

At Matt About Business, all technology use starts with a business need. If I ever slip up on this, please call me out and I will do better the next time. Like you, I’m still learning and am always willing to grow.

But for now, I know I’m succeeding because even my wife likes my blog.