What a Basketball Game Taught Me about Tech Trends

You Don't Need to Settle for As-Is

If you've followed “Driver's Training for Social Media,” you know I'm a Minnesota sports fan. That comes with a lot of baggage, but don't worry… we won't unpack that in this post. That's just to say our family loves going to Timberwolves games.

We go to a handful of games every year and at this point we have enough experience to confidently navigate getting to our seats. A couple of years ago, Elliot, Quinn and I made our way from the parking ramp into a crowd of a few hundred people stuck in the skyway. No one was moving. Something wasn't right. I stood on my toes, and caught a glimpse of an opening past the crowd. So I grabbed the boys’ hands and led them through the crowd on the back side of the line asking people to excuse us.

I heard someone complain, and eyes started shifting toward us. We heard more grumbling and some angry comments, but we kept moving forward. I heard one last lady rebuke us as we reached the end of the crowd where we saw a completely wide open skyway.

The entire crowd was trying to squeeze through one entrance not realizing there were dozens more a few hundred feet away. I called back to inform everyone there were more entrances this way, and glanced behind me just long enough to see the crowd break apart and follow.

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, that was a transformative moment in my life. Hundreds of people just blindly filled in behind other ignorant fans and not one of them questioned the backup. The only thing that set me apart… was knowledge.

We sometimes accept things online as-is without knowing we have options, and we fall in line because everyone else is doing it. Our goal is to show you the other end of the skyway… to empower you with knowledge to chart your own path forward.

Technology has so much great potential. For some, passive acceptance of “as-is” is a win. For others, opting out is the best path forward. Maybe like me, you're somewhere in between and want to actively customize your own experience. Whatever path you choose, we're committed to revealing the curtains that mask wizards and machines and to helping you… take back control.