Back to School - Making Progress

As my daughter is back in school it has made me think about how the progress of learning and technology map to one another. In the world of school, each year our kids head back in September to the place of learning. Each September they "graduate" to the next grade level in school and start to learn more new things and more complex items regarding subjects they have already learned a base knowledge of. What would happen if each year our kids headed back to school and simply repeated the same year over and over again for 12 years. One thing is for sure is that they'd be able to get done with their Math Facts in about 4 seconds and they could add 4+5 amazingly well. But what about algebra, geometry, chemistry, world history, etc. Our kids would never get a chance to learn more and grow.

So why is it that once we deploy a technology we think we're set for life? Why is it that we're not looking foward to advancing the technology we just deployed. Shouldn't we be "heading back to school in September" looking at new classes to take to better our existing technology? In the world of Archiving, products change constantly and most companies new/updated releases close to once a year. Just because you picked "the best" platform 3 years ago, doesn't mean it's the best platform today.

In today's world, our kid's can't repeat the same grade over and over again thanks to our politicians and the whole "no child left behind act", so don't be that one kid left behind in your business leaving your archive technology behind.