There were four of us in the car that was headed to the Dallas Fort Worth airport.

One of us was a male. The other three were not. The math is simple; the ride was not. The three non-male members of the group were each holding their smart phones and each of them was using Google Maps.

I asked, “How much further?”

‘Seven miles,’ one of them replied. Who replied neither adds to nor detracts from the telling of the story. Seven miles turned out to be a key data point. It was key because within ten more minutes we were thirteen miles from the airport.

I used to live in Dallas, and I knew we were now headed rapidly towards Waco. I thought briefly about adding my two cents, but as I already stated, one of us was male. Male and married, and I knew from personal experience that one-on-one was not a fair fight. Three on one was just plain silly.

And so while these Amerigo Vespucci’s of the highway continued to head south—we were now sixteen miles from the airport—I played binary Sudoku on my phone. From an elevated ramp on the interstate I asked, “Is that the Gulf of Mexico?” Fortunately, my remark fell upon deaf ears.

We don’t know where we are going, but we are making very good time. Or not.

Like people do, businesses try to use tools to help them meet their needs. Sometimes they use the tools advantageously, sometimes they do not.

People call us; let’s build a big room and put a lot of phones in it.

People like to use the Internet; let’s build a website, and get someone to write an app.

Your patients see what is going on, and they are each asking, “Is that the Gulf?”