Solution vs Tool
FleetingSometimes, when a tool is presented in committee, people complain that it is not the solution to their problem.
What they mean is likely that they cannot imagine a solution to their problem using that application. But phrasing in a way that does not show this subtlety makes the conversation difficult. Maybe someone could thing about the problem and guess a solution, maybe that solution might use the presented application. But when discovering a new tool, it is way to early to say whether it might be part of a solution to one’s problem.
I encourage people to be clear in the outcome of such presentations and dissociate the tool discovery and the solution finding. I understand that it is complicated to do, because people generally look for new tools when they have a problem at hand, but I decided to believe that it is a much better way to find solutions to problems.