With another copy of Good to Great checked out from the library, I’m back to my reading.  The chapter on technology accelerators contains some particularly interesting insights:

When used right, technology becomes an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it. The good-to-great companies never began their transitions with pioneering technology, for the simple reason that you cannot make good use of technology until you know which technologies are relevant [for your company’s defining concept].

In other words, deciding what you do best and are passionate about, and how to measure your success (in other words, your purpose and goals)–and letting that guide all your decisions–is more important than jumping on the latest-new-technology bandwagon.

Another fine point, which fits with some of my thinking lately:

Those who built good-to-great companies weren’t motivated by fear…[they] are motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake.

The connection here is that those bandwagon-jumpers are most often the same people who are afraid of being left behind as others adopt new technology.  But I think this point applies more broadly to a general orientation toward life: it’s best to focus and be motivated by the positive values, not by fear of the negative.