A funny thing happened when we automated.

In preparation for my daughter's birthday yesterday I thought I would help out and vacuum before I left the house for the day.  So I set the Roomba (Robot Vacuum) in the living room, pushed start and left the house. A few minutes later my wife left the house and the vacuum cleaned on its own. 

For those of you not familiar with Roomba let me enlighten you. Roomba is a robot vacuum. Roomba cleans under and around furniture, automatically avoids stairs and drop offs, self adjusts from carpet to hard floors and back again, it recognizes when it eats a child's toy and it knows when it needs to be cleaned. I truly have automated my household sweeping and vacuuming. 

So back to yesterday. During the web forum Workplace Giving: The Results Are In I received a frantic call from my wife saying there was a big problem at the house.  While she was out our 19 year old cat had what I will just call an accident in the living room. Roomba encountered this accident and attempted to clean it up, over and over and over. Instead of cleaning it, Roomba spread the accident throughout the main floor of the house. 

Although Roomba has automated certain aspects of my life, like a workplace giving campaign, automation alone does not always solve our problems. Workplace giving campaigns have been increasingly automated over the last ten years and at the same time costs have increased and particpation has decreased. The key to taking advantage of technology and automation is to increase engagement and involvement.  If a company can add new technologies that increase engagement, involvement and particpation will surely increase. Now the key is engagement and involvment. More to come on those fronts in the next post.