If you're not using technology, you're certainly working harder than you have to. If you want to get ahead in life, you have to use tools that make life simpler.

First, you have to put those tools in place, and that includes a little low-tech work, like buying and learning to sue this new software, hardware, or gadget.

Email is technology, and where would we be without it today? We lamented the demise of the MLS books, but look at the speed with which we can research today. Computers are everywhere. Many millions of tiny computers make our lives calmer, rather than making them more hectic. How? By making sure we can get access to most information any time, searching for plane tickets, stock quotes, use electronic hotel door locks by swiping a card into the lock, lay our finger onto a fingerprint reader, stare into an iris scanner. Pretty slick.

Real estate agents have an arsenal of tools to use, from digital cameras to global positioning devices in their cars. Pretty slick, too. I've made a few sales I would not have, because I used a digital camera to save the home photos to a diskette to give to a client to take home to spouse. I've made a sale I would not have because of a camcorder. Quiet and peace were paramount to the spouse who was unable to come for the househunting trip. The camcorder recorded only the desert birds singing. Quiet and peaceful. That was able to cinch the deal.

Scanners for flyers, laptops for travel and presentations, palm pilots for notes, appointments, and your database to carry in your pocket, color printers, cordless modems, your forms on disk, and of course, the most important of all, your websites!

I must mention also the software available that will enable you to add a Wow factor to your presentations, your mailings and your websites. Products such as PhotoShare, PictureWorks, etc. bring your photos, flyers, listings on your websites to another dimension.

Just think that more than half of many companies' revenues, from technology to banking, comes from products and services that didn't exist two years ago. Or how about this statistic? Computer power today is 8,000 times less expensive than in 1966. The same progress in the auto industry would mean you could get a BMW for $2 and it would travel 600 miles on a thimble of gasoline.

Wired agents today don't mean caffeine; it means that they're fully equipped with computers, software, scanners, fax machines, contact managers, handheld computers, digital cameras, cell phones, email and of course, the Internet. Soon all our cars will be equipped with global positioning. Even homes are wired for digital technology.

Technology is the great equalizer. A small or midsize company can compete with the big guys. It isn't as expensive as everybody fears it is. We can all have laptops and great software programs, we can all be on the Internet.

What was life before technology? Was it only the mid 80s? No laptops or email? There were very few fax machines, voice mail, cell phones, modems or Internet access. We delivered contracts between offices without the use of any of these devices.

Other revolutionary tools took decades, but the pace has changed. It is just one decade.

Now to be competitive, agents must know technology is a vital part of their success. The bottom line is that technology is necessary for increased productivity. The computer can implement and perform tasks more effectively than you. The software can generate more income. The email can make you better, faster, and is cheaper than snail mail. Technology maximizes your efforts and complements traditional marketing.

Technology is not a destination, it's a journey, a road leading to yet more fun stuff for us to use. Technology is just a tool, the single biggest change the real estate industry has or will experience in the future.

A quote that is very telling is this from a high-tech conference in San Francisco: The Ford Taurus that you drive today has more computer power than the Apollo did that Neil Armstrong took to the moon. It's an interesting time.