Something that is becoming more obvious to me with age – tools are crucial. Usually, it’s a tech guy’s belief. Or problem. Tech guys often think that tools provide solutions, whereas people provide problems. If you are talking about support, yes, it’s often true 🙂 However, if one is talking about the end result, the product or deliverable – it’s… not true (alas, people often are “the weak link”).
But…
In “I need to build a house, what kind of hammer should I buy?” Seth Godin writes:
“If you want to do something worth doing, you’ll need two things: passion and architecture. The tools will take care of themselves.”
Passion and architecture (or concept) – both are very important. It’s really about the people. Tools, however, won’t take care of themselves. (Seth explains his point a bit further in the entry, so please refer to his entry.)
Value is usually created by people. Tools are the platform used to create that value. I’ve seen too many initiatives fail because of missing, bad or inappropriate tools.