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16. The Digital Transformation of People

PostscriptTwo Apologies

In concluding this book, I have four summary points and two apologies to make. The four points are: 1: Fear rules all people, because it is the strongest emotion of all. 2: Despite all the great advances that digital transformation offers, its adoption may be blocked by this same human fear. 3. Most of these fears, in workers and managers alike, points to that of losing one’s livelihood. 4. Fear can be matched and often beaten by facts.

Now, two apologies: First, to humans. In many of the examples that I use in this book, it seems that I make the assumption that all people are capable of physical senses like sight. When discussing the importance of being able to establish trust by seeing peoples’ faces, this is never intended to be a slight to those who are visually impaired. Similarly, when describing babies’ self-discovery of independent motion, I am aware that not all readers are parents, either by choice or circumstance, and also that some readers may have lost their children prematurely along life’s path. I am one of those.

When talking about access to high-bandwidth technologies such as video chats and virtual spaces from home, it is easy to make the assumption that everyone has access to reliable high speed Internet, as well as to their own computer.

In discussing people who work for a living, including myself, it might also appear that I make the assumption that everyone has a clearly defined job as a “knowledge worker” (a term I dislike), and are not trying to hold down two or three jobs, only to collapse into exhausted sleep at the end of every day. Or in the case of health workers – nurses, doctors, and support staff who have been battling overloaded units, a relentless plague, and even harassment – my heart goes out to them – they are working in crisis mode and have other priorities to contend with right now.

Yes, I make those assumptions, but not out of ignorance. The ideas that I put forward in this book are intended to be malleable, and applicable to all types of life situations just like the technologies themselves. My belief is that people in any sort of situation, including those who have alternate forms of vision, hearing, motion, and intellectual abilities, will stand to gain from the personalization and accessibility of these technologies and techniques. I feel the same about anyone who is stuck with one or more lousy jobs – or no job – for the time being. There are now more career options out there than there ever have been. Being able to manage a career path, one that is more in alignment with one’s own skills, potential, and desired life story, is at the center of life in the “new normal” and more than ever, is directly under our own individual control.

Secondly, I want to apologize to sharks, and to the people who work to save them from horrendous slaughter, either as a food delicacy, or out of a wholly disproportionate fear of them as mass killers of humans. The movie Jaws that I use at the start of this book is an excellent dramatization of primordial fear, but it had the unfortunate by-product of raising people’s fear of sharks to ridiculous heights, and to this day, after news hits of a shark attack, legions of shark hunters will happily venture out in boats equipped with fish-finding radar and high-powered rifles to indiscriminately seek vengeance on any sharks that they can find.

Certainly, if you are clinging to the wreckage of a lifeboat in shark-infested waters, as the character Quint was, then you have a right to be afraid of sharks. But for the rest of us, we should reserve that fear for the most dangerous creature of all, one that, as this book has attempted to show, tends to rely too much on instinct and emotion and not quite enough on logic and critical thought, which, of course, is us.

Index

Act of learning

Boolean logic formula

digital connections

digital transformation

education

employees

flipped schooling

forgetting curve

guitar

learner

microlearning

Microsoft Excel

school

skillset

storing knowledge

students

style

teachers

teaching method

university

Agile

companies

software developers

software development

technologies

Agile Manifesto

Air gap

Amygdala

Analysis paralysis

Artificial intelligence

Artisanal class

Artisanal profession

As-a-service model

As-a-service philosophy

Bicycle face

Table of Contents for Back Matter

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Table of Contents for
Back Matter