The Times they are a-changing! - Why the the ongoing IT revolution affects everyone!
Let's call a spade a spade here: the Evening Echo, Cork's premier local newspaper, isn't really at home in the digital age. Sure, they've got an app, and a website, but both leave the distinct impression that the paper's management team set those up for "keeping up with the Joneses" rather than due to any real understanding or appreciation of the importance of the web. The same can be said about their social media pages, which are poorly maintained and seemingly unmoderated. That being said, I was more than surprised when they ran a story about a keynote address by Sinead McSweeny, Twitter's Vice President for Public Policy and Communications in EMEA (That's Europe, Middle East and Asia for those not fluent in Corporate-Speak) at a breakfast hosted by the Cork Chamber of Commerce a few days ago. The tenor of her address was that we need to prepare the generations currently coming up through the education system for job roles we can't even imagine.
Now, in fairness, the article effectively limits itself to parroting McSweeneys address, which is at once startling and unsurprising. Startling, because Cork wouldn't be where it is today without a whole slew of IT companies that have set up shop along the Lee over the last three decades, from global giants like Apple, DellEMC or VMware to startups like Alienvault or Eventbrite. Unsurprising because, despite the fact that IT has seeped into every aspect of life in Cork, or that IT companies nowadays employ more people than the much-hyped Ford factory did as its peak, it reflects the parochial, ignorant, or sometimes openly hostile attitudes of significant, particularly older, portions of the Cork population towards the importance of computers. And frankly, that demographic constitutes a significant portion of the Echo's readership.
With regards to the address itself however, Ms. McSweeney is dead on, or even a bit on the cautious side. Yes, we do need to prepare coming generations for roles that neither we, nor they can currently imagine. However, preparing our descendants for dealing with the ongoing revolution isn't enough, since said revolution isn't coming, it has been upon us for over a decade. And quite frankly, it is far more than just a "digital" revolution. It is a digital revolution, a communications revolution, a manufacturing revolution, an energy revolution, a travel revolution, a social revolution, and an economic revolution all rolled into one, a revolution that will, in time, reach every corner of this island nation, every corner of every nation on this planet. Okay, maybe with the exception of North Korea.
Some signs of that revolution are all but invisible, few people outside the IT industry are even remotely aware of the hugely complex infrastructure underpinning your daily dose of cat content. Equally few people are aware of the massive changes affecting the manufacturing sector at the moment, where the ever-increasing computer capacity enables ever more steps in the manufacturing process to be automated. Logistics is in all-out turmoil, with fully automised or computerised warehouses and logistics centres becoming reality at a staggering pace, and even the humble courier driver isn't safe anymore, given the staggering advances in autonomous vehicles over the last year. At the same time, the ever increasing progress with regards to artificial intelligence will mean that not even jobs in the customer service sector will require a human interaction anymore, certainly not for simple first-level enquiries. The massive proliferation of chatbots in recent times is a first sign of that development.
Then, there is the social side of things. Let me bore you to death with some statistics. Thomils Meinungsbude, my German blog, averages about 1735 visits a month, not much in the scheme of things, but a respectable amount of readers nonetheless. Where previously, you would have needed printing and distributing capacity to attract even that many readers in a month, nowadays, all you need is a simple laptop or tablet. It doesn't even need to be a particularly high-end device. More people than ever before are able to express, or promote themselves, meaning that is increasingly crucial to be able to effectively examine and evaluate any piece of information out there in order to verify whether it is backed up by facts. After all, just because it is on the internet, it doesn't automatically mean it's true.
All this doesn't even scratch the surface of the changes that are coming down the line. And most importantly, these changes will also drastically alter the way we work. The times where an employee could expect to stay at one company for his entire working life are well and truly over, and an employee can expect to work at some companies that may not even be in existence by the time they leave school. I can absolutely echo Ms. McSweeneys experiences in this regard. I never expected to end up at Apple when I left school back in 2002, and I certainly never expected to be part of the team that built up the German language tech support chat from the ground up, so imbuing the next generations with an innate curiosity, open mind, and flexibility is absolutely vital. Especially since, if the last few years are anything to go by, we will be working completely different, both with regards to working from home, because in an age of WiFi and Voice over IP, we're no longer tied to our desks, even when on company premises. With the advent of VR or AR, who knows what else will be possible in the next few years?
The article is also dead on with regards to one of the big challenges of this new work culture that modern smartphones and laptops: Permanent connectivity, and extremely long hours. A clear separation of work and private life is absolutely essential to ensure a healthy life, and staying up at home until the wee hours of the morning to answer work emails is not only detrimental to social or family life, it can actually be a health risk. And no, by health risk I don't mean the risk posed by your significant other throwing a frying pan at you when you're still on the laptop at 2 AM. I'm referring to the disruption of the circadian rhythm and the dangerous side effects of that. It is also deeply antisocial and in fact insulting for employers to tolerate or even demand this behaviour.
However, as I mentioned earlier, Ms. McSweeney's keynote also falls short in one major aspect. These changes will not just affect younger generations. They will, and are beginning to affect the entire working population, and indeed the population at large. It is no longer enough to present the internet as something only those darn kids know their way around, or to treat it as something brand new. It's been around for over twenty years, for god's sake, smartphones in the present sense for over ten years, this is established technology. There is no reason for anyone currently working or recently retired not to understand the basics, and understand the principles of the changes currently happening. Yet, many people, especially those forty and above, still believe that ignorance is bliss in this regard, many business owners still believe not having a website, and just sporting an Eircom, Gmail or T-Online email address is enough. It is this entrenched mindset that needs to be changed in order to master the upcoming changes.
Now, in fairness, the article effectively limits itself to parroting McSweeneys address, which is at once startling and unsurprising. Startling, because Cork wouldn't be where it is today without a whole slew of IT companies that have set up shop along the Lee over the last three decades, from global giants like Apple, DellEMC or VMware to startups like Alienvault or Eventbrite. Unsurprising because, despite the fact that IT has seeped into every aspect of life in Cork, or that IT companies nowadays employ more people than the much-hyped Ford factory did as its peak, it reflects the parochial, ignorant, or sometimes openly hostile attitudes of significant, particularly older, portions of the Cork population towards the importance of computers. And frankly, that demographic constitutes a significant portion of the Echo's readership.
With regards to the address itself however, Ms. McSweeney is dead on, or even a bit on the cautious side. Yes, we do need to prepare coming generations for roles that neither we, nor they can currently imagine. However, preparing our descendants for dealing with the ongoing revolution isn't enough, since said revolution isn't coming, it has been upon us for over a decade. And quite frankly, it is far more than just a "digital" revolution. It is a digital revolution, a communications revolution, a manufacturing revolution, an energy revolution, a travel revolution, a social revolution, and an economic revolution all rolled into one, a revolution that will, in time, reach every corner of this island nation, every corner of every nation on this planet. Okay, maybe with the exception of North Korea.
Some signs of that revolution are all but invisible, few people outside the IT industry are even remotely aware of the hugely complex infrastructure underpinning your daily dose of cat content. Equally few people are aware of the massive changes affecting the manufacturing sector at the moment, where the ever-increasing computer capacity enables ever more steps in the manufacturing process to be automated. Logistics is in all-out turmoil, with fully automised or computerised warehouses and logistics centres becoming reality at a staggering pace, and even the humble courier driver isn't safe anymore, given the staggering advances in autonomous vehicles over the last year. At the same time, the ever increasing progress with regards to artificial intelligence will mean that not even jobs in the customer service sector will require a human interaction anymore, certainly not for simple first-level enquiries. The massive proliferation of chatbots in recent times is a first sign of that development.
Then, there is the social side of things. Let me bore you to death with some statistics. Thomils Meinungsbude, my German blog, averages about 1735 visits a month, not much in the scheme of things, but a respectable amount of readers nonetheless. Where previously, you would have needed printing and distributing capacity to attract even that many readers in a month, nowadays, all you need is a simple laptop or tablet. It doesn't even need to be a particularly high-end device. More people than ever before are able to express, or promote themselves, meaning that is increasingly crucial to be able to effectively examine and evaluate any piece of information out there in order to verify whether it is backed up by facts. After all, just because it is on the internet, it doesn't automatically mean it's true.
All this doesn't even scratch the surface of the changes that are coming down the line. And most importantly, these changes will also drastically alter the way we work. The times where an employee could expect to stay at one company for his entire working life are well and truly over, and an employee can expect to work at some companies that may not even be in existence by the time they leave school. I can absolutely echo Ms. McSweeneys experiences in this regard. I never expected to end up at Apple when I left school back in 2002, and I certainly never expected to be part of the team that built up the German language tech support chat from the ground up, so imbuing the next generations with an innate curiosity, open mind, and flexibility is absolutely vital. Especially since, if the last few years are anything to go by, we will be working completely different, both with regards to working from home, because in an age of WiFi and Voice over IP, we're no longer tied to our desks, even when on company premises. With the advent of VR or AR, who knows what else will be possible in the next few years?
The article is also dead on with regards to one of the big challenges of this new work culture that modern smartphones and laptops: Permanent connectivity, and extremely long hours. A clear separation of work and private life is absolutely essential to ensure a healthy life, and staying up at home until the wee hours of the morning to answer work emails is not only detrimental to social or family life, it can actually be a health risk. And no, by health risk I don't mean the risk posed by your significant other throwing a frying pan at you when you're still on the laptop at 2 AM. I'm referring to the disruption of the circadian rhythm and the dangerous side effects of that. It is also deeply antisocial and in fact insulting for employers to tolerate or even demand this behaviour.
However, as I mentioned earlier, Ms. McSweeney's keynote also falls short in one major aspect. These changes will not just affect younger generations. They will, and are beginning to affect the entire working population, and indeed the population at large. It is no longer enough to present the internet as something only those darn kids know their way around, or to treat it as something brand new. It's been around for over twenty years, for god's sake, smartphones in the present sense for over ten years, this is established technology. There is no reason for anyone currently working or recently retired not to understand the basics, and understand the principles of the changes currently happening. Yet, many people, especially those forty and above, still believe that ignorance is bliss in this regard, many business owners still believe not having a website, and just sporting an Eircom, Gmail or T-Online email address is enough. It is this entrenched mindset that needs to be changed in order to master the upcoming changes.
Comments
Post a Comment