The featured image of this article shows the main characters of Mr. Robot, an American 4-season psychological techno-thriller television series created by Sam Esmail for the USA Network. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker with social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, and dissociative identity disorder.
E Corp, renamed by the protagonist as Evil Corp (evil multinational), is Allsafe’s (Elliot’s employer) main client, and Elliot will be appointed as its cybersecurity supervisor while in the background he will try to destroy it, joining a hacktivist group known as fsociety.
This series is like a punch in the stomach, but I highly recommend you watch it.
Tech doesn’t make our lives easier, it makes them faster
Digital technologies are evolving rapidly, permeating every aspect of economies, societies, and people’s lives. So what do we have to do? Embrace them? Reject them? Fight against them like Elliot?
In the Foodservice Equipment and Supplies Industry, not all the players, including manufacturers, dealers, consultants, designers, distributors, buying groups or one-man-bands, are ready to embrace them at a high speed. Probably no more than 60% are ready even just to switch from face-to-face meetings and phone calls to digital communications, and yet we are trying to sell them software or digital solutions.
One of my customers, most recently, told me:
“You are showing us how to rocket to the moon, while we are still trying to understand how to move our car out of the garage”
Closing the “digital divide” is not just a technological challenge. On one side, we are talking about AI, cybersecurity, and blockchain, but on the other side we still need to explain to people how to share the screen in a Teams meeting, or just enter! (in the meantime, Mercedes-Benz is integrating Microsoft Teams into its vehicles, starting with the new CLA model… why???? 😭).
The non-tech-savvy think the digital world is black or white (or good vs. evil)
Many professionals are stuck in a state of double-think. They initially preach about how new technology – like digital payments, AI, or self-driving cars – will be so convenient or time-saving, but switch into a warning about how you’ll be ‘left behind’ if you refuse to use it. The first narrative is all about supposed benefits that accrue to us through tech, but the second is actually about dire harm that will come to you if you don’t go along with the trend.
In this climate of confusion, it seems that the only choice you have is to create your own clan and fight against the rest of the world that are not thinking like you. The bigger the non-experts clan, the easier is to drive whatever idea you think people will embrace, because of fear and lack of knowledge.
So, like in the “Clash of Clans” videogame (developed by the Finnish company Supercell), players typically join together in clans, groups of up to 50 players who collaborate according to an internal hierarchy, attacking other players around the world and going “any way the wind blows”.
Get your head together: there is always a better strategy
Biased by choice is the worst approach a digital consultant can have towards his customers. But also, the worst approach a customer can have, when it comes to software, technology, digital solution selection.
Behind every button are people who have spent so much time deciding what it should do, what it shouldn’t do, when to activate it, and how it should interact with the buttons before and after it. Behind those gestures lies a web of intentions, questions, and responsibilities. Someone has imagined how we will work, how we will communicate, what will be easy and what will be difficult.
Every interface is a promise; it guides us, sometimes it educates us, sometimes it limits us. It always accompanies us.
Don’t say no to technology on principle, this is one of the things that will make me very angry… And I’m not really that politically correct to accept it and be quiet!
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Stay data-hungry. Stay data-foolish.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Digital Consultant