The opportunity and cost of modern technology-how will companies dive into the metaverse?
Acceleration, it feels as if there is no slowing down, as big tech companies continue to invest billions of dollars into researching AR, VR and many other technologies all moving towards the metaverse.
However, in such a fast-paced world where the focus is on technological development, making the next headline, conquering Mars it is often the everyday Joe and Jane that are left in the lurch as they attempt to keep up with every change.
Companies struggling to make sense of the pace of change, and their people often speak about innovation and new technology interchangeably and do not grasp that they are separate things. It is clear that new technology comes from innovate processes but that does not necessarily mean that all innovative processes involve new technology.
Innovation at its core is producing new ways to do things, which can be through recent technologies which disrupt old systems or through using old technologies in new ways. Thus, innovation happens regardless of whether there are new technologies and is more related to the mindset of problem solving.
However, to thrive in a fast-paced world we need to accelerate on unknown roads we need to have the ability to problem solve but also to learn, unlearn and relearn to implement frontier technologies in meaningful ways as new tech by itself does not disrupt a system, it merely provides the potential to disrupt a particular system. To successfully make this transition we need to understand the intersection of people, processes, and technology.
The challenge many companies and individuals face is that an innovative technology is bought, yet people are not trained to use it, no processes are put in place to manage it, and thus no benefits are extracted from its purchase.
Thus, the question is posed, when has technology brought meaningful
change?
Is it the latest innovation for innovation’s sake?
Is it searching for the latest fad?
How do we separate the fluff from the reality?
When thinking about these questions in modern life one must consider that creation of new tech is always faster than adoption. Furthermore, best practice implementation is only found after a period of trail and error.
Thus, when considering frontier technologies and their use within companies, we need to consider people and processes, if people are not educated on how to use technology in the best way, and if there are no processes of best practice for use then mass adoption will stall and effective, sustainable implementation will slack. Therefore, when observing companies that struggle with modern technology, it’s not the budget problem it’s the mindset problem.
Without problem solving and processes people are unable to engage with new technology and unable to think about innovate ways to use new tech. The result is stagnation despite the noise of a new application, stagnation despite all the new toys available, people simply default to the way they have done things before and management triumphs over leadership.
Thus it is important to foster a culture of problem solving and develop the correct processes to enable people to use frontier technologies. So that people may learn, unlearn, and relearn their way into their future.
