“I signed up for the gym and went once.”

“I went to the doctor, picked up the pills from the pharmacy but only took two.”

“I bought the book about transformation but changed nothing.”

Buying a book, attending a conference, only applying 5% of a transformation strategy – that behavior changes nothing. It feels good, it feels like the first step of a long journey. But it’s nothing more. It’s good to take the first step but there are at least 99,999 more to take. Transformation Drive-Bys get the dopamine going but nothing else. They are little hits of excitement. And one year later everything is still the same.

Transformation comes from taking all the 99,999 steps, making change a habit, being okay with discomfort, feeling down, being without all the answers. One painful step at a time.

All of us had to deal with faulty or troublesome algorithms: Weirdly programmed retargeting advertising, flight changes based on algorithms, not on our preferences, odd pre-selected choices by Netflix or Amazon, the resume that went nowhere because the algorithm decided for humans.

This is annoying, maybe even maddening. But it’s nothing compared to what Tammy Dobbs had to experience. She is an Arkansas resident with cerebral palsy who had her Medicaid-provided home care cut from 56 to 32 hours. The reason? An algorithm.

“The algorithm that upended Dobbs’ life fits comfortably, when printed, on about 20 pages. Although it’s difficult to decipher without expert help, the algorithm computes about 60 descriptions, symptoms, and ailments — fever, weight loss, ventilator use — into categories, each one corresponding to a number of hours of home care.

Like many industries, health care has turned to automation for efficiency. The algorithm used in Arkansas is one of a family of tools, called “instruments,” that attempt to provide a snapshot of a person’s health in order to inform decisions about care everywhere from nursing homes to hospitals and prisons.”

In the end, Legal Aid successfully sued the State of Arkansas and the algorithmic allocation system was judged to be unconstitutional.

This is just the beginning and we need to fight back now. With advances in Machine Learning and AI, with exponentially growing algorithm complexities, humans will increasingly point towards the algorithm and say: “Don’t blame me. I just work here.”

The Facebook defense doesn’t cut it. Algorithms are not God-given, they are not the only solution to the problem. Algorithms are choices based on preferences humans set.

Our world is transformed by algorithms. The way we see the world, the news we read, the culture we experience, our world through screens is being decided by algorithms that were programmed by people.

So far, bad algorithms are nothing more than a nuisance for most of us. And Tammy Dobbs is a terrible exception. If we don’t act now, that exception might become the rule.

 

 

On a recent business trip, I didn’t pay close attention to my boarding pass and realized 30 minutes before departure that my gate was in a different terminal. I asked a customer service person for help. She took it upon her to call the gate, ask them to wait for me and found a vehicle to drive me to the gate.

She could have simply done her job. She could have just told me to try to make a 1-hour transfer in 15 minutes by running and hustling. She could have made the decision that this would be enough to do her job. That this interaction was insignificant in the big scheme of things. She chose otherwise.

In a world that is digitally transforming right in front of our eyes, it’s easy to forget about small change. We focus on scale, on massive changes, on transformative forces. Real change and delight often come in small packages. A butterfly can cause a hurricane. And each of us has the power to change a day or a life through a single interaction. Scale is important but it’s not everything. A single interaction is important and might mean everything.

 

 

Be human.

Be present.

Be a caretaker.

Genuine interest.

A thoughtful present.

A handwritten note.

The feeling of belonging.

Use all your senses to connect.

Respond in timely and in a personalized manner.

You stand out in the digital world by remembering that we are still all humans.

We’ve been trained by Hollywood and the Brothers Grimm: Transformation should feel like a combination of Cinderella and Spiderman. A dramatic transformation unfolding in front of our eyes in a very short period of time. Just like the transformation of caterpillars to butterflies or from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan.

We love these dramatic stories, they are part of our upbringing, the way the world should work, an escapist dream. But these stories are like lottery wins. They happen once in a blue moon, but they are a major exception. The rule and reality are different.

99.9% of transformations are akin to an erosion process. According to Wikipedia, erosion is “the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth’s crust, and then transports it to another location^[1] (not to be confused with weathering which involves no movement). This natural process is caused by the dynamic activity of erosive agents, that is, water, ice (glaciers), snow, air (wind), plants, animals, and humans.”

Erosion doesn’t happen overnight and it’s not a beautiful Hollywood story. It’s a daily process that might affect changes it desires of a period of months and years. And it occurs when the transformational forces keep at it every day.

Has your Digital Transformation Plan more chances of succeeding if you throw away the Cinderella storyline and focus on the daily erosion process?

In 5th grade, my history teacher believed the best way to teach was to overwhelm us with facts. We learned everything there is to know about the Gods, the philosophers, important dates, events and encountered more details than a University Student would ever hear about. Two things were accomplished in that year: My short-term memory retained hundreds of pieces of ancient Greek history and forgot them once I aced the test. And, I never wanted to hear about ancient Greece ever again.

A new teacher joined for 6th grade, taught us Roman history and had a different philosophy: He painted a vivid image of life in the Roman empire, piqued our interest enough to find out more information.

And that’s the secret of marketing messaging: We should never tell the customer all the information at once. Marketing is about making them curious to learn more. And that requires a disciplined approach on what part of the story to tell and what part of the story to leave out.

It’s easier than ever for people to watch what you do. They can track where you are, like your images, become a friend of your digital identity and go along for the ride.

Strangers all around the globe make judgments about you, keep score, decide whether you are successful.

Only if you give them the power.

Brené Brown gives this power only to 8 people in her life.

You can choose to communicate with the world or you can choose to communicate to the ones that matter. It might be a large group of people, an audience of ten or just one specific person. The bigger the group, the bigger the feedback. But the only feedback that matters is from the people that love and respect you because of your imperfections and vulnerabilities.

What’s your audience of 10?

Will machines be doing 52% of the work by 2025?

The idea is as old as the industrial revolution: The fear of machines replacing human labor. And the concept of how to prevent this from happening seem to be evergreen as well: Machine Tax. Nothing is more shocking than the image of a robotic nurse, combined with the prediction that this will be the future, not a real human being.

So, how realistic are the headlines that 47% of all US jobs might be threatened by AI?

Three observations from the 30,000 feet perspective: First, all fearmongering predictions from automated textile production to desktop computing eliminating jobs have been wrong. Second, investment and job growth continue to be aligned. Last but not least, starting in 2020 the whole Western world will enter a Japanese demographic era. The working population in the US and France will stagnate, while the rest of the developed world will see a shrinking workforce. The biggest decline will occur in China starting in 2030, based on their “One-Child-Policy”.

Japan is a good example of how hard it is to grow an economy while the working population shrinks. Important to note, this doesn’t impact a growing standard of living. The per-capita income of Japan is in line with developed countries. Based on this data, it might be desirable to experiment with a new, unknown scenario. Comrade Robot could replace humans, humans that don’t exist anymore. As long as the process is aligned with the shrinking of the working population.

No job killer. No salvation.

An important perspective from the ground level: Technology in the past has not replaced human labor at scale. Still, we have experienced over time the process of creative destruction. A beautiful term for massive, individual tragedies. Old jobs disappear, new evolve, those that can’t adjust will be thrown under the bus. They will lose jobs, income, and their living standard. In the end, automation and digital transformation will not transform our world into a universe without jobs or a landscape of unknown wealth. Japan, as one of the leaders in civilized automation, shows us the way. On an individual basis, we are talking a different game. Change will be massive, dramatic and tragic. Politics better be ready to ease the pain.

Remember the Digital Divide, often defined as an economic and social inequality to the access to, use of, or impact of information and communication technologies? With almost everybody now having access to mobile phones, it’s less about hardware and more about bandwidth and skill levels. A decade ago, this was a huge concern: One Laptop per child was of real importance to get any place in the world access to technology.

Due to cheaper technology and widespread use of digital tools, the original gap has largely disappeared. And replaced by a new Digital Divide. Life and work have become more hectic and time-consuming for everyone and many parents are forced and eased into using digital tools as babysitters or ways to keep their children engaged while they are busy with email, work or their social media activity. On the other side of the coin, we have our digital barons setting strict tech-free rules at home. They know better than anyone they designed the tools to capture attention, manipulate technology to keep on clicking.

The digital overlords understand that building connections, interacting with real humans, being outside, being bored, exploring things out of boredom, digging deeper into problems are skills that are necessary to prosper in this new age of technology and humanity convergence. This is the new digital divide that needs to be bridged.

 

Intriguing concept how to rebalance digital with humanity: ‘Choose Love’ pop-up stores in London and New York sold over the holidays Christmas presents for refugees.

The pop-up store off Carnaby Street has been set up by the charity Help Refugees and invites visitors to “shop your heart out, leave with nothing, and feel the love”. Shoppers can buy a range of items for refugees, including sleeping bags, emergency blankets and solar lamps.

“Christmas is a time of giving in abundance, but it makes you think about people who aren’t as lucky as we are,” said Josie Naughton, the chief executive of Help Refugees. “When you look at the stats of how much money is spent on Black Friday and compare that to the need in the world, it’s quite shocking.

As expected, customers reacted with empathy and love:

“We could never ever have predicted the success of the store. The way people have responded to it was amazing. People were coming into the physical shop, see a child’s boot and burst into tears,” Naughton said. The store showcases children’s shoes and coats to humanise a refugee crisis that’s largely spoken about in numbers, she said.

Refugeehelp was manifested in a store and you could buy items that could then be send to the refugees. Everything a refugee would want could be purchased. You are engendering this feeling of humanity.

A wonderful example how to bring the refugee crisis to life, move it from the overwhelming digital maelstrom to the reality of being a refugee, engendering humanity and empathy.