We’re at a strange time - an inflection point as some are saying.
Many things are true simultaneously and much is changing at once.
Today, I’m contemplating the tension between the undeniable acceleration and the dumb, frustrating, inertial friction of most actual digital transformations.
Many of you, like me, have done cross sector transformation work. You’re eying the boisterous talk of “AI take over”, cynically and mentally quoting Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
The adminisphere has killed (transformations) before and it will kill again!
No doubt.
It was only 2018 when Matt Hancock decreed the NHS should “Axe the Fax” and in 2016, we're not yet there.[1.]
The much vaunted Full Self Drive has been “just around the corner’ for ten years.
It took a pandemic to ‘tip” mass adoption of video meetings. The tech had been there for 20 years.
These things ALWAYS take longer than you expect.
Often, it takes a whole human generation to replace behaviors and unlock adoption. It’s just how humanity works.
But this time, as human tasks keep evaporating, that generational behavioural friction is also evaporating.
Not entirely, but noticeably.
It will not be a comfortable experience.