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What Will We Learn from this Crisis?

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What Will We Learn from this Crisis?

There is a Persian Proverb I am reminded of this week.

The man who knows not, but knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him.

The man who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a student. Teach him.

The man who knows, but knows not that he knows, is asleep. Awaken him.

The man who knows, and knows that he knows, is a teacher. Learn from him.

I wonder: am I a fool or a student? Am I asleep or am I a teacher? What are you?

When we return to a normal life again, as we will, I wonder what we will do differently from what we did before this crisis? Will we continue swimming with the current and go along to get along? Or will we pay attention to the world around us in a more profound manner?

Bill Gates was on TED in 2014 talking about exactly about this type of viral invasion and what it would do to the world. Did anyone listen and do anything? That is what I mean. But on a smaller scale in our world of capital equipment.

  • Will our dealer management systems continue to copy manual systems or will they finally reach their potential to radically transform how business is conducted? Or will a screen continue to be an electronic form?
  • Will our processes and procedures be what we have always done in the past? Or will we challenge ourselves to think about things differently?
  • Will we finally learn how to find every part every customer wants the same day that they want it? Or will we pay lip service to that concept saying “oh well, why try it when it can’t be done?”
  • Will we develop an accurate population of working machines so that we can help our customers with their owning and operating costs? Or will we say that it is too much work?
  • Will we monitor the operations of every working machine with the goal of identifying erratic activity before it becomes costly? Or will we think that is interfering with our customers too much?

Those are five very simple illustrations of questions I ask myself. What will we have learned in our forced time at home with our families? Of course, it will be a relief to get back to normal, whatever that means. But please don’t waste that time. Think about the anxiety you were feeling. Think about the unknown that existed. How long will those feelings linger? What will we do? Will our children’s loss of these three or four months of schooling hurt them for the rest of their lives? You know it will.

So how will we conduct ourselves at work when we return? Will it be the same as before or will we try to make it better? The choice is yours.

The Time is Now.

Friday Filosophy #2016-17

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Over the past three to four decades there has been many trillions of dollars spent on technology. Unfortunately there has not been the same investment in sociology. Friday Filosophy #2016-17 offers some timely quotes on technology.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology exceeded our humanity.

Albert Einstein

 

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

If someone tells you that you have a lot of potential when you are sixteen that is a complement. If that some someone tells you that you have a lot of potential at sixty six you have to ask what you have done for the past fifty years.

R.J. Slee

 

Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.

Bill Gates

 

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

 

Technology… is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.

Carrier Snow

 

Our technological powers increase, but the side effects and potential hazards escalate.

Alvin Toffler

 

The internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.

Andrew Brown

 

Men have become the tools of their tools.

Henry David Thoreau

 

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #2015-30

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With Friday Filosophy #2015-30 we are working here to get back into the routine of our technology updates.

With the fast pace of change in technological development I wanted to focus on some diverse views on technology. One day we will realize that we need to have the same amount of change and development in the sociological world as well.

Enjoy!

 

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

Bill Gates

 

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

Elbert Hubbard
The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.

Andrew Brown
Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God’s gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.

Freeman Dyson
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

 

Men have become the tools of their tools.

Henry David Thoreau
The time is now.