Digitization was already there. Social networks, tools for video conferencing, sales platforms on line and fast home delivery apps were already here, just a click away from all of us. So why should we talk about a new digitization? Digitization was a world inhabited by a few, mainly within the professional or technological realm, while the new digitization has been adopted by society as a whole, changing their habits and the way they relate. This is a revolution. Revolutions always come preceded by chaos, but after the initial madness, they give way to progress.
Every avant-garde generates fear, suspicion and even a certain conspiratorial state. However, without these vanguards, human beings would not have evolved and, no doubt, their way of life would be infinitely worse. We always say that the past was better, but this is absolutely uncertain: we have never enjoyed a life expectancy like the present and an ability to access our dreams so real. That is why we must be tremendously optimistic about this new reality that will derive from the new digitalization and that will only bring extraordinary things to our personal and professional well-being.
Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Digitization will allow humans to spend more time living and focusing on the truly inherent professional tasks, those that stem from creativity, love and added value. to mechanical processes. Technology certainly took over all the functional stages of our business, but who cares? Personally I would love to have a robot work for me 24 hours a day while I dedicate myself to the most poetic part of my profession. The soul of a company will never be in the hands of an algorithm. This is where we need to focus all our efforts from now on. To think that technology is the enemy and will end up replacing humans is unreal. Instead, it will allow us to be more competent and will free us from the space / time slavery that both makes us sick and diminishes us. Not seeing it that way, and assuming it, is like continuing to work in the field with a hoe because tractors look like hellish machines to us.
Digitization has made us ubiquitous and multi-channel beings. Our presence has multiplied exponentially through the countless channels we have at our disposal. Today we can meet with our team virtually early in the morning for Zoom, present a product to our live followers on Instagram in the middle of the morning, participate in a webinars taught from another continent in the afternoon and dinner with our family without having moved from home. All this thanks to telework. The impact of our presence is immensely greater today and its costs, minimal, if we take into account the savings in resources, travel and time involved in the digital presence. We might think that replacing our physical presence with the virtual one makes us less close and effective, but it’s not like that: one doesn’t take away from the other, it’s a matter of weighing our physical presence and being present whenever it’s really needed. Stopping from being to being, which is what we basically did before, reducing productivity in our lives, spending them in airports, meetings and waiting rooms that have proven to be ineffective in most cases.
Let’s face it: technology has put the human being at the center. If we do, everything will make sense. The new digitalization is just a matter of love for ourselves and the society we shape. It’s about ceasing to be machines to finally be people and so build together the Common love which must guide our existence.
Ecequiel Barricart is the author of The digital being, Published by Eunate Editions.