Friday, August 20, 2010

Dinosaurs in a digital world...

We are riding the crest of another schism that will forever change the way our species exist in our planet. The internet has changed man's lifestyle in such a short span of time that what our kids take for granted now would seem impossible a couple of years ago. If you would tell me ten years ago that I could not go out of my home without my phone, I would tell you then that you must be out of your mind! or that bringing along a camera and taking pictures of almost anything would seem the normal thing to do.
Such is the wonders of technology that  camera film (whats that?)  is becoming obsolete and keeping in touch with family and friends are now only fingertips aways. The web has surely made our world a smaller place and the ease of communication it brings has trashed age old business models. Why pay costly long distance charges when you can chat or skype?  who now remembers the telex and shortly in the future, the fax machine? Broadcasting has taken a new form and streaming is slowly becoming the norm. The name of the game is adapting and as is usually the case, established giants and the bureaucracy are the ones who don't want to step out of their comfort zones.
I unfortunately, work for one such organization. I work in a computerized and web enabled environment, but we have failed to fully realize the potential of it. One example is that  we do not have an in house email system where communications such as memos or drafts of reports would be sent electronically via mail .Only final outputs should be printed, anyway the soft copy or digital records will always be stored.  I could just imagine how many trees would be saved if only we did this.  Unfortunately, we walk among dinosaurs who pay lip service to the language of technology but has not yet  grasped fully its potential. We have automated our systems and made it online transaction capable in compliance of the e commerce act but at the expense of sacrificing the efficiency of service that we provide. What good is technology if the end result is an inefficient organization that increased red tape? Even with the most expensive machines, what previously took 1 day and 7 people to accomplish now takes 3 days and 20 plus people and has virtually spawned a cottage industry of service providers within the vicinity of the office. So much for competitiveness.
Technology and change should be embraced and learned so as to know how best to utilize it in order to make  things easier. It sure is great to sound impressive with technocratic lip service and flashy statistics but ultimately, the proof of the computing is in the using.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

" ....spawned a cottage industry of service providers..." at least the computerization created jobs thereby rendering the argument that it diminishes the use of manpower useless.