Arrogance of Technology

Technology has been the biggest catalyst of human development, democracy and economic empowerment in the last two centuries. From the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 1800s to the Internet Revolution in the 1990s it has given the world the fastest social and economic growth, and has, to quote Friedman, "created a Flat World". Technology has quickly brought many luxuries that were once afforded only by the rich, within easy reach of the masses.

Whilst, technologies have changed the face of the earth (some of them in a few years and others in a decade or two), the expectation that it "solves everything in a jiffy", has been gaining ground and CXOs have forgotten the "human factor" and the need to use technology effectively, patiently and appropriately. After all, technology is used by people, who still have the "failings" of human emotions and are creatures of habit. People at large have the inertia of an "earlier technology", need to compete and contend with human egos & powerful incumbents and await appropriate social change around them. Peter Drucker, famously explained, "The short term impact of a new technology are often OVER ESTIMATED and the long term effects are often UNDER ESTIMATED". At least in the short term, entrepreneurs, early adopters, investors and even the masses expect too much from a new technology.

Here's a list of some technologies that have impacted mankind in the last couple of decades and how its impact has either been over estimated or its side-effects disregarded, making people and businesses fall prey to "Arrogance of Technology".

• Security and Star Wars - 9/11 was an unpardonable (for the perpetrators) event in America. I remember a discussion on US TV, where the anchor asked an expert whether the US had disregarded the "human element" in all the billions of $s that had been spent on Star Wars, AWACs and other programs rolled out to protect America and dominate the world! The reader's answers are welcome!
• eMail has been one of the big inventions to help the world communicate better, so much so that letter writing which had been reduced to a dying art was resurrected by eMail technology and its wide availability. However the expectation "email sent, work done" is so widespread that people have forgotten that they are communicating with fellow human beings who have an ego! and a talk on the phone or a face to face meeting are still required for a lot of transactions to be completed!
• eCommerce - In the (two short) years of the Dot Com boom, the arrogance of technology was at its peak, where anyone with a simple idea and the money to put it on the web, thought that he had a successful business going. This arrogance of "the web-presence being the business", even if the fundamentals of need, market, differentiated products were not met, was very quickly punctured by a rapid boom to bust cycle.
• WAP, 3G, vs SMS - In a product (mobile value added services platform) that we rolled out in the mobile space in 2000, we integrated a number of communication channels (WAP, WEB, Voice, SMS) and concepts such as annotations for mobile advertising, persistent connections and the rest. WAP and mobile broadband through 3G were touted to be the great technologies (@ $5B of PE investment went into mobile data technology worldwide, including $10M in ours) that would have mobile phone users "browsing the web". SMS, a "simple" technology that was designed into the GSM stack for limited use of sending test messages is the one that mobile users lapped up and paid for.
• Food - Green Revolution - Hybrids, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, genetic engineering - technologies that were to be the panacea of the hungry world! Worked well for sometime, gave incredible increases in yields, colour, size and shape! Slowly the colour, size and shape of human beings consuming this food also began to change and there was a cry to return to "organic or slow food"
• Transportation - The gasoline engine and cars, the "freedom vehicle". A technology that created a construction boom to build roads and had most of the world ignore the need for public transportation. We all know how its become the one fuel which determines pollution levels and inflationary trends in equal measure.
• Medical Technologies - The medical fraternity's invention of vaccines has eradicated communicable diseases and epidemics, helping raise life expectancy, ensuring that young children and the youth do not perish due to "silly diseases" and mastered "mechanical" organs such as the heart, lungs, limbs, etc. Many of the "chemical" organs such as the liver, pancreas and kidneys are yet to evolve cost effective and sure cures. The arrogance that Allopathy and Surgery can cure anything, irrespective of one's diet, has given people a false sense of near immortality and helped doctors become richer!
• Retail - Almost every retail chain worth its salt has efficient supply chains, bar codes, billing systems, aisle management and other technologies deployed. The retail sector expects that this should bring in customers, generate revenues and make profits. The human element of staff training, product knowledge and good customer service is often forgotten in this surfeit of technology. A customer still does not get answers to product related questions and is unable to find 20% of items in his shopping list on the supermarket shelves at any point of time.

Technology and Behavioural Science
Does this mean that technology needs to be discarded for age old manual systems? No, infact it needs to be "re-invented" often! It needs to be combined with a study of human factors, side effects, customer preferences and regular reviews of the "current" effectiveness of the deployed technology. A technology or IT plan needs to be blended in with a Customer Interaction Plan and Employee Training to cover the "human element" in the business. Employees need to be constantly reminded that technology is just an enabler, and is not the be all and end all of the business. Businesses need to regularly undertake "constructive destruction" of the technology used in deploying the business.

Remember, an email doesn't necessarily get things done, a great billing system does not make for great customer service and medicines do not replace preventive health care, a chemical free diet or a good nurse!