Main point: "As the Covid-19 pandemic looks to likely accelerate the rate and pace of technological change, what can we learn from the Industrial Revolution that can help us better face our emerging AI revolution?"
Highlights from the article:
"...there’s a significant time lag, between the broad acceptance of major new transformative technologies and their long-term economic and productivity growth. "
"The life cycle of such historically transformative technologies consists of two phases: investments and harvesting."
"...transformative technologies require massive complementary investments, such as business process redesign, co-invention of new products and business models, and the re-skilling of the workforce.
"...The more transformative the technologies, the longer it takes them to reach the harvesting phase when they’re widely embraced by companies and industries across the economy.
"The time lags between the investment and harvesting phases are typically quite long."
“Historically, the way people have adjusted to technological change is by acquiring new skills."
The modern skillsets will need to include the so-called "soft skills" and certain broad business skills that include the ability to:
Align objectives from top to bottom
Integrate diverse organizational functions to accomplish a goal
Manage the activity to a successful conclusion, which includes measuring progress and results
An unspoken skill is being able to understand systems, a holistic perspective that understands how the different parts fit together.
I recall Memorial Day, 1995 at the Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium. A Belgian school girl recited these lines: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row,” lines that reminded us of what was sacrificed: “We are the Dead. Short days ago / We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, / Loved and were loved, and now we lie /In Flanders fields.” Belgian school children sang the United States’ national anthem and lay poppies at each of the 368 graves of US soldiers who fell in World War I. The Belgian organizers placed wreaths at the memorial, punctuating the fact that we Americans were guests at that ceremony. You see, the Belgians, like other Europeans, organized and ran these Memorial Day ceremonies to express their gratitude for our nation’s sacrifices in two world wars to liberate their lands.
How then can we show gratitude to the fallen and their survivors?
President Franklin Roosevelt wrote in a letter to Thomas and Alleta Sullivan, whose five sons served and died together on the USS Juneau in World War II, “I offer you the condolences and gratitude of our country. We who remain to carry on the fight must maintain spirit, in the knowledge that such sacrifice was not in vain.”
Our entertainers offer other expressions.
The character in Saving Private Ryan played by Tom Hanks charged Matt Damon’s character to “Earn it.”
The characters of the TV series 7th Heaven performed acts of service in a fallen soldier’s memory.
Gary Sinise uses his Lieutenant Dan role in the movie Forrest Gump as a platform for promoting veterans causes.
Of course, Bob Hope spent a lifetime of Christmases entertaining our forces around the world.
Over the years, however, I’ve come to learn the greatest expression of gratitude for so great a gift isn’t repayment. It’s demonstrating a changed life that comes from accepting the gift, using the gift, and passing it on.
By accepting the gift, we honor its purpose. Those who died in battle joined the military for different reasons but readily accepted the ideals of duty, honor, and country. We too can accept those ideals as our own. West Point’s Cadet Prayer says it well, “Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.”
After accepting the gift, we use it by fulfilling its purpose. We can fulfill that purpose by engaging and serving our communities and our country; that is, we citizens can bloom where we’re planted.
We pass the gift on by sharing its purpose. We can model those ideals at home, at work, at school, and around the community because the words we speak and the things we do will, on other days and in other places, will bear fruit in the lives of others.
Let’s therefore honor the fallen for what they have given us – a life of freedom, a country where we can exercise it, and lessons we can apply to our lives – and prove ourselves worthy of those gifts, purchased at a price we remember on Memorial Day.
An article
by Andy Crouch is getting some attention. He described the COVID-19 pandemic as
"an economic and cultural blizzard, winter, and beginning of a 'little ice
age' — a once-in-a-lifetime change that is likely to affect our lives and
organizations for years" and not something we just need to endure until we
can get back to normal. He argued "The priority of leaders must be to set
aside confidence in their current playbook as quickly as possible, write a new
one that honors their mission and the communities they serve, and make the most
of their organization’s assets — their people, financial capital, and social
capital, leaning on relationship and trust."
Key
points:
The pandemic isn't like a
blizzard we just need to endure until it's over.
We need to prepare for worse
because "even as we weather the current blizzard, and convince others
that a blizzard is upon us, all of us should be preparing for a winter in
which countless aspects of our society are reconfigured."
Another prospect is that of
an ice age. Recalling the history Little Ice that lasted 300 years, Crouch
pointed out the 18 month duration in producing a vaccine. That's longer
than a blizzard and winter season.
Why is
this important?
If the disruption keeps us
from educating children effectively (according to one education theorist,
children who don't get a chance to learn how to read well between the ages
of 7 and 9 never acquire fluency in reading), there could be long term
cultural and human negative impact.
Flattening the curve means
we'll also extend the curve. In other words, the disease will remain for a
longer period until the population develops general immunity or a vaccine
is developed.
The extended time period also
means economic disruption will go on longer.
How
should we then live?
Crouch maintains "most
leaders must recognize that the business they were in no longer
exists."
The first step is realizing
"If your nonprofit organization depends on gathering people in medium
or large groups — and it is truly daunting to consider how many do,
whether for fundraising banquets, afterschool programs, or in the case of
churches for corporate worship — you are not in the same business
today."
AS a result, "You have
to build a fundamentally new deck [the set of Powerpoint slides that
describes what your organization does and how it does it] that reflects
the new realities of the community you serve, and the tools that are
available to you today."
As you rethink your
organization, you need to go back to the foundation, the "one
paramount resource that by the grace of God may still be available, which
is trust."
The foundation of trust means
"the people who will help you chart the course toward fulfilling your
mission in the coming years are the people who you have the deepest trust
with today — those currently on mission with you. And so all the efforts
of leadership right now come down to maintaining and mobilizing
trust."
Leaders have a particularly
tough job because "Trust is also built through one of the hardest
tasks of leadership: taking steps to reduce costs and manage cash flow, so
that the enterprise can survive."
In
general, Crouch presents the challenge of "nested, interconnected
realities — as leaders we must react swiftly to the blizzard that is already
upon us, and pivot to survive the inevitable winter under severe conditions,
and reimagine our organizations to outlast the rigors of a possible little ice
age" and realizing "that their organization’s survival in weeks and
months, let alone years, depends far more on radical innovation than on
tactical cutbacks."
Here are some points from the article. Read the article to get all the details.
The pandemic is pushing us to remote solutions because "the expert advice—not least from the National Institute of Health’s chief immunologist, Anthony Fauci—is for people to engage in social distancing and 'telework' in order to slow the spread of Covid-19. As I write, more than 300 million students around the world are out of school; many are telecommuting to classes. And millions of adults are working from home."
Telecommuting hasn't been widely adopted yet. Some background information suggests "Remote working remains limited in value for much of what people need to do—and especially for replicating the intangible productivity of personal interactions."
Another limitation of telecommuting is it's "only marginally useful for many critical industries and infrastructures" like running machines, delivery, etc.
The article also reviewed the use of tech to defeat diseases and concluded "when the next one [pandemic] comes, silcon machines may finally give humanity the tools it needs to win its Sisyphean battle with viruses."
