I think as an innovative person you live sometimes 5 years in advance of all other people and this is sometimes really boring, because you always see, when the crowd is discovering and celebrating things, you have discovered some years ago and they also expect to be celebrated for their discovery now, which is normal for you. Sorry, I am not good at that.
On the other side, companies want to become more human, that's nice, but isn't it basic to be a human company and were we inhuman companies during the last years to have now the spotlight on this topic? Or is it just a new mantra, to control employees under a new human slogan, in an age of conformity and human robots? I am not sure about it until now.
But back to the topic, I know. e.g. I changed/digitized my workflows and tools 6 years ago and now they get normal for everybody, so it's nice to see, that I was right but sad to see, that it took 6 years for the crowd to get a clue about that and move on.
On the other side, companies want to become more human, that's nice, but isn't it basic to be a human company and were we inhuman companies during the last years to have now the spotlight on this topic? Or is it just a new mantra, to control employees under a new human slogan, in an age of conformity and human robots? I am not sure about it until now.
But back to the topic, I know. e.g. I changed/digitized my workflows and tools 6 years ago and now they get normal for everybody, so it's nice to see, that I was right but sad to see, that it took 6 years for the crowd to get a clue about that and move on.
Especially here in DACH area it is like that, if you are a person who reads a lot of books and articles in English, explore new workflows, apps and IT tools from the US and South Korea and then you have to wait 3-5 years until the German and Austrian big companies and business people have found out about this trends and tools, they have ignored 5 years ago, because they are overrated as the internet or smartphones in the year 2006.
Also here on LinkedIn was starting a German / Austrian wave of: Digitalization is HUMAN and Transformation starts with people and human beings, etc pp., and everybody copied the PowerPoint of his colleague or he/she has heard in a seminar in Amsterdam, New York or at DLD about that topic and is yelling it around as if this is the new innovation, having no clue, what it really is about. We do not use apps and tools just to use it and then adapt our workflow, so that we can use it, no, we use apps and tools who fit our workflow and help us to use 1 tool instead of 4.
When the DACH region will become a new Silicon Valley or South Korea, they should have a bigger and faster focus on the Netherlands and the US to adopt trends from there within 4 weeks and not 4 years. Yes, this is not easy with these old Titanic companies we have here, but it has also to do with regulations and power.
I am not sure if Germans and Austrian really can be agile and make fast turnarounds, it's not their mentality. (We are good in producing something that will persist the next 50 or 100 years like a German Kitchen for 30.000 € or a Tank or a Mercedes or a House. ;-))
The Germans need for everything first a certificate of a certificate of a case study and the Austrians have a look, wait, have another look, wait, think and if enough other countries and also Big Brother Germany is doing it and if they have realized that sending a fax in 2018, that is scanned afterwards to the system is not the perfect Digitalization workflow, they adopt it fast within 4 weeks :-).
So what's next?
- I think people get more and more sick of this stupid social media postings with nothing behind it and will reduce their consumption. Hopefully.
- Crafts and good old thing, which stay for quality and sustainability will rise again because sometimes the old is the new innovation.
- Handshake quality and human relations became the new focus.
- After we saw that AI is not THE solution, because we are all humans, who act human, we will start to train our brains again as human beings and rely more on our common sense. (Maybe also a BIG blackout would help us the next years to find back to the roots of work, that really matter, because then we are automatically back in 1980. I do not hope so, because I do not like fashion.:-)
- The Millennials will get bored about social media when they turn 35 or 40 and have a look back to the behaviors, techniques and thinking of the generations before and celebrate it as a new start and way of innovation.
- People will focus more on the old phrase: Think first, then talk. We had more quality during these times because it was a common rule not to publish or talk bullshit in public, that makes no sense. This helped us to focus on quality because we didn't have to separate the wheat from the chaff as we have to do today in news(fake) and social media.
I know, that there are a lot of people outside, who are also sick of this yelling and talking social media bullshit, who just want to go back to work and just do it. The years of talking and exploring are over for us now and this is why I became an entrepreneur and work with same minded partners around the globe, who understand in which direction the future goes, but in a healthy and sustainable way...
Thomas Zahlten, BREADHUNTER, Vienna