Back to school

Five months without writing anything here, some wondered if I was still alive. So yes I am and this post is an opportunity to take a step back as I gradually get back on track for a regular publication here.

Telling you that I missed writing here for 5 months would be a lie, as well as claiming that I have followed the subjects related to digital transformation with attention in the meantime. In short, I took 5 months of vacation from my “pro” blog (and only from it because the work level was quite the opposite) and enjoyed myself on more leisure-oriented topics.

14 years with a regularity of metronome is a lot. Maybe too much. Moreover, for most of them, the people I liked to read and follow when I started have hung up for a long time or at least write on subjects that no longer have much to do with their professional activity and I ended up feeling a little lonely.

Then when we talk about the link between people, businesses and technology, the topics have changed quite a bit in recent years. Not necessarily for the better. When, when you say “digital transformation” or “digital”, you are answered in 95% of cases “ah you are in marketing” it means something. And that explains why what was called digital transformation did not take place, or not in the way we expected it, or where we expected it.

We are far from the first promises of the web when the idea, which I admit was a little oversold, that technology would become a formidable lever for collective intelligence prevailed. Today, social networks have become a trash can (although there are still times when gold can be found lost in a landfill) and the web has failed in its mission. It’s not me who says it, but its creator, Tim Berners Lee. When we move from collective intelligence to a world sold to temple merchants and other personal data thieves, we should not expect anything else.

To summarize the story I often say that “at first there were friends and conversations, then serendipity and the discovery of fantastic people. Then it became mainstream, the web started to look like the real world (sometimes worse) brands arrived, influencers replaced thought leaders, videos replaced in-depth posts and the network became the playground for pitchers, liars and tormented people. Then everything went wrong and, like it it was not messy enough, businesses started to play with data”. End of the story.

We have gone from usage issues to ethical issues and I am not sure that behind the discourse of facade brands, media and major platforms have grasped the issues or are willing to take them up.

Did I want to continue in this context? Of course not. Did I want to go back to the basics, namely companies, people and technology only when it is necessary? Of course I do.

I will therefore make a severe refocusing of the editorial line (which may have turned a little too “digital&techno” depending on the subjects of the moment) which will require a lot of work in the back office to give meaning to the categories, to classify all the articles where they must be so that everything is clean (it is my control-freak side, I can’t work in a misfitted environment or when everything is not perfectly aligned). So then it’s my internal cooking but I just wanted to explain why the start was going to be slow.

New subjects, subjects that disappear, hindsight, much less or even almost no more digital and techno because that is definitely no longer the subject. And more topics that resonate with business, people and society (in the order you want) because the real issue has always been there even if everything has been done to make us look elsewhere.

In short, after having gone away to get some fresh air and write elsewhere on other subjects (but with a co-author for once) I come back in great shape. I don’t know if Tim Berners Lee will manage, as he wants, to make the web become what it should have been, but however, this blog returns (almost) to its themes from 14 years ago.

Happy 2019.

Picture :Back to school by AmazeinDesign via Shutterstock

Bertrand DUPERRIN
Bertrand DUPERRINhttps://www.duperrin.com/english
Head of People and Business Delivery @Emakina / Former consulting director / Crossroads of people, business and technology / Speaker / Compulsive traveler
Head of People and Business Delivery @Emakina / Former consulting director / Crossroads of people, business and technology / Speaker / Compulsive traveler
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