Human Connection in a Digital Universe

When was the last time that you had an “aha moment”??A moment when you truly understood a concept, technology you are working with or another human being. Those moments don’t happen that often and this is very unfortunate.

Developers often use the phrase, “Be in the moment.” You are so in-tune with what you are working on that the code seem to flow. Classes, abstractions, packages, methods just all fit together perfectly like Lego pieces. Then there is working in pairs where you and a partner collaborate in real time as the code is written. In general, when the pair finds their connection, the outcome can be a lot better than through individual contributions. You also save time on merge requests, reviews and context switching. It is not for everyone, but I recommend developers try it at least once.

Humans who work/interact with others can leverage feedback as an accelerator to their own ideas. You throw out an idea, somebody picks it up and responds to it in a way that you wouldn’t have even considered. Then, you put your twist on the response, and it goes on.?The outcome could be something truly amazing.?

My “accelerator” connection happened to be a person I met recently through a common friend during a weekend getaway. This individual doesn’t have a technology or corporate background. We don’t share religion, traditions or education. What connected us was a fascination with human psyche and general pursuit of meaning behind things we do. During our conversation, I have learned numerous things about myself, but the most important thing was being more open to other people’s suggestions and personalities. I’ve realized that the best solutions often don’t require banging on the keyboard. Learning from other people’s experiences and using them effectively could often yield better results. I highly recommend that before you start trying to solve your next challenge—stop, go for a walk or simply talk to somebody. When I say “talk”, give them a general idea about the problem you are trying to solve and then just listen. Listening is powerful — it enhances your level of understanding and leads to better outcomes.

In the case of my new connection, it was a complete set of random circumstances that led to that “moment” but having beautiful scenery, great music, food and most importantly fun atmosphere helped a lot to establish it.?I’m sure a similar set of circumstances could be created in the professional environment. When people feel safe to share and freely exchange ideas, then you might be getting close to that sense of belonging that is critical in creating these types of bonds.

Machines don’t have ability to learn from each other (yet).?You can connect two machines and they will be twice as powerful. Imagine what would happen if ChatGPT could talk to Bart (AI from Google) and through that interaction improve their performance.?We might be looking at the end of civilization as we know it!

The practical consideration from this piece is how we currently use AI. AI can now understand human language and provide an answer from a collective knowledge gathered from the internet. What if instead of training the AI to identify knowledge and expected response, we trained it on helping humans to identify other humans who could be our accelerators and vice versa.?These connections currently happen very randomly. It must be the right time and setting for this connection to materialize into something bigger. If we could establish these types of connections regularly, then as a civilization we would probably already been colonizing the universe. All you need is that initial spark.

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P.S. For those that got that far you might be wondering why owl is the main picture for this blog. Owl symbolizes wisdom, but also deep insight, intuition and clarity.?They rarely close their eyes, constantly observing the environment around them. Be the owl.?Observe and learn from others.

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“All opinions are my own and not affiliated to my employer.”