INNOVATION: TRANSFORMING THE WORLD FOR GOOD(Part 6)

Roger von Oech wisely said:

"It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago but will soon be out of date."

The direction we choose to face determines whether we’re standing at the end or the beginning of a road. So, let's make sure we start this article with a realistic assessment of where we are, and an optimistic view of where we can go in future. The previous articles in the series are attached below:

We agree now that technological innovation is shaped by individuals and institutions. Although there is a heavy demand to change public perceptions of the same.

There are a lot of promises of robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other things that can increase productivity and perhaps even eliminate some of the work that is unsafe, difficult to do, or not very rewarding for humans to take on. If we do that, the ideal will be that we can then free up humans to do some of the more creative work and we'll leave the robotics to take on some of the other things. These machines and technologies can make our roads safer. They can make our environment more sustainable. And they can improve our health care. But we have to make sure that we find the right way to bring humans into this process. And that's a big piece we need to fit to complete this puzzle.

A drastic mind shift for professionals is witnessed over time. Ryan Roslansky, CEO at LinkedIn started an interesting newsletter series "The Path"(attached below) for illustrating how the career trajectory for majority of us doesn't follow a linear progression.

There is a famous Chinese proverb,

“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.”

In my opinion, the winds of change should be welcomed with open arms but realistically its tough to embrace change fundamentally. As we mature, we are conditioned by watching which of the different variables we are able to influence in our lives, while simultaneously recognizing the ones that seem less likely to be influential. Lets watch an interesting video:

There are many challenges posed by these technologies. And for instance, we need to make sure that humans are a priority in all of the phases of technology, design, and in the way in which we use these in our workplace. We have to make sure that the training is available, to make sure that workers have lifelong learning opportunities, to have the skills needed to use these technologies, and not to just be replaced by robots and other forms of new machines. We also have to worry that we share the benefits of these technologies and advances in productivity equitably across our societies.

As an analogy, think of sea level rise and the choice between building ever higher but brittle seawalls versus enhancing the absorptive capacity of living shorelines.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

We often hear people saying that time changes things, but we actually have to change ourselves for it to be better expressed.

So let's get on with it. If we're ready to get started, so is the environment. Let's go to work together.

Some interesting Ted Talk for your reference: