Vol.16 Enjoying Tea with genAI

On a recent trip to Medellin Colombia, while walking from my hotel to the office, I did what I often do, take in my surroundings noticing sometimes even the smallest of things. On that particular day I noticed an amazing shrub, a tree, I don't know how to describe it.

This particular plant had clusters of three distinct flowers all at different stages of maturity. Ranging from white to lilac to purple. The flowers were fairly small, only about 3 1/2 centimeters across. For some reason, it captivated my attention.

Reflections and Promise

I took out my phone, launched 谷歌 Lens, and did a quick look up. It was a Brunfelsia Pauciflora , better known as the Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow plant.

The universe was talking to me, and I stood there listening intently. It was so obvious to me that I needed to notice that plant at that moment.

I was in Colombia on yet another Adoption & Change Management mission. Working through the different stages of various things, honoring the past of yesterday, appreciating the moment of today, and promoting hope for the future tomorrow.

After lingering there for a few minutes taking the beauty before me, probably longer than I realized, the office was waiting, and I was on my way. Throughout the course of the day, I kept thinking about that message of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow – it was screaming at me for my attention.

Personally, I know that my Today is predicated upon all the work I did Yesterday, and my future Tomorrow is yet to be written. I know that there are external forces that I have no control over, yet the only thing I can control is me - my thoughts, my reactions, my feelings, just me.

Toward the end of that workday my attention turned to thinking about that plant again. Maybe I was forcing the issue, maybe I was thinking about writing this story, but one thing was clear to me - the story spoke to me about Change Management.

Time for Tea (well, sort of)

After a little bit of research, I discovered (according to www.flowersforhealing.com) that the Brunfelsia Pauciflora flower “essence offers energies of transformation within the cellular structures of the body by persuading/allowing the cells to believe/know that they are whole and healthy, thus offering the possibility of slowing down the ageing process.”

There are many other purported medicinal benefits of that plant, and in the Peruvian Amazon, it's often made into a tea.

Big warning here, I am not proposing that anybody does this. Just like I would not suggest forging in the wilderness eating wild mushrooms, none of that can end well. Please agree to go along with me metaphorically here.

“Transformation within the cellular structures”, “the possibility of slowing down time”. Isn't that what Change Management is all about? Since the dawn of human time, people struggle to hang on to what they have so tightly that it becomes destructive and manifests itself in sometimes not very obvious ways.

Change is all around us. They say that Change is the only constant. (Whoever "they" is LOL)

How much time is genAI years (like dog years)?

ChatGPT is 1 year old (happy birthday). Hard to believe, it's only been one year since an earthquake rocked the tech world.

Take a moment to realize how fast things are evolving now – this is a shared experience (happy to be here with you).

It wasn't that long ago that there was a 50- or 100-year cycle of change. Now there's a cycle of weeks, days, and even hours. Almost every technical article that's being written is outdated almost as soon as it’s published. The 24-hour news cycle is now down to 5 minutes. It seems that the average project that should take six years is now expected in six weeks, etc.

Justin Trudeau said it best at Davos (thank you Mr. Trudeau for the inspiration):

“The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again.”

A lesser-known quote from that speech:

“You are rightly anxious about how quickly our existing business models are being disrupted. Still, if you're anxious, imagine how the folks who aren't in this room are feeling.”

Humanity, and the business world, for many are still struggling to figure out how generative AI will change the game. But the game has changed while people are thinking about it.

I remember when

In January of 2023, I spoke to people about ChatGPT, and people literally said to me, “chat what? What's that?” The cycle of yesterday is so short, the cycle of today and in the moment is even shorter, and the future is accelerating at warp speed.

My previous articles and newsletters stressed the importance of Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, generative AI, as a game changer and early adoption was a competitive advantage. Here we are at the one-year mark and I'm about to make another bold statement.

Although generative AI is behaving sort of like a difficult teenager and businesses are still trying to figure out silly business details like ROI, use cases, ethics, etc. All trivial stuff, right? Of course, I'm joking about this. Very seriously though, businesses the world over are still trying to figure out a path forward.

A New (genAI) Reality

Here is my bold statement, "AI is no longer a competitive advantage, it's a competitive necessity." - boom.

The Today that people are struggling to figure out is quickly becoming the yesterday. Every decision that we make in the moment is now very quickly in the past. There is no controlling that. Plans for the future Tomorrow, the grand plans of what the promise of generative AI will do for a company two years or three years into the future, that's quickly the present and not the future.

What I'm saying here is very simple, the Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow game has changed. Some readers may find my statement a bit alarmist, and I'm sticking to it (I respect your opinion).

AI is a competitive necessity now. It's no longer a “nice to have”, it’s now a non-negotiable “must have”.

I have been hyper focused and studying this topic for one year now, and all surveys and studies from a variety of think tanks are all saying the same thing (with varying degrees of deviation).

The workforce is asking for more, businesses generally are not meeting that demand, the percentage of job openings mentioning AI is increasing almost exponentially, education systems are lagging to meet the demand, companies are taking a wait and see attitude.

"Why can't this be easy?

Fortunately, there is a path forward, and can be difficult. In my opinion, anything worth doing should be difficult.

Organizationally speaking, GenAI takes commitment - FULL commitment. This is not a passing fad, not something that could be ignored. Disagree? then be prepared to proceed at your own risk.

Something important I forgot to mention about that beautiful plant, tree-thing, the very next day while going back to the office, I was very much looking forward to seeing it again. Notice my word “was”, past tense. I turned the corner and stood there in amazement, the plant (that was about two or three meters tall), had vanished!

Well, not really vanished, it was cut down. Literally, cut down to a stump.

Falling into Yesterday

That beautiful, thought inspiring, Change Management brilliance, hope for the future, appreciation of the present, lamenting some of the difficulties of the past, simply gone. Cut down. (100% true statement).

I’m so happy that I took a moment to notice that plant, and I have immortalized it in print here in this newsletter, and it has now become part of my past. Maybe nobody would have ever noticed its absence, but all of you reading this now know it's gone.

For many companies, while it may seem too soon to jump into generative AI ( OpenAI #ChatGPT, 微软 #Copilot, 谷歌 #Bard, Amazon Web Services (AWS) #AmazonQ, etc.), time is moving faster and is it's quickly becoming too late not to.

The generative AI train is moving faster and faster. The early adopter phase time window is quickly closing.

Today is an illusion

Since the last The Change Chronicle volume, I've been delivering genAI webinars, engaged in deep dive discussions, live events, and more. This exciting topic has simply become part of my life and I'm grateful every day that I get to do this.

While I do I love talking about it, I also love listening to people and learning about their challenges.

No matter which business or education sector I engage speak with, I'm finding a very similar pattern. People technically understand their challenge in bringing genAI to their organization.

They fundamentally understand the need for proper data governance, proper security, proper ethical oversight, proper organizational change, proper adoption and change management, proper education and learning, proper business cases, proper investigation, proper licensing, and other uses of the word “proper” in front of a business challenge.

Vividly recalling a recent conversation with an IT Director while at a university technology event, we were deep in discussing prompt engineering and other human elements required for proper generative AI rollouts.

The individual I spoke with on that day said that they just didn't know how much the human element factored in, and that it really does require human creativity, human communication, collaboration, and cooperation.

Falling into Tomorrow

The thing is, people tell me the same thing repeatedly, even though they understand it they just simply don't know how to get started.

For anyone that needs help, or just wants to have a conversation about this, please reach out to me. The global SoftwareOne team is actively working with our customers to demystify the business case for genAI and working on implementation that spans licensing, technical, security, and (of course) Change Management.

The Yesterday is pretty simple, everyone reading this will remember at genAI happened during their lifetimes. The Today is pretty simple, organizations the world over are struggling (and even those that claim to have it figured out secretly don't have it all figured out).

There's much complexity to deal with. There's just as much excitement as there is fear. The Tomorrow that companies are planning for is not as far into the future as it may appear. The traditional two to three-year business cycle future is actually the Today (the now) and must be dealt with in the present.

"Yesterday is gone, Today is fragile, Tomorrow is only a dream (until action is taken)"

Commitment, urgency, collaboration, and #BetterTogether.

As I close my eyes and use my imagination, I’m now going to enjoy time with my genAI robot friend while sipping some virtual Brunfelsia Pauciflora tea while planning my next move for Today to build a stronger Tomorrow, bringing it into reality.

Kevin (aka "The Cloud Therapist")

Please submit topics and questions for future volumes (I'm listening)

A quick note to my readers - thank you for your feedback, support, and encouragement. I strive to bring you relevant thought-provoking content.?#grateful?that you choose to spend your time with me.

I appreciate your commitment to reading these all the way through. I know they can be quite lengthy. My goal is to bring you unique perspectives and things to mentally chew on.