Vol.23 "Spotless Expectations"

Dedication

This volume is dedicated to the countless, and far too often invisible, restaurant workers that not only provide a service, who are also responsible for keeping people safe through upholding food safety standards. #grateful for you.

"Note to reader: the use of Microsoft Copilot saves me at least 1 to 2 hours of time composing each volume. All body text content is original, not AI generated. Copilot is used as my 'digital companion' that helps me bring these articles to life." ~ Kevin

Introduction

All of you know by now, I travel (very often) for business. As an Evangelist and Speaker on the topic of Artificial Intelligence, this affords me the amazing opportunity (and privilege) to engage with technology professionals and business leaders across the business spectrum. I genuinely love the topic and operate at the intersection of where AI (and technology) meets the human element (people).

Inspiration

This volume was inspired through my interaction with dozens and dozens of leaders at a recent technology conference (Dallas, TX May 2024). Thank you CDM Media and SoftwareOne for your trust and endorsement. Thank you to the tech industry titans (you know who you are ??) for sharing your plans, struggles, concerns, and triumphs with Generative AI and AI adoption.

Learning Through Interaction

Being a speaker on a topic puts me in a weird spot, I love to talk, and I also love to listen. Fortunately, I’m also a lifelong student of listening and learning through curiosity and observation. Thank you to all of you that I interacted with over the past few months, thank you for being my teacher. Your collective stories have painted a picture for me.? Your stories will help shape how best to support your efforts through a combination of consultative professional services and flexible solutions.

Expectations and AI

Comparing actual face-to-face time with people against the plethora of articles about AI really got me thinking about expectations. The topic of AI across a wide spectrum of organizations is “all over the place”, no shortage of opinions, positions, confusion, and strategies.

Restaurant Experience

Have you ever sat down at a restaurant only to discover dirty drinking glasses, plates, or utensils? I certainly have. Recently, at a “nice place”, there was lipstick on the rim of my water glass. The replacement glass from the hosts also had lipstick on it, and yes, my fork also had some sort of dried something crusted between the tines. Yuk.

Spotless Glass Expectation

When dining at a restaurant, I expect a spotless glass. Yes, spotless. Is this too much to ask?? Spotless is a symbol of cleanliness and attention to detail. I think this is a reasonable expectation within the controlled environment of a restaurant. That said, results obviously do vary. Diners, beware.

Unrealistic AI Expectations

That said, when it comes to adopting AI in business (or any complex systems), the expectation of “spotlessness” (or something close to flawless or perfect) is the prevailing trend. This viewpoint and strategy is unrealistic, problematic, and can (and often does) lead to utter disappointment. This ‘spotless expectation; is also driven be a fear of missing out, being late to the party, and/or not understanding the desired outcomes, and being realistic about any or all of those points.

Thank you to my SoftwareOne colleague Dimitrij Zub for recently proclaiming this to a large audience at a major technology conference: “FOMO is not a strategy”.

Fine Dining Experience

In contrast to the lipstick glass, my colleagues and I dined at Papa Bros. Steakhouse in Dallas, a fine dining experience, one worth mentioning publicly. During our engaged business conversation, I noticed flashes of light from the corner of my eye and assumed the source to be automobile headlights reflecting or shining through the sizeable windows. We were wrapping up close to closing time and I figured the light flashes were simply satisfied customers departing the property. I was wrong.

Exemplary Standards

One particular flash caught my eye, I turned my gaze, and was astonished with what was unfolding before me. The staff was cleaning and setting the tables. While not an unusual activity, the process most certainly was. Each table was set to exacting standards. A worker positioned each utensil, water and wine glasses, plate, napkin with millimeter precision following a predetermined standard of excellence. I tuned out of my conversation and found myself staring with amazement, I was fixated.

Detailed Inspection

Once the tables were set, a supervisor used a flashlight (torch) to examine each setting and surface from predetermined angles, paying close attention to any evidence of uncleanliness. This ritualistic examination was followed by shining the flashlight into each water glass from the top, then each side to complete the inspection. Notes were scribbled into a small black notebook, inspection complete. Or was it?

Finishing Touches

The next step was that another person, with two medium-sized terrycloth towels, approached the tables and picked up the selected water glasses (only with the towels) and made sure their appearance was spotless. It was obvious that the seemingly random selection of glasses to clean was not random at all. The ‘inspector’ arrived, checked the black book, and repeated the flashlight inspection. The choreography was perfect, and in my mind, set against a classical music soundtrack. I’ve never witnessed anything quite like that before.

Symbol of Excellence

The spotless drinking glass represents a commitment to an extremely high standard of excellence and quality. It’s a physical tangible object that’s an easily inspectable item. Failure to meet this quality standard is often viewed as a reflection of poor service, failed expectations (refer to lipstick glass place ).

AI as an Evolving Technology

GenAI is an evolving technology. AI is not new; in fact, it dates back 30+ years. Most people interact with AI on a daily basis and don’t even know it. Netflix much? The big “next” is conversational AI (GenAI) and it’s here to stay. The most recent articles clearly explain this, I strongly encourage you to do your own research.

Usage Expectations

Until now, most technologies came along with a reasonable expectation of usage and functionality. It was pretty obvious, use this thing to do this other thing. Example, use a program to write words, numbers, draw pictures, etc. The “next” that’s here now can generate text, numbers, words, pictures, poetry, and so much more almost by itself.

Realistic Expectations

This leads back, once again, to expectations. AI comes along with limitations and rapidly ongoing developments. This reminds me of Wabi-sabi (nothing’s ever perfect, nothing’s ever finished, and nothing lasts forever). AI means dealing with uncertainty. Another big one is ROI which can be somewhat elusive, obscured, intangible, often not easily observed. See the theme yet?? Realistic expectations are everything here.

Avoiding Disillusionment

Unrealistic expectation (expecting spotless perfection) can lead to the dreaded Gartner Hype Cycle “Trough of Disillusionment” - a stage in the hype cycle of a technology or a market where interest and expectations decline due to failures, problems, or slow adoption.

Definitely NOT a good place to be.

Commitment to AI Projects

Setting realistic expectations with any Artificial Intelligence project requires a level of commitment and mindset that is sometimes elusive and quite rare in the tech world. There is an inherent learning curve to address (techies and non-techies alike), projects will require focus and attention like never before, a commitment to flexibility and curiosity, a willingness to adapt, and yes, the human element.

Incremental Improvements

The key expectation must be one of incremental improvements, preparation for complexity, and accepting the fact that expert guidance and thought leadership is required.

Refined Thoughts

While we can and should expect a clean drinking glass at a restaurant, expecting AI to be flawless from the outset is just like expecting a drinking glass that never needs to be cleaned. It’s critical to temper expectations and understand that AI is a tool that improves over time with data, feedback, and refinement.

Artificial Intelligence

AI is here to stay whether we like it or not. AI is being used in every organization, sanctioned and unsanctioned (shadow AI). So why not get ahead and turn uncertainty to certainty?

Here are some simple steps to pay attention to:

• Learn the difference between GenAI (like Microsoft Copilot) for office workers, knowledge workers and AI projects (Copilot Studio, Azure OpenAI Studio, etc.) - and clearly understand the different functions, use cases, and path forward.
• Learn about Responsible AI.
• Focus on security and the fundamentals of IT.
• MANDATORY REQUIREMENT - Adoption and Change Management (the people side of this). Big statement – AI projects will fail (or cost big money and time delays) without this step.
• Start to figure out what it is you’re actually trying to achieve.
• Seek expert support and guidance (every coach needs a coach). Digital Ideation sessions are a "compulsory" requirement here.

Spotless (realistic) expectations may actually be within reach through hard work, flexibility, commitment, dedication, communication, and Change Management.

Let’s talk then get to work! Action is a choice.

~Kevin (aka "The Cloud Therapist")

#TechTrends #BetterTogether #TechnologyAdoption #ChangeManagement #Copilot #SoftwareOne #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #GenAI #BusinessInnovation #TechLeadership #ChangeManagement #ResponsibleAI #IncrementalImprovements

Cooperation Section (Kevin + Copilot)

This section is in response to a request from my readers. "What prompts do you use to write your articles":

The Copilot prompt to create the image above:

"please create a realistic image of an AI Copilot robot dressed as a restaurant table busser inspecting a table setting and glassware with a flashlight for cleanliness"         

This article is original content, written using the dictation feature Microsoft OneNote. After some minor edits, I used this Copilot prompt to write the section headers of this article:

"please rewrite the article with no changes to text, simply insert logical section headers"        

LinkedIn

"Please write a brief LinkedIn post based on this article to promote this Vol.23 and include hashtags"         

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.

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