Modern Luddites oppose AI due to fear of job loss, societal disruption, and AI risks.

Luddite Award honors those warning about AI dangers.

Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates received Luddite Award.

Employees fear AI will increase workload, cause burnout, and raise privacy concerns.

Employees fear AI will make skills obsolete and introduce bias.

Workers fear job security loss due to automation and robotics.

Tesla robot incident raised worker safety concerns.

Old equipment and high costs hinder technology adoption.

Lack of skilled talent and information-security risks impede digital transformation.

Employees resist new tech due to lack of understanding and communication gaps.

Fear of surveillance technology and privacy violations fuels resistance.

Executives resist digital change due to status-quo bias and fear of headcount reduction.

Resistance can stem from loss of control and increased workload.

Blockbuster's failure illustrates consequences of resisting digital tech.

Employees see RPA as threat, fearing job loss and increased responsibility.

Digital tools increase workplace stress and blur work-life boundaries.

Lack of clear ROI and perceived modernizing for its own sake causes executive resistance.

Cultural resistance to change manifests as opposition to new technologies.

Lack of transparency in data collection leads to distrust and resistance.

Institutions that fail to adapt risk obsolescence.

Modern Luddites oppose AI due to fear of job loss, societal disruption, and AI risks.

Title:

Content: Brian Merchant, author: “Luddites are more dangerous to the rich than Robin Hood”

The Luddites have been a great historical resource. Any showy enemy of anything that looked like technological progress has been called a Luddite. Today with generative artificial intelligence and its critics, the word has been revived. The author and journalist Brian Merchant (Iowa City, USA, 1983) saw it coming and has written a book that reviews the Luddite revolt in England at the beginning of the 19th century and its similarities with current technologies: Blood in the Machine (Blood in the Machine, currently without a planned edition in Spanish) thus explores the origins of the current revolt against big technology.

Although the book has appeared in the midst of the AI hype, Merchant began his research a decade ago: “Uber was growing and it was beginning to be seen that it was having a hard impact on taxi drivers, I heard the term Luddite from the pro-Uber sector and wrote an article titled You don't understand anything about Luddites”. Now in his book he remembers that the Luddite revolt was a labor struggle, not anti-technology, at a time when unions were prohibited. In a conversation with EL PAÍS from his residence in Los Angeles, Merchant clarifies the historical impact of the Luddites and the possible similar struggles that are being played today in Silicon Valley.

1. The Luddites were not against progress

The labor revolt over the loss of rights was more important than the destruction of textile machines: “The biggest mistake about the Luddites is to say that they were against technology and progress,” says Merchant. “They were against certain technologies because they recognized the way in which they were going to be used in their context against them as workers. It was a labor movement, against poverty, not anti-technology. The British Government began to mold them in this way almost immediately, it was keen to mock the Luddites and present the argument that they were against progress. It is very similar to how today people in positions of power in technology companies accuse those who complain about poor working conditions. It's the same story for 200 years.”

The book quotes a phrase from historian Eric Hobsbawm that explains this stage: “It was collective bargaining through riots.” According to Merchant, this tactic in a workers' struggle was very powerful for two reasons: “First, it was symbolic because everyone understood that what they were destroying was not just a machine. It was also the specific machine used to transfer wealth from the workers to the employer. Second, it was useful because they destroyed the equipment that businessmen needed.”

2. Why Robin Hood is better accepted than Ned Ludd

Ned Ludd was a legendary character. No one knows for sure if he existed. It was the legend of a teenager who would have broken the first machines at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In 1811, rebellious workers used his legendary name to sign letters and further scare: “Ludd probably never existed. But the incarnation of it would become a mascot, an organizational tool, a wink: a powerful 19th-century meme,” Merchant writes.

See also  The Commander of the Land Forces meets in Muscat a number of Omani military leaders

Ludd lived near Nottingham (United Kingdom), like another legendary figure who has been better treated by history. There must be a reason, says Merchant: “The Luddites organized a popular and powerful rebellion. People wrote popular songs about them. They were like Robin Hood. But it is interesting that Robin Hood has endured as a positive light, while the Luddites have not. He suggests that the myth of Ned Ludd is in some ways more dangerous to the elites and the wealthy than that of Robin Hood, which is a little more nebulous and open. The Luddites say: go ahead and break the machines of your oppression. Robin Hood says: steal from the rich and give to the poor. “I think that’s a little more tolerable.”

3. How are they similar to today's problems?

The background of the book is that the history of the Luddites is similar to what happens today in Silicon Valley, where a small group of corporations dominate new technologies. “The way technologies are developed has basically not changed. You have a handful of people with access to enough capital or political influence to be able to build a factory and use automation technologies. “Back then, the most aggressive owners didn’t ask anyone how to find a way to make this a win-win.”

Merchant has received criticism for equating the great businessmen of 19th century England with 21st century America. But there are details that he does not see that far away: “The technology development process is in some ways even more undemocratic today than then. There is this immense pool of capital available to Silicon Valley innovators through venture capital. Uber wasn't profitable for 10 years, but they had access to that capital. Did anyone really like that? Did it work for workers and delivery people? Nothing mattered, they just had more money and moved on.”

See also  Just the mystery

Title:

Content: Menu Close

The need for businesses to adapt to the workplace demands of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies, with clear implications for jobs and workers.

But just how much employees worry about the threat of automation – and how real those fears are – can have implications for workplaces beyond the technological change itself.

Our new research examined how employees feel about the introduction of “robotic process automation” (RPA) to the workplace. We also looked at how the willingness to embrace these new technologies influenced employees’ assessment of the software bots and their work.

RPA refers to software that interacts with different applications, such as a payroll system or a website, in the same way a human would.

Software robots – the so-called worker bees of RPA – can conduct mundane, repetitive and rule-based tasks such as transferring, entering and extracting data, accounting reconciliation, and automated email query processing. And they can do it at a fraction of the cost of employing real people.

The 24/7 worker

Unsurprisingly, organisations have embraced RPA for its cost and productivity benefits, but it’s not without its challenges. As RPA interacts with various applications, for example, it can “break” when one of the underlying systems is upgraded and the user interface changes.

RPA is also a double-edged sword for employees. On the one hand, with mundane and repetitive tasks outsourced to software robots, workers can focus on more complex tasks that require “soft” skills, empathy and decision-making capabilities.

Read more: Companies are mitigating labour shortages with automation — and this could drastically impact workers

On the other, some feel threatened by the software robots because they are generally more productive, make fewer errors and don’t cost as much as human employees.

Employees can also end up having to do additional tasks, picking up the work that used to be completed by the staff replaced by RPA. Paradoxically, fewer human employees can lead to an increased workload rather than the expected decrease.

Similarly, as employees shift from a mix of mundane and complex tasks to mainly complex ones, the variety in their work is reduced. This can lead to feeling alienated at work, or a sense they lack control over their role.

Fear and enthusiasm

These various perspectives on automation were clear in our research. We interviewed employees and automation team members at a financial institution in New Zealand about their perceptions and responses to RPA and software robots.

We found that reactions to RPA are influenced by what employees imagined would be the consequences of software robots on their jobs. In turn, this influenced their collaboration with the automation team, their attitude towards change in their tasks and work processes, and ultimately their interactions with software robots – including how they judged the bots’ performance.

Perceptions and responses to RPA can be categorised by employees’ views of software robots as either burdens and threats, tools, teammates or innovative enablers.

Those who considered software robots as a burden and threat before they were introduced tended to have a negative view of their experience with RPA. They were concerned about job security, had negative reactions to having greater responsibility added to their workload, and were dissatisfied with the robots’ performance.

Read more: Can machines invent things without human help? These AI examples show the answer is ‘yes’

Lessons for employees and employers

At the opposite end of the spectrum, those who viewed software robots as enablers of innovation saw the opportunities of RPA and the benefits of using robots to improve work quality.

Some eagerly accepted the robots as team members, even giving them human names and joking that the bot was taking a sick day when it stopped working. This group also appreciated the reduction in their own workloads through RPA.

Little surprise, then, that employees who view software robots as innovative enablers or teammates tended to collaborate closely with the automation team to find the best way to integrate robots and improve their performance.

Read more: Brain-computer interfaces could allow soldiers to control weapons with their thoughts and turn off their fear – but the ethics of neurotechnology lags behind the science

In the middle ground, employees who viewed software robots as tools tended to be accepting, but remained sceptical about changes to their workloads and robot performance. They were reluctant to offer full cooperation with the automation team to configure robots’ tasks that would have consequences for their own roles.

Some level of automation is inevitable for businesses. To harness the benefits of RPA without alienating staff, organisations should communicate clearly and often, debunking the myths of robots and their capabilities early to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings by employees.

Employers should take the time to understand how different employees feel about the introduction of automation initiatives. And they should consider incorporating employees’ ideas to increase the overall benefits of automation.

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6 Strategies To Alleviate Employees’ Fears Of AI In 2024

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The rise in AI has caused a mixture of excitement and fear as it becomes a standard part of our lives. Some say it’s a risk to civilization as we know it, while others insist it will transform the way we work, live and interact with one another. The part that is not debatable is that not only is AI not going away, it’s on the upswing. You can get that tattooed. So it’s important to develop a reasonable comfort around its use.

Is AI Coming For You Or To You?

One way to do that is to consider that AI is coming to you, not for you. The stigma and fear around the technology has caused some employees to shy away from a tool that can enhance productivity and certain mental health benefits like cognitive re-framing for anxiety. On the flip side, studies also show that workers who frequently use AI are at higher risk for burnout.

However, the opposite findings are reported in a new global survey from Sage. Out of over 1,000 HR leaders, 95% have experienced a workload increase over the last year, and 91% noted an increase in their responsibilities. Yet, instead of fearing AI usage, 77% of the respondents cite AI as having the potential to revolutionize their work processes by reducing time-consuming tasks and ultimately easing burnout.

Taylor Blake, senior vice president of new initiatives at Degreed, told me by email that there’s a lot of fear about AI, but avoiding the technology won’t make the risks go away. He explains that employees need to know what the AI tools are capable of, and they need to be experimenting. He also said that many companies want their employees to adopt this technology, adding that many workers are left wondering if AI will take their jobs in the next two years and what this means for their careers.

How Companies Can Help Assuage AI Fears

Mismanaged fear is responsible for most poor communication in organizations. It’s important that business leaders consider the psychological safety of their employees and how their mental health impacts the company’s bottom line.

The human mind is like Velcro for negativity and Teflon for positivity. Work-life’s inevitable uncertainties instantly arouse our fight-or-flight reaction. Our survival brain is constantly updating our world, making judgments about what's safe and what isn't. It will do almost anything for the sake of certainty because we’re hardwired to overestimate threats and underestimate your ability to handle them. Here is where business leaders can step in and offer a helping hand, according to the experts.

“Some companies are going all in on AI, wanting their employees to start adopting this technology, leaving employees wondering if AI will take their jobs in two years and what this means for their careers,” Blake says, adding that in this new reality, companies should be helping their employees navigate where they can best apply their skills and develop new ones simultaneously. “Many of us have the mindset that learning is something we do early in our careers, but we need to shift that to a mindset of being lifelong learners. Learning is the new competitive advantage in today’s AI-powered job market.”

According to Rick Hammell, founder and CEO of Helios, leaders play a crucial role in alleviating employees' fears of AI. He shared with me six strategies companies can implement to mitigate fear and misunderstanding

  1. Providing comprehensive education and training programs. By offering employees a deeper understanding of AI technologies, their benefits and limitations, Hammell suggests that leaders can demystify AI and address misconceptions that often fuel fear and uncertainty.
  2. Fostering open communication within the organization. Hammell believes that creating a culture where employees feel comfortable expressing their concerns about AI allows leaders to actively listen to these fears and address them with empathy and clarity.
  3. Emphasizing the concept of human-machine collaboration. Hammell advocates highlighting how AI can complement and enhance employees' skills and productivity rather than replace them. He insists that this will enable leaders to help employees see AI as a tool that can improve their work experiences.
  4. Establishing clear ethical guidelines and policies for the use of AI in the workplace. Hammell sees this as crucial in addressing common fears related to AI. He acknowledges that employees often worry about job loss, privacy concerns, skill obsolescence, bias and discrimination and a lack of control when it comes to AI. To assuage these fears, he advises that leaders reassure employees about job security by emphasizing that AI is meant to augment their work, not replace it entirely.
  5. Implementing robust data protection measures and transparent data handling practices can help address privacy concerns. Hammell recommends offering upskilling and reskilling programs to help employees adapt to the changing skill requirements in the age of AI to alleviate fears related to skill obsolescence.
  6. Promoting diversity and inclusion in AI development and deployment. Hammell argues that it is essential to address concerns about bias and discrimination. “By involving employees in the design and implementation of AI systems and providing opportunities for feedback, leaders can empower employees and help them feel more in control of AI processes,” he concludes.

A Final Wrap-Up

Companies are developing technology to help people feel more confident with the inevitable technology. A study by Genesys, for example, finds a consensus among most employees who say they don’t fear AI replacing their jobs. Only 10% of GenZ/millennials and seven percent of GenX/boomers worry about this in the long run. Instead, 23% of GenZ/millennials and 19% of GenX/boomers see its potential to make their jobs better. The study concluded that organizations should seize this opportunity to educate and train their employees on AI’s benefits.

Bill Salak, the CTO and COO of Brainly, is on a mission to ensure the country’s future workforce is well-educated and ready to wield AI properly. His company has validated its commitment to the future workforce with the launch of Test Prep, an AI-driven tool that builds good time management skills and bolsters their overall understanding of AI use. The new Brainly feature uses AI to generate personalized study experiences—boosting confidence and reducing anxiety.

The conflicting findings that are emerging around AI reflects our human inability to accept uncertainty. It shows that some workers have fear; others have appreciation, which raises the question, “Is AI a sword or a shield?” Too much or too little of anything can be harmful. In the final analysis, it’s how corporate America uses the technology to improve humanity that ultimately matters.

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Title:

Content: The new is the old well forgotten.
Where in the Network there was a fashionable insult to the opponents of AI
In the Internet discourse, deep in the study of sarcastic comments of anonymous persons, you can find the term "Luddite".
This label is often referred to as people who dare to express the slightest inclination to inhibit the constant development of artificial intelligence (AI).
Related video
Interestingly, such prominent figures as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates have been awarded the Luddite Award, which is recognition of their cautionary position regarding the potential dangers associated with artificial intelligence.
During the ceremony, Robert D. Atkinson, the organizer of the award, noted: “Unfortunately, luminaries such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have contributed to the feverish refraction of hands about the impending apocalypse of artificial intelligence, ” writes IFLScience.
In Focus.Technology appeared its own Telegram-channel.
Subscribe not to miss the latest and exciting news from the world of science!
Atkinson also explained: "Do we consider any of them personally Luddites?
No, of course not.
They are pioneers of science and technology.
But they and others have done a disservice to the public — and undoubtedly have helped and comforted the increasingly common neo-Luddist impulse in modern society — by demonizing AI in the popular imagination.
But how did the term come about?
Its roots can be traced back to the early 1800s in England.
Before the industrial revolution, skilled craftsmen who knew a lot about textile production made clothes using their own machines and specialized tools.
However, a situation arose when new technologies and methods of mass production appeared, as a result of which artisans were unable to compete.
The result was a movement whose purpose was the destruction of the textile industry and the destruction of new machines.
Although there is some truth to this story, it does not reflect the whole essence of the Luddite movement.
Their actions were not driven solely by a reaction to new technologies; rather, they were a response to the profound transformations taking place in their professional activities.
While it is true that they often attacked a knitting machine known as a stocking frame, as well as other mechanized fixtures, their main concern was the labor practices associated with these machines.
Kevin Binfield, editor of the Luddite and Compassionate Works, explained their motives: "They simply wanted machines to produce high-quality goods, and that these machines employed workers who had been trained and received fair wages.
It was their only concern. ”
The nickname "Luddites" comes from the nickname "Ned Ludd", an apocryphal figure who allegedly sabotaged a textile factory in 1779, although historical evidence suggests that this man was most likely a fictional one.
In a 2007 paper, researcher David Linton explained: “Some say that a young man, possibly with cognitive impairment, named Ned Ludd once misunderstood an order and accidentally broke his frame machine.
Others argue that this was done deliberately, in a fit of anger.
Whatever the motive, it seems to have become a joke phrase that whenever the machine breaks, for whatever reason, you can say something like, "Ludd must have been here."
From this construction, it is a short step to the ironic application of the name Ludd to vandalism for political purposes. "
Between 1811 and 1816, the Luddite movement held sporadic and somewhat unorganized protests, characterized by the destruction of cars and the burning of factories.
In response, the mill owners resorted to extreme measures, using deadly force against the Luddites.
In April 1812, there was a grim turning point in Huddersfield, where at least four people died at the hands of the mill owners.
In retaliation, the Luddites killed the owner of the mill, William Horsfall, who boldly declared his intention to "smear himself with Luddite blood to the saddles."
Horsfall was shot while sitting on his horse.
Faced with these uprisings, the government immediately sent thousands of soldiers to quell the protests.
Moreover, they adopted a law according to which the breakdown of cars was subject to the death penalty or sending to colonies.
Subsequently, the movement dissipated, but the stable expression "Luddite" could not accurately convey the ideals and goals of the Luddites.
Previously, Focus wrote about the first IPSO in the history of mankind.
It turns out that it was invented in Babylon and it concerns the Flood.

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Self-Management Skills Necessary At Work And Home

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Do you remember the 1992 movie A Few Good Men? This movie illustrated how things can go wrong when someone needs better self-management. Take the character Colonel Nathan Jessup (played by Jack Nicolson), who loses his composure and begins to rant uncontrollably, incriminating himself and his second-in-command—both were dishonorably discharged. Perhaps a self-management course may have saved him and his job.

Self-management is the ability to manage or redirect disruptive impulses and moods. It is about taking responsibility for your behavior. With low self-management, emotions run the show, and this is when you become your own worst enemy. Imagine working without self-management; there is no leader, strategy, or schedule for completing projects. You may lack self-discipline and cannot focus your energy amidst emotional distractions.

A simple way to start improving your self-management is creating a clean workplace; it sounds weird to some, but establishing neatness can improve functionality. There’s the adage that your exterior environment reflects your interior mind, aka, messy desk=messy mind. Strong self-management helps people become well-organized, resulting in the ability to plan, prioritize, and execute essential activities. Employees with good self-management skills often feel less pressure. When you look at two organizations with different levels of self-management, there's a clear difference between output and happiness. When you have a productive team where most people are organized, disciplined, and strategic, they and the company flourish. When the opposite is true, employees become demotivated, and work tends to be lower quality.

Trust and Integrity are Hallmarks of Self-Management.

Trust is a belief that someone is honest, practices what they preach, and walks the talk. It is doing what is right, even if no one observes you. Integrity in business brings many advantages. Research published by Harvard Business Review revealed that workers at companies with high trust report 106% greater energy in the office, 74% lower stress levels, 76% greater engagement, and 50% more productivity than their peers at low-trust businesses. Business integrity is an ethical framework that can be used to guide your professional conduct. For example, one can demonstrate integrity at work by treating others respectfully and taking responsibility for one's actions. Knowing how to act with business integrity can help you earn the trust of colleagues and supervisors and enhance your reputation. However, an organization's lack of trust and Integrity can have dire outcomes. Remember, in December 2001, innovative energy company Enron Corporation, a darling of Wall Street investors with $63.4 billion in assets, went bankrupt. It was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Some of the corporation's executives, including the CEO and CFO, were imprisoned for fraud and other offenses. Enron filed for bankruptcy, and many of its 29,000 employees lost their jobs, paychecks, retirement savings, and pensions, all in one fell swoop. Enron's stock declined from a high of $90.75 to a low of below $1.00. Instead of integrating its RICE values (respect, Integrity, communication, and excellence) into operations, Enron's senior executives modeled greed, ambition, and risk-taking values.

According to HBR, the following practices can help business leaders be proactive, inspire their workforce, and stay ahead of the ethical revolution:

  1. Lead by example.
  2. Make your ethics code your own.
  3. Talk about it.
  4. Make sure employees know how to report violations.
  5. Demonstrate the consequences.
  6. Repetition/consistency matters.

Comfort with Ambiguity is a Hallmark of Self-Management.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) helps people become comfortable with the unknown. Not knowing the details and outputs can be nerve-racking. However, our world is a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous). When faced with an unclear situation, many people panic and resort to an autocratic management style to reduce ambiguity and maintain control. However, this is often counterproductive and can result in a loss of motivation among staff members or even lead them to ignore instructions from management. Managers who exhibit the ability to manage ambiguity demonstrate self-confidence, communication skills, decisiveness, analytical thinking abilities, leadership potential, and risk-taking attitude. Studies have discovered professionals with higher ambiguity tolerance tend to have higher job satisfaction, better mental health, and greater emotional intelligence.

Being Open to Change is a Hallmark of Self-Management.

Being open to change is constant, both at home and work. Communicating openly and empathetically with emotional intelligence is paramount for managing change, as it establishes a foundation of trust and understanding within the team. Open communication encourages transparency, providing employees with the information they need to comprehend the reasons for change. Understanding the "why" can positively impact the results, such as displaying adaptability, self-confidence, innovation, initiative, and serving as change catalysts (Boyatzis, Goleman, & Rhee, 2000), Foltin and Keller (2012).

Creating an environment characterized by communication freedom is crucial for introducing change to an organization. It is expected to observe how members of an organization become resistant and skeptical when faced with the need for change. Leadership is the engine of change, focusing on urgency, vision, empowering people, and seizing opportunity. The goal is to make change happen smarter and faster with accelerated efficiency. According to John Kotter , the process fuels large-scale transformation and emotional intelligence contributes to change leadership.

When one focuses on building a team to affect change, overcoming resistance is often challenging. However, in these inevitable shifts, EI becomes necessary at work. Cliche, yes, but it is true; change is the only constant. Remember when Blockbuster declined to purchase Netflix for $50 million in 2000? In March 2021 the letter to shareholders shared that Netflix had reached 200 million subscribers. As of February 09, 2024, Netflix's net worth is $242.92B. Blockbuster's downfall wasn't just a result of bad luck or poor management; it was a failure to adapt and change to a rapidly changing digital landscape. Simply, Block Buster was not open to change.

On an individual level, being open to change is an integral aspect of self-management as it involves the willingness to adapt, grow, and evolve in response to life's ever-changing circumstances. Embracing change requires self-awareness, resilience, and a growth mindset. It involves acknowledging and accepting that change is inevitable and that our attitudes and actions must adjust accordingly. By being open to change, individuals can proactively manage their emotions, behaviors, and goals, allowing them to navigate challenges more effectively and seize new opportunities for personal and professional development. Embracing change as a constant in life fosters flexibility, creativity, and a deeper sense of self-mastery.

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Luddite Award honors those warning about AI dangers.

Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates received Luddite Award.

Employees fear AI will increase workload, cause burnout, and raise privacy concerns.

Employees fear AI will make skills obsolete and introduce bias.

Workers fear job security loss due to automation and robotics.

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Content: Home » Tesla Engineer Allegedly Attacked by Factory Robot: Witnesses Describe Trail of Blood

Tesla Engineer Allegedly Attacked by Factory Robot: Witnesses Describe Trail of Blood

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The recent incident at a Tesla factory near Austin, Texas has highlighted concerns regarding worker safety and mistreatment. According to witnesses, a robot designed to handle aluminum car parts allegedly attacked a Tesla engineer, leaving him with injuries on his back and arm. This disturbing incident raises questions about the implications of increased automation in the workplace.

In 2022, NewsNation’s Austin affiliate KXAN reported on worker mistreatment at the same Tesla facility. The Workers Defense Project filed cases with the U.S. Labor Department over allegations of unpaid wages, lack of overtime pay, and holiday pay discrepancies. These claims shed light on potential labor rights violations within Tesla’s operations.

While automation has brought numerous benefits to industries worldwide by improving efficiency and productivity, incidents like this remind us of the inherent risks associated with advanced robotics in the workplace. Ensuring worker safety should remain a top priority for companies embracing automation technologies.

Promoting Safe Automation Practices

As we witness an increasing reliance on robots in manufacturing processes, it is imperative that companies establish comprehensive safety protocols to protect their workers. Here are some key steps that can be taken:

  1. Robotic Risk Assessment: Prioritize regular risk assessments for all automated systems used within factories or industrial settings. Identifying potential hazards allows companies to implement preventive measures.
  2. Enhanced Safety Features: Equip robots with advanced sensing technologies such as vision systems or force feedback sensors that ensure they can detect human presence nearby and respond accordingly.
  3. Emergency Stop Protocols: Develop efficient emergency stop mechanisms that are easily accessible for human operators working alongside robots.
  4. Educating Workers: Provide comprehensive training programs for employees who work directly or indirectly with robotic systems so they understand the potential risks and necessary safety procedures.
  5. Open Communication Channels: Encourage workers to report any safety concerns or incidents promptly, fostering a culture of transparency and accountability within the organization.
Read more:  Disney Drops Jonathan Majors from Marvel's Kang Role Following Assault Verdict

Redefining Worker-Technology Collaboration

The incident at the Tesla factory should prompt businesses to re-evaluate the collaboration between workers and robots. By emphasizing a harmonious relationship that prioritizes both productivity and worker well-being, companies can reap the benefits of automation while ensuring human welfare remains protected.

In addition to focusing on physical safety, it is crucial for employers to address potential employee concerns about job security. Clearly communicating how automation complements human skills rather than replacing them can help alleviate anxiety and ensure a more positive transition towards an automated future.

A Holistic Approach Towards Progress

The Tesla robot attack serves as a reminder that progress must be accompanied by responsible practices and ethical considerations. While advancements in automation technology continue to reshape industries across the globe, it is paramount that these changes occur alongside comprehensive risk management strategies.

By proactively addressing potential issues surrounding worker mistreatment, ensuring transparent labor practices, promoting employee empowerment through training programs, and embracing open dialogue with workers, companies like Tesla can create safe work environments where humans thrive alongside advanced robotic systems.

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Content: With the development of technology, digital transformation has become a problem for many enterprises.
But how do businesses cope with the digital wave of disruption?
In the face of this one problem after another, digital transformation consultants become the best partners on the transformation path of enterprises, providing professional strategies, technologies and experience to find the best solution for enterprises in the digital era.
In the past two or three years, with the impact of technological innovation, consumer lifestyle changes, and the need for remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have begun to pay attention to digital transformation in order to maintain "business continuity". Activate the needs of digital transformation consultants.
Formulate a transformation strategy
Start with defining the problem
The so-called digital transformation, as the name suggests, refers to the transformation of the organization, operation, and profit model of enterprises through digital technology.
Lai Weiyan shared that in fact, the process of assisting enterprises in digital transformation can be roughly divided into three parts: "digital", "transformation" and "type".
First of all, “type ” refers to understanding the state of the enterprise and clearly defining the transformation issues before you can confirm what“ type ” the enterprise should become.
“Digital transformation consultants must first understand the customer ’ s situation through interviews, questionnaires, surveys and research before they can propose a transformation strategy suitable for different customers. ”
For example, we have designed a set of scales based on past experience. After enterprises answer the 20 questions in the scale, they can roughly know the performance of enterprises in the five capabilities of "forward-looking", "pioneering", "digital", "awareness" and "resilience". See also "Satia", "Satia", "Satia", "Satia
If customers want to further establish their strengths and weaknesses, we will also provide more detailed customized questionnaires to understand the current situation of customers, so as to re-inventory the current status of customers, target customers, competitors, and how resources should be allocated. 」
Based on transformation strategy
Find the right technology tools
Once you have identified the “type ”, the next step is to identify the corresponding“ digital ” technology tools.
“The most important thing at this stage is to find the technical way to solve the customer ’ s problem.
For example, when a store wants to launch a “buy first, pay later ” service, we know that we need to launch a risk assessment model with a credit algorithm to grasp the risk of repayment.
We then decide, depending on the customer ’ s needs, whether it will be handled by the engineers within our team or an external team that can provide the required technology for the customer.
Lai Weiyan described that this process is actually like a doctor treating a patient, finding out the cause and treatment is the ultimate goal, as to whether it is to treat it by yourself, or to consult with other medical personnel, is a possible way of implementation.
Empowering businesses
Let internal partners be transformational help
Lai further stated that after establishing a digital transformation strategy and the technology required, it is the internal partners that can really bring change to the enterprise. Therefore, in the “transformation ” part, the focus is on cultivating the knowledge and capabilities required for the transformation of customers.
“Companies sometimes provoke opposition to digital transformation, which stems from a lack of understanding between those in charge of digital transformation and those in traditional jobs, and the fear that they will not keep up with the times and that they will be replaced, can become resistance to transformation. ”
In order to alleviate this situation, we will organize internal courses for our customers so that people who do not know much about digital trends, programming and so on can understand them slowly. ”
Lai Weiyan, for example, when he was training for employees of enterprises, sometimes he took the building block excavator as a prop, and divided the students into groups. Each group was composed of employees of different departments, positions, and ages, and then let them collectively complete a movable building block excavator according to the basic digital engineering knowledge taught in the course.
"In this way, in addition to allowing internal employees to communicate with each other and cooperate in a team, but also let partners who are afraid of, or even resistant to, digital transformation know that they can actually understand the digital world." 」
Lai Weiyan added that digital transformation consultants need a lot of capabilities to achieve the above tasks.
In terms of hard power, in addition to data analysis and agile management, consultants also need basic AI and information technology concepts to know through data which technical tools can achieve transformation tasks and maintain flexibility in the transformation process.
In addition, it is best for each digital transformation consultant to have expertise in one field or industry in order to provide professional services to customers who want to move to another industry in the digital transformation process. In terms of soft power, due to the rapid development of digital technology, European and American digital applications are constantly innovating, and it is especially important to maintain the habit of continuous learning and strengthen the international perspective.
At the same time, the consultant needs to communicate and cooperate with the enterprise, so the ability to express is also an indispensable key function of the job.
“Helping companies solve problems and create value through the power of technology has always been an important concept in my work.
When we see a business owner listening to us share our knowledge about digital transformation, receiving affirmations from customers, or hearing a customer ’ s employees thank us for exposing them to the new world, we have a great sense of accomplishment as a digital transformation consultant, and this is the driving force behind my continued passion for this job. ”
Name ： LAI Weiyan
Occupation: Digital Transformation Consultant
Proficiency in communication, international outlook and curiosity to learn new things.
Work tasks: To formulate digital transformation strategies and methods for enterprises, and to digitally empower customers.
Core concept: Through the power of digital technology, help enterprises solve problems and create value.
Author ： Guo Hui
(This article is excerpted from the Taipei Fine Arts Journal, Issue 662, March)
# Digital Transformation # Customers # Businesses # Consultants # Transformation

Tesla robot incident raised worker safety concerns.

Old equipment and high costs hinder technology adoption.

Title:

Content: Low Carbon Net Zero X Smart Transformation Forum Low Carbon Smart Upgrade New Solution
Organized by the Industrial Times and the Society for Weights and Measures and co-organized by the Taiwan Machine Tool and Parts Industry Association, the annual event of the machinery industry, "2023 Taichung Automation Machinery and Intelligent Manufacturing Exhibition," will be opened at the Taichung International Exhibition Center from September 1 to 4, 2023.
During the exhibition period, a special forum on “Low Carbon Net Zero X Smart Transformation ” will be held at the same time to analyze the core challenges of the manufacturing industry in the process of smart and low-carbon transformation.
Global Trends Local Challenges
The world is witnessing the rise of a low-carbon economy, and Taiwan ’ s manufacturing industry and SMEs are facing unprecedented challenges.
There are endless opportunities for smart and low-carbon transformation, but the actual transformation path is full of obstacles, including old equipment, high technology update costs, information security risks, a shortage of professionals, and employee resistance to new technologies.
The solution is on the go
In order to explore and solve these pressing issues in depth, this exhibition specially curated the “Low Carbon Net Zero X Smart Transformation ” forum.
Highlights include:
Equipment aging problem: For many enterprises, the upgrading and updating of old equipment is a huge obstacle.
This forum will delve into how to bring old equipment back to life with innovative solutions such as smart manufacturing and next-generation lighting technologies.
2. High Cost of Technology Updates: Experienced lecturers will be invited to share how to achieve carbon reduction targets with limited resources, and explore energy saving solutions and success stories to reduce the cost of renewal.
Vulnerability: The risks that can arise in digital transformation are a concern for many businesses.
This forum will share how to achieve digital transformation while protecting data security.
The shortage of professional and technical personnel: the training and recruitment of professional talents is an important part of the transformation.
The forum will explore how to train professionals through digital and smart manufacturing to meet future needs.
Employee resistance to new technologies: The forum will share how to build a company culture that supports change and provide concrete strategies to overcome internal resistance.
The challenge of reducing carbon emissions: The forum will provide concrete energy saving solutions and sharing of success stories to help companies maintain business operations while ensuring overall carbon emissions reduction.
A strong lineup of lecturers, the “Low Carbon Net Zero X Smart Transformation ” panel invited experts and scholars from various fields, including the Industrial Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Escrow Software Technology, TASS Energy Saving, Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction Alliance, Akashia Corporation, as well as Rockwell International, Ruihua Intelligence, Datong Intelligence, Donghai University and other fields.
500 booths in full display
“2023 Taichung Automation Machinery & Intelligent Manufacturing Exhibition ” showcases the latest industry trends and solutions such as machine tools, fiber lasers, smart manufacturing, automation equipment, and green supply chain technology.
The exhibition area covers high-end machine tool applications, laser sheet metal, smart manufacturing, low-carbon machinery supply chain and so on.
Online registration is now open
We invite you to participate in this grand exhibition and forum to discuss the important issues of the manufacturing industry in the process of smart and low-carbon transformation, and to find the right solution for your business.
Date: September 1, 2, and 4, 2023 at the Taichung International Exhibition Center.
Online Registration: https: / / cec.ctee.com.tw / ctms / forum-tc /

Lack of skilled talent and information-security risks impede digital transformation.

Employees resist new tech due to lack of understanding and communication gaps.

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Content: No Jitter is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

5 Mistakes To Avoid When Replacing Your Communications Technology

After working on projects replacing hundreds of phone systems over my years as a consultant, I have noticed some common trends in the projects that are the most challenging.

Here are the top 5 most common mistakes we see when replacing a telephony system:

  1. Skipping the needs assessment. Often a move to a new telephony solution occurs when the existing system reaches end of life. In these cases, it’s easy to think that your goal in replacing your existing solution is to simply duplicate what you have. But you are missing a big opportunity for improvement.

Communication technology has changed considerably in the last few years. New solutions go beyond telephony to include collaboration tools and support multiple forms of communication. Users can move seamlessly between devices and incorporate SMS text messaging and IM in addition to voice. There are usually opportunities to improve outdated workflows caused by limitations of the old technology.

If you are looking at a replacement due to inadequacies of the existing technology, a thorough needs assessment is still a good idea. Most organizations have some percentage of power users who will benefit from higher-level “tools,” and the most successful implementations recognize these users and provide the tools to make them more effective. Standard users can benefit from enhancements such as voice mail messages in their email, and the ability to work remotely, if they don’t already have these capabilities.

It's useful to document your common user requirements in addition to the more complex special requirements. When you understand the workflows of your users and how they utilize the features in your current telephone system, it will help you select a better replacement technology.

  1. Not involving business users in the decision. When a system is selected only by the IT team, it often does not fully meet the needs of the wider group of end users. We once saw a solution selected based primarily on what would be best for enhancing the IT team’s resumes.

Including end users in your needs assessment will help to uncover both business and technical requirements. This has multiple benefits:

  1. Reveals productivity enhancements offered by mobility and collaboration capabilities not available in the current system.
  2. Uncovers communications issues. Often, we find that many user complaints can be resolved through changes in business processes.
  3. Improves system acceptance. When business users have had input into the process, they are less likely to resist adoption of the new system.

Involving business users in the selection process results in a better decision in the end, although a larger group can slow the process. Business users often help to clarify what is truly needed versus what is nice to have. They typically aren’t swayed by the coolest new toys, and offer insight into areas where true productivity gains can be achieved.

  1. No end-user communications plan. End users are much more likely to accept and adopt a new technology tool when they understand how it can benefit them. A good communication plan can go a long way in reducing resistance to the change. The best communications plans take a custom approach and target messages to specific groups of users, explaining the benefits of the new tool that are most relevant to each group.

You can download an eBook that explains the adoption and change management process in greater detail

  1. Skimping on user training. UCaaS providers typically don’t offer “classroom” training on live phones. They offer virtual classes with live instructors, recorded sessions, and train-the-trainer options. While these methods save a lot of labor for the vendors, they can be insufficient for the users. On the surface it seems OK. After all, how hard can it be to use a new phone?

But new telephony solutions bring many new capabilities that users may have never been exposed to previously. They may not know how to manage calls and features using a computer instead of the hard phone.

And there are cell phone apps, collaboration tools, and presence and status information. There may be multiple tools that offer the same capabilities. Your new tool may offer chat, or video conferencing. Which tool should they be using?

All of this complexity creates confusion for your users. If your new solution has any feature depth, then there will be complexity. In order to get full use of the new capabilities, users must be trained on them, and given guidelines on which tools are to be used.

  1. Underestimating the difficulty of porting numbers. This process can be quite dysfunctional, especially if you have been with your carrier for several years. Records can be inaccurate, and the entire process is based on this information. At times, this can be a headache (or worse). For a breakdown of common problems, check out this article

Often the process takes longer than expected, so build extra time into your process to allow for that.

For more tips and advice from people who have gone through this process, check out these sessions at Enterprise Connect:

Tuesday, March 26 | 2:00pm - 2:45pm

UCAAS CASE STUDIES: HOW YOUR PEERS MADE THE MIGRATION

Moderator: Melissa Swartz(Swartz Consulting)

Panelists: Steve Panton (Gannett Fleming), Brian Harrison (Broward College), Karen Gordon (King & Spalding)

Wednesday, March 27 | 2:00pm - 2:45pm

ENTERPRISE LEADERS SPEAK OUT: VOICE MIGRATION--CRITICAL ISSUES FOR A (STILL) CRITICAL CAPABILITY

Moderator: Melissa Swartz (Swartz Consulting)

Panelists: Scott Johnson (Cargill), Georges Habalian (HCA Healthcare), Eric Zweigbaum (Conair)

Title:

Content: This content is part of the Conference Coverage: Everything Enterprise Connect 2021: News, trends and insights

UC user adoption training must evolve for hybrid work

Learn why industry leaders at Enterprise Connect said user adoption training is key to UC success in the hybrid workplace -- and how employee experience platforms can help.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed how people work. The adoption and use of unified communications tools, for example, skyrocketed to support remote workers. But, as workflows have changed, organizations must alter their approach to supporting end-user adoption of new tools.

At the start of the pandemic, organizations rolled out whatever tools they felt necessary to support remote work. As a result, employees learned how to use the tools on the fly as the traditional methods of user adoption training -- such as classroom-style trainings in the office -- were no longer possible.

Now, as organizations have become more strategic about their unified communications (UC) investments to support a hybrid workplace, they must also consider employee training to ensure adoption success. There is a direct correlation between preparing end users before deploying a new tool and user productivity post-deployment, COMMfusion LLC President Blair Pleasant said.

Most end users who felt they were well prepared with training before a deployment believed the new tool made them more productive, according to a BCStrategies survey of end users and IT leaders. Of those end users who said they weren't adequately trained, only 17% said they felt more productive.

Pleasant and other industry analysts and leaders spoke at the Enterprise Connect virtual conference. One key topic was the importance of supporting user adoption in a hybrid workplace to ensure UC deployment success and employee productivity, regardless of location.

Hybrid work means new training models

As organizations think about user adoption programs in a hybrid workplace, they have to ensure training is equal for both remote and office-based employees, said Eric Hanson, chief marketing officer at cloud-based communications provider Fuze.

Some user adoption training methods, like classroom-style instruction, will be set aside as employees work remotely. Other training strategies will emerge, like Yammer community forums, to create more of an online discussion, said Alan Shen, CTO at IT management software provider Unify Square.

Video training will also be key, especially to recreate the feeling of in-office training. For more successful video training, organizations should consider virtual events that combine real-time activities with asynchronous, on-demand content, Hanson said.

Training structured with synchronous and asynchronous content can address the different ways people learn and create a more engaging experience, he said. On-demand materials can also be used for reference after a training session.

"Adoption isn't something that happens right after deployment," Hanson said.

However, using video for training can be challenging, despite the overall growth of video across organizations, Pleasant said.

"The problem is end users can do it on their own time, but it doesn't mean they're going to," she said.

Training goes beyond business workflows

Organizations need to remember that UC tools are not just for business workflows and communication.

"When deploying new technology, we just think about the technology," Pleasant said. "We don't think about the organizational changes, the cultural impact and change management."

Rolling out a new application or system is not the main and end goal. The deployment needs to help employees collaborate more effectively, she said.

For example, many employees have used UC tools not just for collaboration workflows, but to maintain company culture and personal connections with their co-workers during the pandemic. User adoption training could include educating employees on how to use a new tool for social communications, like virtual happy hours, to support team cohesion, Shen said.

Employee experience platforms support user adoption

While training is key to boost user adoption, a major roadblock to adoption is the actual experience when using the tools. According to a global Omdia survey on the future of work, the biggest barrier to achieving successful outcomes with digital workplace technology is employee resistance.

"It's not a surprise as employees and line-of-business decision-makers have an idea of what tools they need to be successful, and IT isn't listening to them," Omdia analyst Tim Banting said.

According to the survey, 45% of companies said the IT department determines the need for workplace tools and makes the final recommendation. Only 15% of companies involve other stakeholders in the business when making buying decisions.

The result of not including employees and lines of business in buying decisions is not achieving ROI because employees aren't using the tools, he said.

Employee experience platforms can help highlight where user adoption is faltering and where more training may be necessary.

Addressing the gap between performance and experience

The operational data and application performance metrics that IT sees do not always reflect what employees are experiencing, said Johnny Russ, general manager of employee experience management at Qualtrics, a provider of employee experience tools.

IT may see data about the tools employees are logging in to or the number of help desk tickets filed, but they don't see data around situations where employees are logged in to an app but having frustrating UX.

"We're often missing appropriate understanding of why this is happening," Russ said.

Employee experience platforms, such as Qualtrics and Microsoft Viva, can provide greater insight into how employees are engaging with tools through features such as training effectiveness surveys, pulse surveys and AI-driven analytics. Without these metrics, IT could have a hard time addressing UX.

Or, as Pleasant put it, "You can't fix what you don't measure."

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Fear of surveillance technology and privacy violations fuels resistance.

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Fighting The ‘Big Brother’ Fallacy In Workplace Tech

Michael Moran, author and award-winning documentarian, is Chief Marketing, Risk & Sustainability Officer at Microshare, Inc.

With the world taking another crack at a “return to work” this autumn, a spate of stories have appeared warning of a byproduct of the global pandemic: A reset of societal norms when it comes to privacy expectations in the workplace. In recent weeks, everyone from The Wall Street Journal to The New York Times to The New York Review of Books has weighed in. There’s even been some action in the U.S. Senate, where Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., is asking the Labor Department to take a fresh look at what has become known as “surveillance tech.”

The best of these pieces carefully parses the advantages and disadvantages of technological innovations born of the pandemic emergency. But the general tone has been disappointingly alarmist and without context: The transformed worker-employer relationship is also a byproduct of the pandemic, and one I would argue will make most workplaces more rather than less humane.

There are indeed instances of companies that have used the pandemic as an excuse to push into clearly unethical (if not illegal) frontiers of surveillance. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that monitors data privacy matters, breaks these so-called “bossware” products into two broad categories: those that employees know about and can possibly control, and those that secretly snoop on employees, in the office or remotely, with no consent. Some of this stuff is dastardly; others dangerous and evil. The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow documented the story of NSO, an Israeli software firm that produced a deep-link surveillance software called Pegasus sold to governments to track dissidents.

It’s one thing to insist that people turn on their cameras for Teams or Zoom meetings, or insist they clock in when they arrive at work. It’s quite another to deploy software that secretly photographs or videotapes a remote employee, or which reads keyboard strokes and assumes that a lack of such activity equals goofing off.

But many of the technological innovations borne out of the pandemic are in no way akin to “Big Brother.” Across the world, the need to monitor the health of indoor spaces and the wellness of those within them has spawned a new push to outfit buildings with Internet of Things sensors measuring everything from CO2 and particulate matter in the air to the density and usage of conference rooms, labs and washrooms. Marketing such products should emphasize that these technologies do not collect the personally identifiable information so dear to the ad-fueled business model of Facebook and Amazon.

This new workplace tech mostly responds to well-established risks that have been underscored by the pandemic. Lead with the importance of privacy and transparency front and center in any such marketing, and be sure to stress the firm’s record of compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and its American variants. Admit when identity is necessary for the product to function. For example, desk booking software is useless if you can’t prove you booked the desk. Don’t shy away from this conversation. Meet it head-on and, ideally, with a forthright admission that any trade-offs will be done transparently and with full consent.

The key for both marketing and human resources professionals is to embrace transparency when deploying these products and preparing the company to patiently explain the rationale for things like desk booking systems or push-button feedback stations without dismissing employee concerns as just so much griping.

The situation becomes more complex when the goal of new technology is risk mitigation and safety rather than convenience or efficiency. Sometimes, the ability to know the identity of a person is necessary. But even here, consent should be obtained and the process made transparent.

For example, one of my company’s clients deployed a wearable contact tracing system to protect factory staff around the world from major Covid-19 outbreaks as the pandemic took hold. Our client deployed Bluetooth-enabled wristbands active only on the worksite and which had no ability to store PII. The data remained anonymous until someone reported a symptom, at which point our client’s HR department did a reverse database query and informed anyone who recently had been within six feet of the person in question to test for Covid-19. The company addressed employees’ privacy concerns and was transparent about its reasons for deploying the technology.

The ability to be transparent about how technologies like these work is precisely why tarring all the new workplace technology with Orwell’s brush is counter-productive. “Snooping” or “invasions of privacy” by definition involves subterfuge and secrecy. Context is important. The right to privacy in a workplace is a moving target, and it’s worth noting that, ever since email became a standard business tool, U.S. courts have held that employers can read messages composed on company equipment or transiting company domains. This strikes me as far more invasive than a sensor that warns that CO2 levels are spiking, or allows employees to know which conference rooms are available for booking.

Sunshine, they say, is the best disinfectant. Shined in the right places, it can also allay fears in the post-pandemic workplace.

Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

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Lessons Learned Selling Digital Transformation In A Risk-Averse Industry

Michael W. Levin, CEO and co-founder of Ideon.

In a 2018 McKinsey survey, 80% of respondents said their organizations had undertaken a digital transformation in the preceding five years.

And that was before the pandemic, which has, to say the least, accelerated such changes.

Of course it has. I’m preaching to the choir when I posit to this audience that digital change is necessary for the survival of almost any organization today, business or otherwise. That’s certainly the case for the industry in which my company operates—health insurance and employee benefits—and especially so for carriers, in part because of the rapid rise of InsurTech, which is helping to drive digital innovation throughout the industry.

And yet.

All too often, selling digital transformation within large organizations is an uphill battle. That’s especially the case at organizations in established industries—with ways of doing business that can sometimes date back decades—and is even more a truism if those organizations have a predisposition to manage risk. There are many reasons for this, of course, but three fears play a key role.

• Fear Of Change: It's human nature to favor the familiar over the unknown. We prefer what we know, even when shown a superior alternative. So it’s understandable that executives accustomed to analog processes may be wary of digital ones. There’s an entire field of study, behavioral economics, built around the status quo bias.

• Fear Of Loss: Digital transformation requires investment. And as a general rule, humans react twice as strongly to the loss of a given amount as they do to the gain of the same amount. So unless the ROI for a digital transformation project is clear and convincing, certain colleagues will tend to resist spending money.

• Fear Of Mortality: Not literally, of course. But bosses and employees alike often associate digital change with staff reductions. But even though such relationships are unclear, some executives resist change if they believe it will lead to a loss of headcount or otherwise erode positions of power.

The Way Forward

So how can an organization’s evangelizers persuade colleagues to embrace change? There’s no simple answer, but my experience over the years helping insurance organizations embrace data transparency and connected ecosystems suggests that four strategies—on their own or in combination—can help break through most institutional roadblocks:

1. Align proposed changes with business goals. Change for modernizing’s sake is one thing. Change that helps achieve already established goals is something else entirely. Good leaders are generally driven by big-picture aims. Tying digital transformation to company priorities allows evangelizers to harness existing momentum rather than requiring them to start from scratch.

2. Create your own stakeholders. Whatever their personality, human beings are much more likely to support an initiative if they feel invested in it. Quite frankly, we value something more when it's ours. And the best way to create investment in the idea of change is to involve colleagues early in the transformational journey. Ask the appropriate decision-makers or influencers for input about their problems and possible solutions. If the digital transformation you seek is the logical conclusion to that process, otherwise resistant colleagues will more likely support the idea because they had a hand in getting there.

3. Marshal your facts. Before investing resources in digital transformation, decision-makers want to know that it will pay off. Prepare information—statistics, research findings, anecdotes—on the ROI of digital transformation. Seventy-six percent of employees surveyed said having the digital tools they need makes them more productive. Additionally, Harvard Business School technologists report (paywall) that companies with the most effective digital transformations have higher net income than those with less-successful digital transformations. Data points like these can motivate leaders to prioritize tech imperatives.

4. Leverage FOMO. Regret aversion is a powerful thing. That is to say, many people are not as afraid of making a bad decision as they are afraid of feeling bad about a decision they made. It’s one reason people follow the crowd. We don’t necessarily believe that other people are smarter than we are. But many of us do believe (if only nonconsciously) that if we follow the lead of others we will have company if our decision turns out to be unwise. Regret aversion bias can be leveraged powerfully when selling digital transformation by framing a failure to adopt change as leaving an organization alone in the dark while the rest of the industry—or even its cutting-edge leaders—moves toward the light.

I know there is a reliable path to digital transformation because my firm has seen dozens of clients and partners complete such journeys. But accounting for the inevitable challenges, both structural and psychological, is key to achieving success.

Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?

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Resistance can stem from loss of control and increased workload.

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The Right Way To Evaluate A Technology Solution For Your Organization

Founder and CEO at Ludi, Inc., a healthcare technology company making it easy for hospitals to pay physicians.

Selecting a new technology for your company can be daunting. Organizations usually begin this process with a desire to either streamline or solve specific pain points. Regardless of your specific needs, implementing new technology will involve change. For your organization as an entity, change can be great. Change can reduce inefficiencies and errors, as well as usher in new opportunities. But for the people who work for your organization, change can trigger anxiety and ultimately resistance to the new technology. Here are six things to keep in mind when evaluating new technology:

1. Identify your problem. It sounds simple, but many organizations jump straight to the solutions they find appealing. If you focus on the true problem you’re trying to solve, you will stay goal-oriented while searching for a vendor.

2. Keep an open mind. You may have seen a solution you find appealing, but remember that you don’t know what you don’t know. The technology partner you choose should be an expert in the field and may offer you products that you didn’t even know existed. Stay open to new ideas and solutions. One of the things I’ve noticed is prospective clients saying, “We can’t buy this product unless it handles this exact case we’re trying to solve for.” That’s not always the most effective approach because it doesn’t take all the variables into consideration. For example, my company works with hospitals to streamline complex physician payment structures. The hospital may have had the doctor recording their time one way because they were using a paper system and approvals needed to be checked in a certain manner for that doctor to get paid. Once you eliminate paper, though, in that particular scenario, everything is up for discussion – not just the way doctors record their time, but the entire physician payment process at the hospital. Rigidity will not benefit you when evaluating new technology.

3. Get your people on the same page. Meet with department heads to pull together all the pain points that need to be solved. You must be comprehensive during your internal review because needs come out differently across different departments. You may not be able to solve everyone’s problem with the new technology, but it’s important to align your team before you bring in a vendor. Then prioritize your needs. Once your departments agree on the priorities, be clear with your team on who is making the final decision. Departmental input is important, but knowing who the purchaser is within your organization is equally important. Remember: Don’t lose sight of why you're buying this technology. Keep the ultimate purpose in mind.

4. Consider internal change management. Change is difficult for many of us, so it’s important to stop and consider the people who will be affected by this change. Resistance to change can originate from any of the following: loss of control, insecurities about competence, feeling defensive about past work, concern about more work and general uncertainty. Be proactive in preparing your staff for a change, because all of these responses tend to have a ripple effect in corporate cultures.

5. Focus on the future. If you’ve ever bought a house, you know that there are things you didn’t know you needed until you lived with your investment for a few years. Technology is no different. You may have a list of goals for your business, but there is no telling what you’ll need 10 years from now. The best technology partner will be flexible enough to support your organization as it grows. How can you find a partner with this type of future-focused outlook? See point number two.

6. Listen and be patient. The people delivering technology solutions in the market are experts and can offer you insights into the industry. I suggest finding a solution that can handle 90% of what you need out of the box. Work with your solution provider and try their out-of-the-box solutions for 90 days before you decide what you need next. Make sure the product you choose is flexible enough to grow with your business, but resist over-customizing the product because that can back you into a corner.

Technology solutions truly can help you streamline and standardize your business. Time spent organizing what problem you are trying to solve will make the search much more efficient. While there may not be a solution out there that does everything you hope to accomplish, keep an open mind and you'll find a solution that's right for your specific needs.

Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?

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Blockbuster's failure illustrates consequences of resisting digital tech.

Employees see RPA as threat, fearing job loss and increased responsibility.

Digital tools increase workplace stress and blur work-life boundaries.

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Content: Elon Musk fired his staff with a letter.
This is how online communication has made the job market tougher.
During the 1998 film “You ’ ve Got Mail, ” starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the tone of the e-mail alert was very comforting for the two protagonists, as they knew they would read pleasant sociable words from the sender.
But contrary to what the scenes of the romantic film showed, the tone of the e-mail alert in real life may carry a bad surprise news that you did not expect.
This is what happened to Twitter employees this month.
An employee who has been working for years somewhere, on his daily way to work, hears from his phone an alert telling him that he receives an e-mail, quickly passes his eyes on the shocking message that the company he works for is going through “the difficult process of shrinking the global workforce, which will affect the number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to the company, ” and that he has to check his email again at a specific time. He'll be fired.
That was what actually happened with Twitter employees after billionaire Elon Musk took over the site, according to the Washington Post.
After receiving the email, some workers have already lost access to internal systems such as email service and the Slack messaging app, one of the company ’ s employees told the newspaper that in the hours after receiving the message, the number of employees began to dwindle in Slack channels, people were falling like flies.
Imagine years of your life and hard work ending up for somewhere with a dry, direct email.
You won ’ t see a grateful look in your manager ’ s eye for your efforts, you won ’ t hear the sorry tone of voice that tries to ease the decision and tells you that no one wanted this but it was forced against everyone, there is no human contact here and you don ’ t even get the right feelings of gratitude and regret from your workplace after years of effort, there is only electronic communication, and dry language that tells you specific information and actions to do.
Harsh work environments
It can be considered that electronic communication has contributed - in some way - to the increase of the severity of the different labor markets, not only dismissal through the electronic space, the severity of electronic communication imposed itself and tightened its grip even on the steps of the business cycle itself, after changing the way companies communicate with employees, customers and suppliers.
More recently, the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has accelerated this huge shift in communication towards the point of no return.
During the epidemic, many organizations reimagined their communication systems with their employees, replacing them in favor of flexible working from home in whole or in part.
Digital communication has become the leading force in this new way of working.
The definition of electronic communication at work includes all forms of online communication of an organization or company, from the use of electronic messages to the transmission of information via digital media (2).
As electronic communication has become prevalent in many organizations and companies, there is therefore more dealing with video conferencing tools such as Zoom, and messaging channels such as Slack or WhatsApp, which also means a shift in the culture of communication and communication between the workplace and employees.
Good workplace communication ensures employees have the information they need to perform well, build a positive work environment, and eliminate potential deficiencies.
Effective communication must convey information accurately, while maintaining or improving human relationships.
This year, an expert market survey found that 28% of employees cited poor communication as a reason for not being able to finish projects on time (3).
The Inbox That Changes Our Lives
Well, email in particular has had a profound impact on communities by changing how humans communicate.
It has significantly reduced the use of traditional mail, with a 2013 study finding that email has achieved 92% replacement of written messages as a means of personal communication.
A simple observation of the reality around you now can see that it may not be limited to traditional mail, e-mail has replaced social visits and phone calls as well.
At work, companies and large organizations use email systems as an important communication link between management and employees and between employees and each other. Your manager does not need to come to your office or call you or even call you on the phone to ask you for a task.
It is true that business messages can now be received via various chat apps available on smartphones, but email is still the most prevalent form of electronic communication within organizations, and the increasing use of mobile devices in business has given the email experience a new dimension (5).
Thanks to email, employees can interact and collaborate without having to have a face-to-face conversation, which is not entirely positive: according to a paper published by Cyber Psychology, a lack of direct communication often leads to misunderstandings, especially when it comes to humor or sarcasm, which can reduce communication effectiveness.
Although one of the most important advantages of electronic communication is speed in the completion of tasks and work, rapid communication is not necessarily a good communication, as the excessive use of e-mail in communication leads to many losses.
A company with 100 employees can expect to lose approximately $450,000 a year or more due to serious email errors, inefficiencies, and misunderstandings.
Poor writing skills are one of the biggest problems with email.
A recent study by the National Writing Commission found that U.S. companies spend as much as $3.1 billion annually to address the writing deficiencies of their employees.
These shortcomings constitute ambiguity in the required statement, incomplete information and excessive information, as well as among the most prominent errors that the mail is written in a harsh or demanding tone.
On the other hand, sending departments dozens of emails is a growing problem for many workers.
Sometimes employees are overwhelmed with follow-up emails, which may force them to ignore other important job duties.
On the flip side, managers who spend a lot of time reading and responding to emails from partners, suppliers, employees, and customers have less time to train and motivate their subordinates.
But the costs of email ultimately fall disproportionately on the recipient, who has to deal with excessive amounts of messages and requests as quickly as possible (5).
Less communication and more stress.
Workplace communication may have been a source of stress and anxiety for employees and workers long before the digital age.
Imagine your boss coming out of his office and telling you to catch up with him in his office, or calling you to get a status report on a particular project, these types of situations always generate stress and anxiety.
You may think that electronic communication has eased the severity of this because it is no longer required to be direct communication, and you no longer have to control the emotions of your face and the tone of your voice and body language if you hear from your manager what bothers you, because all he will get from your reaction, in the case of electronic communication, is a few words he will read from behind his screen.
With the shift to new technology to facilitate conversations, communication has become easier and faster, but its effectiveness has been significantly reduced.
After the boundaries between our professional and private lives collapsed, the employee ’ s communication with the manager or employer is no longer limited to official working hours, the employee may be eating dinner or putting his children to bed while receiving a work letter from his company; creating a sense of the need to work 24 / 7.
Additionally, the speed of digital communication can make employees feel that every message they receive requires an immediate response; which in turn creates more stress.
The researchers found that when employees receive an email after working hours, they tend to overestimate the speed at which the sender expects a response.
This phenomenon is known as "email urgency bias" and has been linked to lower well-being and higher levels of job stress (7).
Also, there is an additional level of anxiety represented by those three small points that indicate that the person opposite you is writing a message to you at the moment, when these points appear next to the name of your boss, they give you time to imagine and analyze what he may be saying excessively, and because they know you are connected to the Internet, there is pressure to respond as quickly as possible, even if you are doing something else.
It can be said that electronic communication has managed to create a whole new layer of complexity in dealing during the work, instead of direct communication that allows to explain the intended meaning and communicate it more smoothly and allows to ask questions and get a direct and quick answer to them, it turns into a long series of messages on professional communication platforms.
(8).
Morning messages screaming at you!
Let's give you more hair, Beta.
Imagine waking up in the morning to an email in your inbox written entirely in capital letters, that message excites your senses, and makes you pay attention much faster than the cup of coffee you sip.
By using the “Caps Lock ” key and putting an exclamation mark at the end, your co-worker or boss has done the equivalent of yelling at you during a direct communication.
These “glaring ” emails are on the rise dramatically in different work environments (9).
In a 2009 study, more than 90% of professionals surveyed said they had experienced abusive and possibly abusive email exchanges at work.
During the same study, research was conducted into the impact of cyberbullying in the workplace on employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to quit.
The survey results showed that e-rudeness was negatively associated with employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and employees who experienced e-rudeness were also more likely to quit their jobs or engage in negative behavior against their organization (10).
Studies have also shown that dealing with rude emails at work can create long-lasting stresses and affect the recipient ’ s well-being.
In a simulation experiment, participants who received such messages from their boss experienced more negative emotions, and found it difficult to continue participating in work tasks and answering questions correctly.
During the study, 84 participants completed a series of math tasks while interacting with a non-supportive supervisor via email.
Data was collected on energy, mood, ability to perform tasks and participate.
The results indicated that participants reported higher levels of negative impact and lower levels of energy after working with a non-supportive supervisor, compared to the group that did the same things while receiving an email from a supportive supervisor.
In addition, participants who received negative mail performed significantly worse on math tasks (11).
The stress associated with email rudeness can also pass into family life, where the employee ’ s family bears the brunt of the stress caused by email rudeness.
A study of couples indicated that employees conveyed their stress to their partner over the weekend.
(12)
Finally, let ’ s point out that email rudeness doesn ’ t just mean outright insult, it also includes ignoring you from the other party.
A special study in this regard suggests that there are two distinct forms of impolite emails: the first is insulting remarks or active rudeness, which are messages of an aggressive, overt nature.
The second type is ignoring or silent treatment, which some consider negative rudeness, which in turn leaves people stuck and struggling with their negative thoughts and uncertainties (13).
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Sources:
Source: The Island

Lack of clear ROI and perceived modernizing for its own sake causes executive resistance.

Cultural resistance to change manifests as opposition to new technologies.

Lack of transparency in data collection leads to distrust and resistance.

Institutions that fail to adapt risk obsolescence.

Title:

Content: Mohammed bin Zayed attends Ramadan lecture entitled "How Technology Helps Organizations Grow"
T + T - normal size
His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, attended the fourth and final Ramadan lecture organized by the Mohammed bin Zayed Council entitled "How technology helps organizations grow to keep pace with the future" and hosted by the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
The lecture was delivered by Mr. Salim Ismail, Founding Executive Director of Universidad, Co-founder and Chairman of OpenExO Foundation and Board Member of the American non-profit XPRIZE Foundation.
The lecture was attended by H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler ’ s Representative in Al Dhafra Region, H.H. Sheikh Nahyan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Foundation for Charitable and Humanitarian Works, H.H. Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H.H. Sheikh Khalid bin Zayed Al Nahyan, H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Hamad Hanoun Al Nahyan, Special Affairs Advisor at the Ministry of Presidential Affairs and a number of sheikhs and officials.
The lecturer expressed his admiration for what he described as the "flexibility" shown by the UAE in the application and modernization of government work systems, pointing out that the major changes adopted by the UAE in the government work system is the best that can be done as preparation for the future and the opportunities that the coming era of humanity will bring.
He pointed out that the adoption of legislation and regulations related to the modern technological sectors will contribute to enhancing the attractiveness of the UAE in the near future, especially as this will make it progress in many countries of the world in this aspect.
Ismail talked about the characteristics of the technological transformations that are taking place in our world today, and how we should adapt to these rapid changes that are taking place in front of us, which have reached the doubling of technology every nine months, levels that we may not have seen throughout our history.
“We have to be ready and have the courage to change the way things work around us and look for solutions using technology and artificial intelligence.
The lecturer stressed that unprecedented developments in the world of technology and artificial intelligence may pose a challenge to systems and leaders of countries unable to keep pace with what is happening around them, stressing the importance of flexibility and governments and seeking to adapt at a greater pace than they have ever done before, pointing out that the more flexible institutions in various forms, the greater the chances of success.
Ismail put forward his own equation for institutions wishing to keep pace with the future, which consists of four axes, the first of which is to embrace transformational technology, and the second: the structuring of institutions, whether governmental or private, to be able to adapt to major technological transformations.
The third is changing the mindset of dealing with new ideas, and ending with not being afraid of development and change.
The lecturer spoke of what he called resistance to change in institutions, stressing that institutions that do not adapt to the digital revolution will disappear, and that companies that are not ready to adapt to this revolution will be left behind.
He said that it is necessary to face the current opposition to change in institutions, and presented the experience of "Amazon" in this regard, which is based on not rejecting any new idea, and that the automatic answer in dealing with new ideas is yes and not no, and oblige everyone who rejects a new idea to provide justification for rejection in a two-page report and thus found most of the ideas their way to experiment and test.
The lecturer pointed out that the process of development known to the world was taking a different form, where one or two sectors stand out and lead a major stage of change, but what we are experiencing today seems different as we have a large number of technologies that move rapidly forward at once, equal to doubling the technologies in every nine months.
The lecturer called this movement “Gutenberg Moments ”, likening it to Johannes Gutenberg ’ s invention of printing in the 15th century, which changed the world and revolutionized ways of transferring and exchanging knowledge. He believes that we are witnessing similar moments where we are exploiting computing, telecommunications, digitization and other accelerating technologies including artificial intelligence, 3D printing, drones, genetics and robotics to enhance our world and...
This will lead to radical changes in our society.
He cited a number of innovations that are on the rise and unusual abundance such as photography, where innovation and digitization have allowed the ability to shoot thousands of images in record time and share them instantly without the need for old acidification and storage equipment. He also reviewed what he described as the “agricultural boom ” that is being shaped by vertical agriculture by reducing the dependence on water used in agriculture to more than 90 percent. humanity to find extraordinary solutions to the challenges of water and food security.
The lecturer stressed that the success of these innovations came as a result of their link to human needs and finding the most cheap, efficient and abundant solutions to produce those needs, reviewing many goods, products and devices that contributed to innovation and technology in achieving abundance such as cars, phones and household equipment and how they turned into abundant and impressive production.
He pointed out that the old technology was very expensive and not available to many poor countries, but the most prominent feature of modern technology and innovations is its ability to spread quickly and inexpensively, citing the resort of a number of villagers in Vietnam to use solar energy to operate small boats and fishing there, stressing that this type of practice is the next stage for humanity, where everyone will benefit from the abundance of technology to facilitate business and organize most aspects of life around us.
The lecture featured video presentations on the topic by Dr. Saeed Al Dhaheri, Director of the Centre for Future Studies at the University of Dubai, and Mr. Peng Xiao, CEO of G42 Group.
The lecture will be broadcast on Thursday, April 28 at 5: 55 pm on a number of local channels next to the YouTube channel of the lectures of the "Mohammed bin Zayed Council".
The lecture was part of a series of lectures organized by the Mohammed bin Zayed Council and addressed many political, economic, cultural and technological issues of importance to the UAE community and the world, by hosting a distinguished group of experts and thinkers from inside and outside the UAE.
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