Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
I have recently been doing some leadership work, reviewing and defining my Big Why, Vision and Passions that I bring to my life and work. This brought me to consider why I do what I do...without really considering it until now. Is work just a paycheck, or is there something more? Am I driven by some underlying or hidden cause?
I work in IT or Information Technology. Basically the management of computer systems that support our daily lives, work and home, professional and personal, individually and our communities. The basic goal or drive is to make our lives easier by allowing computing machines to do the work. A computer system should always have a positive impact to the bottom line- how much we are able to achieve. And in our increasingly complex worlds with the growth in population, and size of our communities and cities, it should allow us to manage the resources and needs efficiently, effectively and equitably.
Unfortunately, within our societies and communities, we often allow technology to be the goal, rather than the humans that we are, and that the technology serves. It’s easily done. All to easily done. Our societies have setup operating models that once seemed to make sense, at least in an emerging world where resources are plentiful (seemingly unlimited) and the needs (and number of humans) are relatively small. Unfortunately as the human race has grown to the point (7.5 billion and counting... https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/) that it is impacting the entire planet (resources are now limited), these operating models are no longer sustainable. Well, they never were sustainable. It just didn’t matter until now. The capitalist, corporations, consumerism of sales and services, feeding every single whim of the individual regardless of the impact has led to a massive disconnect to our way of living from our environment and planet.
My interest and passion is the creation and adoption of “Human(e) Technology.” Technology that supports us as humans, but does not take away from our human-ness. Technology that removes our impact on the planet (zero footprint) and allows us to live in harmony with the environment and each other. Unfortunately, we cannot go back to our agrarian or hunter-gather beginnings as there are just too many of us now. There are others that are taking on this cause (Douglas Ruskoff’s Team Human, https://teamhuman.fm/), and I would look to engage and promote those humans that are out to humane-ify our technological futures.
