The man and the machine in 2013

If you pronounce the title of this post out loud (go ahead...) you will notice that the people in the same room look at you funny, but also that it rhymes. But those are just the words. It doesn't seem to rhyme anymore. In recent months I noticed a strong tension between what we hold dear as our intrinsic human nature and the perceived threads on our human essence by technology.
And I don't get it.

The counter-balance
For example, I attended TEDxBrussels where one of the speakers was Andrew Keen talking about his book Digital Vertigo.  Andrew has been writing and speaking for years now on the dangers of the social web - how it is making us dumb, how it is making us narcistic, how it attacks our privacy - in short how it is de-humanizing us. The tag line of the new book is "How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us".
This I do get.
We are in need for people to counter-balance the hype we build around technology and social media. Our stuff might be in the cloud, but we must stay with our feet on the ground. But to me it is just that: a reminder to stay realistic and to counter-balance our tendency to hype stuff into bubbles. Below is his TEDx talk, brought to you in his characteristic charming voice.



Closer to learning technology, this EdTech blog post warns that all major education disruptions (MOOCs, learning analytics and Open Educational Resources) are bubbles waiting to burst. It is good to take these warnings into account. Bubbles are born because we lose sight of one of the sides of the coin.

To err is human
Then take my experience at the recent Online Educa Berlin conference, a conference for the 'believers' in the field and Europe's biggest gathering on technology enhanced learning. Two speakers after my presentation on the Quantified Self movement and learning by tracking, a guy from a business school started by stating he might be in the wrong conference, refers to technology as 'gadgets', denounced learning from facts (hello, big data?), and finds basically that all we need to do is have meaningful conversations as people without intermediates such as technology. The audience brought counter-arguments and it became an interesting but slightly disturbing conversation. My shock came at the end of the conference after the screening of the movie 'Connected'. Personally I had wanted to see this movie for a year, but was very disappointed in the end. Instead of a movie giving what was promised in the trailer (on how we got hyper connected and therefore interdependent), I saw a movie of an artist describing the cancer of her father, the birth of her child, and her father's brain research which for example assigns a gender on the halfs of our brain. Donald Clark rightly pointed out the many scientific mistakes in the movie afterwards, but the general feeling in the audience was an appreciation of the artistic and human interpretation.
I don't get it.
In a conference of the 'believers' we hear voices that favour scientific nonsense just because it is perceived as more human?

Efficiency is a choice
Via a post of Dan Pontefract I stumbled on the 'shitstorm' of negative reactions to a post of Harvard Business Review blogster Alexandra Samuel. In her article 'Dear colleague put the notebook down', she calls on her colleagues to drop pen and paper in meetings and take their notes digital because it is more efficient. Oh boy! About 95% of the many reactions (and this is the HRB audience mind you) are vitriol, and the fact she authored a book on the tool she recommends didn't help. (Note: the recent comments are more professional). They go from 'the most disrespectful thing you can do in a meeting is having a tablet or notebook with you' to 'I can't believe hbr actually published this nonsense...' and 'does noone have a secretary anymore?'.
I don't get it.
Technology was and is all about making us more productive, making our lives better and taking over tasks that are repetitive. Yes, it is very human to want the choice to be less effective by sticking to your habits - but the consequences of that choice are yours too. You may respond as you wish to the call of technology, but keep in mind this is 2013. As a personal rant, I'm flabbergasted with the hostility towards technology I sometimes encounter in the leadership training field - more by emotion than fact. There has been plenty of time to get used to the new media. I encounter great people and participants that have never want to learn to play a video. I get an evil eye in those situations, I can't help it. Again: this is 2013. Playing a video is like walking through a door, you are supposed to be able to figure it out! There, I said it.

The dark side of social media
Via a Dutch post of Pierre Gorissen I found an equally Dutch report titled 'the dark side of social media' stating that they make us stupid, uncaring and even end privacy and creativity.  In this BBC article on a technology that isn't even there yet (beaming) the title and the entire article first move to the potential negative outcome. 'Real world beaming: the risk of avator and robot crime' This is a complete upside-down from the bubble times, where we would only hear the great potential of any new technology.
I don't get it.
Internet technology and social media on itself have always been morally neutral, and have always made new things good and new things bad possible. Maybe it is part of our human nature to overemphasise (or only emphasise) one part of this equation, and then switch our tone to the other side. The truth is in the middle: both good and bad use are a result of a disruptive technology. Of course there is also a dark side. (Even the force has one...)

There is no 'us' and 'them'
Trendwatchers tell us that in 2013 authenticity and meaning are high on our radar. I'm translating a quote from an article by Herman Konings: "We are running away from technology. Especially people in their 20ies and 30ies need a break from bits and bytes and go on a digital diet."
On our quest for authenticity we feel much of the technology that we build to surround us as fake. The discussions go about 'us' versus 'them'.
I don't get it.
There is no 'them'. Psychologists have found we tend to attribute personality characteristics to things (do you recognise a face in a car's design?). But they are still things and we make them. Over the next 5 years, robots will enter our lives - yes, the trend will flip back. I enjoyed the movie 'Robot and Frank' about the relationship between an elderly burgler and his new domestic robot.  In an article in the Wall Street Journal 'why our service robots needn't look like humans',  we learn robots aren't very good at being human, they don't need arms and legs. If you don't try to dress them up as humans we won't see them as 'they'. This isn't The Matrix...



All we are saying... is give 'them' a chance

So far I used a lot of words to say that I don't get it. But I do get this is a conversation we'll be having in 2013. Maybe all we are saying is 'hi, this technology thing is happening so fast and massive, let us stop and think for a moment'. Well, then let's.

I very much like Clive's initiative to call 2013 the year of the blend.
Of course, he means that as the blend of technology and more traditional learning activities.
Hans claims blending the work and learning is the real blend.
Maybe in 2013 we need to pauze and think about the blend between 'the man' and his 'machine'. Just like in designing a developmental journey not every blend makes sense.

B

PS ... and have no fear of robots yet, they are nowhere threating at this point. A month ago I bought a robot vacuum cleaner at the Aldi, and yesterday it just stood there, lifeless. Broken. And my house isn't even that dirty...