Half full – optimism or complacency?

Change is relentless and the impact of change has no pity for those who are its victims. It has always been so and history is full of the miseries of those caught up in periods of significant social, political or economic transformation. We appear to suffer collectively from an innate urge to improve our lot on the one hand and a paradoxical attachment to the status quo on the other. One of the illogical consequences of this inner tension is a strange and often unsupportable belief that ‘things’ were better in the past.

Given the many strands of change that appear to be weaving themselves into our destiny, is this generation heading unerringly for victimhood? These strands of change include globalisation, urbanisation, technological development, de-industrialisation of the developed world, industrialisation of the developing world, climate change, greater competition for natural resources, shifts of political and economic power. Will they provide the means for emerging power hubs to dominate and control the world population at large? Possibly but not necessarily so. While recognising that there are too many places in the world where the cost of change is still paid in blood and destruction, there are enough signs of creative stamina and resilience to persist in hope. We must grab hold of those aspects of the strands of change that liberate, inspire and enable individuals to participate fully in the societies and economies within which they live, pulling them into place as a global web of mutual interdependence. OK, so that is just some high-flown rhetoric but it is also possible to do …… only not in a blog.

This is not to say that writing does not help. The work of science fiction writers and futurologists has been invaluable in stimulating our thinking by framing possible futures; individuals such as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Terry Pratchett, Raymond Kurzweil and Peter Schwartz come to mind as leaders in this regard and no doubt there are many others whose names should be added to this list. I expect that I will come back to this mishmash of a subject area and try to make more sense of it for myself.

The glass is half full; I am an optimist and enjoy the bounty with which I have been blessed but I am also aware that a glass supped from will in time be empty and that it is already time to give some thought to replenishment.

Interoperability can be fun

I am so frustrated – I recently read an article in the FT by Michael Schrage entitled “Interoperability: the great enabler” (5th Feb). In his article, Schrage introduces the concept of IQ or the Interoperability Quotient but he does not describe how to measure it.  Here I am, in France struggling with interoperability every time I venture out of the house and I could conclude from his article that, with a low IQ, I might be  destined to underachieve. Perhaps willingness makes up a large part of the IQ measure; certainly buying food in a street market was successful and ultimately satisfying as was, at a much deeper level a guided tour of a country house by one of the family who could tell a story about every one of many ‘objets d’interet’ in the house and garden. Even if I could only understand one word in five, the personal intensity of the message conveyed all the meaning necessary.

So here is my real frustration with the article.  While it recognises the technological driving force behind interoperability and an economic context in which it can develop, it does not acknowledge the importance of culture and organisation in determining potential for the wider implemention of interoperability In my opinion, the  factors that will determine success in interoperability have more to do with people, organisations and culture than a quotient relating to components and systems. Alberts talks about this in his book “Power to the edge” where he discusses interoperability in the physical, information, cognitive and social domains. It is not that all these domains are relevant to every instance of operability as this is obviously not the case but Alberts also talks about the need for ‘jointness’ which I take to mean the responsibility of the people involved at each end of any ‘interoperation’ to take responsibility for effective interoperability. People with a shared intent and awareness working ‘jointly’ can provide resilience and adaptability in the deployment of interoperability and these underpin the evolutionary capacity that is a prerequisite for survival.