Technology and digital transformation. It’s a yes, but always people first!

It’s almost two years now I’ve been working at VMware, as sales specialist in the Cloud Management space, where many things has happened since then, in technology and in the way to present it to people. Yes, people. This is central, central topic to this post, central for my professional life, central in life at large. 

I still remember the main interview I went thru more than two years ago now, where -as it usually goes here- I was asked to give a presentation of the management offer, whiteboarding, having been given an example to inspire from. I did run it my way, moving technology aside, bringing in people at the centre, focusing on how technology is the modern path to a better living for people. Actually it’s always been, since the invention of the wheel and even before.

Luckily the session went well –have I already said I like whiteboarding?– and more than a luck the interviewers where two of the most illuminated and people-caring persons I met in my professional life, long enough life, at this time, that I can judge with no doubts at all. Thanks Jonathan, thanks Pierre for the trust.

This long introduction to express my gratitude also to Domenico, a fellow of past tech adventures, who invited me last Thursday at the Rotary Club Monza Brianza he acts as chairman of, to give a speech about Digital Transformation (deck in ital-english here below).

As in my interview I moved the tech aside, going straight to the point, the conclusion, at slide number three (better going rapidly to the point as it’s quite normal to lost attention just after a few minutes). Anyway: people at the centre, on top of technology, technology to support this scenario, people who are by definition ‘perfect’ -as per the Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’ draw- people that I like to define ‘the new homo sapiens’, a creative, technological and augmented “new” human being.

Then, the technology: 

• how internet, mobility and cloud has helped us to close the gap between life and digital
• how digital has changed our habits, smoothly or disruptively, and will still go on (‘Spending two hours watching a movie or have it flashed to our brain in a fraction of a second, positive sensations included?’)
• why technology and digital in general are good to humanity: prosperity increase, labor market evolution, new type of workers
• how tech could help us winning many global challenges
• and the trends, plus the buzzwords: artificial intelligence, internet of things, 3D printing, automation, cloud, sharing economy, etc. etc.

Finally, a more argued conclusion.

The big names of digital transformation are giving us great suggestions, almost all of them stating that people stay at the centre, whether you’re implementing a new Industry (4.0?) business model or a global society transformation plan.

“Throw a lot of stones and sometimes you’ll hit something”, Professor Feng Li, head of technology and innovation management at Cass Business School, recognising that the potential for digital disruption in all sectors, business transformation, is now a continual work in progress.

“Homo Sapiens is, and remains, the central factor for the success of a company, a society, as long as it preserves a correct ‘digital wisdom’, not letting itself be carried away by fashions, excess of love of technologies”, I would add.

Thanks for reading.

P.S.: a Casio clock in the first slide, why? That’s been my first impact with digital. Summer 1975, I was five years old and I decided to stole my grandpa’s golden watch, secretly bringing it outside in the garden and breaking it with a hammer, to see what was inside, to satisfy my curiosity. End of the story: my grandpa switched to this low-cost digital clock and I really understood, on my skin, how difficult, painful and crazy is this Digital Transformation.