Currently I am reading Nicholas Carr’s book Does IT matter? and even though I might not agree with everything, some of the conclusions made really makes sense. It has got me thinking in more general terms of how we are behaving when we are faced with (new) technology and what technology we actually need.
The thought started during a walk to Tressider (a student collection point at the Campus of Stanford University) for a coffee with some fellows in the middle of September. We started to talk about whether we had the right to give technology to extreme rural areas in the world. I posed the question: “Do we have the right not too?” We ended up agreeing that the question did not have a simple answer.
I thought more about the problem and ended up with two simple questions that should be answer in any development process of technology:
- Should we give or do we need the technology solution?
- What is the technology solution that is needed?
It really is as simple as that, as there will always be a solution in technology, but should one might question if and how we should use it. It is very easy to get lost in the buzz about new technologies. As I have said in many blogs before this one technology is a tool, but easy. However, the exposure of technology to humans is far from free of compexity.
Looking at social entrepreneurship gives a lot of useful input in the problem. The problem is building a technology solution that can and will be used by the audience. For me that is creating a trusted solution. Social entrepreneurs use technology as tools to make a difference mostly rural areas around the world. People in thise areas are quite new to being exposure to technology and that really changes how technology should be presented and in what form they are developed. Basically if a pen and a paper is what the audience will trust, then paper and a pen is the right technology solution.
I talked to Uuve Sauga, one of the fellows, about the idea I had for this blog and during the very interesting discussion, she summarized the social entrepreneurs work as “being able to take that first look at the persons needs, desires and constraints”. Nothing can be more truthful. The right solution should bridge solution and needs of the audience via the technology. This actually mean that this development process is applicable everywhere – both in the developed and the developing world. It might result in that the solutions for our “problems” in the developed world are found by looking at the needs of the people in the developing world. Quite ironic actually, yet this “irony” have been identified previously looking at Hernando de Soto’s book “The Mystery of Capital”. In the book, he concluded the problem of “formal capital” in the developing world and the high presence of self-assembled entrepreneurs in those areas.
This topic has now been realised by big high-tech companies such as Intel and Nokia. The needs of the audience is quite different, and the requirement of the developed products in those areas are very different from the believied needs in the developed world. This process started when these companies started to look att the emerging markets around the world. Both the seminars we had with Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia, and John Sherry, Intel, emphasized this new twist of development.
Personally I salute this change in direction of the development, and will anxiously follow and participate in it. While we are at it we might even start to question to the extent that we are consuming technology. I for sure am starting to do so and trying to cut down as much as my work permit me to. I want to have the control over my life, not technology. What is so cool about it is that it really makes the development process more appealing to me.
Use the highest possible level of technology, but hide the technology as much as possible. Make the technology more personal.
To quote one of the best slogans ever written: “Mmm, I like it.”