Leading the Brave New Way

“CITIUS , ALTIUS, FORTIUS” – “FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER”

This is the motto of the Olympics. It could also be the motto of the Information Technology sector.

Since the middle of the 1960’s, spurred by the Cold War, the Space Race and the increasing complexity of organizations and processes, Information Technology has indeed been moving Faster and Higher and becoming a Stronger component of the fabric of Western society.

In the mid 1970’s, at the time that most of the people now entering the IT sector were being born, IT was called “Data Processing”. This brings to mind train-loads of data ore being off-loaded into Data Processing centres, there to be turned into nuggets of wisdom by white coated priests moving quietly in sterile air conditioned rooms, uttering strange prayers in ancient languages like COBOL and FORTRAN and ASSEMBLER.

Now, the computer has expanded to encompass the whole World and everything we do in it. Everyone has to deal with it. Even those people who have no access to computers feel the effects, benign or not, of the computerised world. Every day, it seems, there is a new language, a new chip or a new software package that will transform our lives and bring us closer to Utopia.

As members of the IT community, we must realise that we are in some of the most powerful positions on the planet. With this power comes responsibility. If we neglect our responsibilities as members of human society, we face the possibility that all we are striving to build will be swept away by a rising tide of poverty and disillusion.

This was never more evident than on a recent trip I undertook to Detroit. A short drive from the pristine high-tech industrial parks were neighbourhoods in which gutted houses, pot-holed roads and abandoned cars vied for my horrified attention.

The tide of wealth is rising, but not everyone on our planet is rising with it. In fact most are not. Some are drowning, some are giving up, but most are preparing to fight. We must be aware of this and must do what we can to construct the boats and put out the life-preservers from the deck of the increasingly luxurious liner we are on.

Neil Postman, in his book “Technopoly”, maintains that technology has it’s own inanimate agenda. As custodians and developers of technology, we are and must be responsible for putting a human face on that agenda.

We are responsible for deciding where technology is leading us. We are responsible for deciding who is to be master – the human race or the machines it has created.

To accept that responsibility is to accept that we are part of a team comprising not only those we work with, not only our friends, not only our families, but the whole of the human race.

“Fortius” has another meaning, other than Strength. It also means Braver.

“Faster, Higher, Braver” – if not You, Who? If not Now, When?