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Digital distance


As influential Irene entered the dispatch department this hot July afternoon all that she heard was the tapping of keyboards.  The energy felt like a controlled, almost clinical environment.  It wasn't that many years ago when the sense of chaos, wrapped in genuine human concern for our clients, filled the room with a much different feeling.  Could it be that our ambitions to become more efficient, by leveraging technology has simply created a reason for us not to communicate verbally with one another?   Hasn't the idea all along been centered around our ability to spend more time with our customers? Making each and every one of them feel as if they are our most important client?  Certainly I'm not suggesting we go back to big chief tablets and number two pencils.  Yet, we need to reflect and strike a balance between digitization and delivery.



By pure coincidence, avid Andy was composing a memo attempting to give his opinion, without trying to be dogmatic, on the topic of "convergence of connected systems and company culture".  Andy's outline may provide some perspective for your organizations:

  1. digital information, in its perfect form, provides the user with perspective and context; when combined with intuition and empathy, facilitates meaningful and relevant interactions
  2. efficiencies gained from the application of technology should be directly applied to enhancing customer interactions
  3. at no point should digital communication become a shield when faced with delivering bad news
  4. focus on non-value added human tasks when fitting digital tools to your business



The digital era is ending and we are entering into pure digital transformation. In order to be ready, we must be willing to change and transform ways that we think about our businesses.  The first step is the realization that being connected is not synonymous with connecting.



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Next post:  who's data is it?

Thoughts?  feel free to leave replies or direct message

See all of the "last mile worker" posts here:  http://lastmileworker.com

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