Do you know your history, technologically speaking?
by Zoe
Technology and history are integrally linked, and a conscious recognition of this fact can open a world of opportunity to build on the legacies of what’s worked well and to learn from what hasn’t.
Considering technology in terms of its organizational compatibility creates value to those who will interact with it–as implementers, managers, and digital citizens alike. Without this recognition of history, we risk missing opportunities to build on the lessons learned from previous efforts, unnecessarily recreating the wheel, heedlessly defaulting to existing systems, or wasting time retracing the steps of those who have come before us resulting in technology that doesn’t address a real need. While manifold user-centered design approaches seek to avoid common pitfalls of tech for tech’s sake and prognostications that tech causes more problems than it solves, expanding our toolkits to also consider the historical precedent for a more nuanced understanding of our human experiences with technology will result in technologies that meet and magnify real opportunities.
In her recent essay, “The metaverse is a new word for an old idea,” technologist and anthropologist Genevieve Bell takes a societal view and makes a compelling case for attending to historical perspectives when envisioning new technologies:
“There is an easy seductiveness to stories that cast a technology as brand-new, or at the very least that don’t belabor long, complicated histories. Seen this way, the future is a space of reinvention and possibility, rather than something intimately connected to our present and our past. But histories are more than just backstories. They are backbones and blueprints and maps to territories that have already been traversed. Knowing the history of a technology, or the ideas it embodies, can provide better questions, reveal potential pitfalls and lessons already learned, and open a window onto the lives of those who learned them.”
She focuses on societal harbingers of the metaverse while speculation swirls about whether it will become niche or norm (proponents of and projections for are mixed). And while predictions of the metaverse are as all-consuming as it promises (or threatens) to be, there is an analogous opportunity for us to apply this historical lens to our own organizational contexts.
Where can we start? Here are three ideas:
Know your history - start within your organization to understand lineages of products and programming – tune into what’s worked, what hasn’t–and why.
Ask and listen - methodology differs on user-centered design. Trust your community and ask questions.
Remember that oftentimes technical problems aren’t the hardest ones to solve – it’s the non-technical problems masquerading as technical ones.
As opportunity leaders, what else can we do to tap into our histories–and share them for our futures?