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Digital Age

It’s the Digital Age – Ethically Speaking, Things Here Are Different

October 20, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

As arrogant occupants of 21st-century Earth, who can rightly boast of creating exciting innovations, like the computer, talking paint, and the margarita blender, it serves us to believe we’re also the more enlightened generation.

But honesty demands an acknowledgment that contemporary applications of wisdom, morality and ethical behavior are in fact derivative of concepts first proposed long ago by the ancients.

Consider the 10,000-year-old Chinese wisdom, I Ching, The Book of Changes. Then there are the 5,000-year-old Upanishads from India. And of course, the new kid on the block, the four-millennia-old Mosaic Laws (Thou shalt not …). Indeed, no wisdom is handier than that of King Solomon, from the first millennium BCE in Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Psalms.

It must be noted that much of this awesome introspection and self-awareness was first contemplated at a time when receding Ice Age glaciers were still carving Scotland’s Loch Ness and the Great Lakes of North America, on the threshold of the written word.

Alas, ethically and morally speaking, we moderns are merely the new models, not necessarily the better ones. Hold that thought.  [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: Cybersecurity, Ethics / Trust, Technology / General, The 3rd Ingredient Tagged With: 3rd ingredient, Digital Age, digital trust, ethical, ethics, small business, technology, trust

Blockchain is here – are you ready?

July 10, 2019 by Jim Blasingame

This is the first of a three-part series about a technology that’s likely to create a level of disruption, unlike anything we’ve seen. This article is to introduce the technology and put its disruptive implications in perspective. The next article will explain how the technology works. And the third will be about your likely first contact, and how you’ll use it in your business and life. First, some perspective.

Since the advent of the Digital Age, the number of business model disruptions brought on by new technology has been unprecedented in human history. Legacy paradigms – complete with red-letter rules and legendary success stories – have shifted dangerously for multi-generational industries. Think Kodak. Other examples include email’s impact on fax machines and the letter/parcel delivery industry; Airbnb hindering the hospitality industry without owning any real estate; and don’t ask a cabby about Uber unless you want to hear cursing.

There’s one thing all these disruptions have in common: The most breathtakingly-fast shifts of the past have been on a level that I call “next-step understanding.” Previously, when an innovation disrupted and possibly even surprised us, what we saw happening was next-step understandable. As dramatic as any innovation may have been – personal computer, Internet, e-commerce, social media, etc. – we took it in stride because it was a single unit of variation above where we were operating.

But, now it’s time to buckle up. What’s coming at you won’t be next-step – it will require what I call “quantum-leap understanding.” A quantum leap requires at least two steps – maybe more – at once. Understanding this next disruption won’t be like taking a course in Spanish or French. It will be more like learning Klingon. Almost maddening at first, it will seem like you’re passing through a wormhole into another dimension. Tech writer Adam Greenfield said this: “This is the first technology I’ve encountered that’s difficult for even the most intelligent and highly capable people to understand.”

[Continue Reading]

Filed Under: Ethics / Trust, Technology / General Tagged With: blockchain, Digital Age, digital trust, Internet

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