Digital Tools in Use
As an entrepreneur I am working in the infrastructure, real estate, construction and travel industries as a consultant. The online platforms or software applications I use are many. I use Microsoft and iOS cloud services and applications, desktop and mobile version. Google cloud service and Google’s applications I have used for over 15 years. On daily work I use these services for cloud storage, collaboration, security and communication purposes.
More specialized applications include Canva, Picsart and Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom for graphic design. Freeform is a handy little application and MindNode for brainstorming. LumaFusion, Filmic Pro and CapCut are my tools for movie design and editing. Autodesk applications are used for engineering purposes, for example working with the IFC, that is a data model which enables the exchange of BIM (building information model) content between different software programs.
For the security I prefer ESET smart security and CyberGhost VPN as main tools.
I do also use online accounting and project management tools that companies like Netvisor and Visma provides. Padlet was the latest social media collaboration application I implemented to my customer’s IT environment last year. Remote desktop application I use to fix issues in my partner’s computers. I think remote collaboration tools like Teams and Zoom became familiar to each of us having any kind of digital transactions in the field of labour or education during the pandemic. Evernote I use for personal projects and an app named Dark Noise is great for filtering out environment when I need to concentrate. Say, I listen rainfall or a waterfall sounds. For communication I cannot avoid WhatsApp and it is a useful tool when prudently and properly used. When I think about it I might have about two dozen app and software in use almost daily basis.
Five new SM candidates
Miro I downloaded already two years ago, but have had no time to get into details yet. I was interested about the vast integration possibilities and ability to create technical diagramming to Agile practices like sprint planning and standups. It surely looks like the app toolkit contains features for most important engineering processes. I’d like to give the Miro AI a go to create flowcharts and sequence diagrams that are sometimes rather boring to create. For strategy workshops and business process development purposes it would seem to fit also pretty nicely as the indefinite canvas looks like a good platform to collaborate processes, practises, proposals and such.
Todoist I have also installed and made myself a promise to start using it. I like what they promise: take tasks out of your head and organized in one trusted place. Sounds really, really tempting to me.
DeepL I have briefly used during this assignment to check out how it works. It could surely improve my English in many ways and improve communication, make it more understandable and clear.
Hootsuite is something I came up recently. Social media is playing increasingly important role in my customer’s business and although I myself am not very active in social media my customer’s are and therefore I try to find out solutions for them to manage all the various social media accounts in one place. It can be pretty overwhelming to keep track of all the accounts in different services and design marketing campaigns and timely fashioned posts and releases. This service allows to design, schedule, and publish content for all networks from one dashboard and to follow up visually the progress. I like their promise to reduce the clutter with a unified social media inbox that would allow to reply to comments and messages across platforms.
Open Badges is a completely new service to me I came across in the previous assignment. Being a visual symbol of accomplishment it looks like valuable not only for learners but also for organizations.
As a drawback example of the aforementioned tools I would say that more there are digital tools to throw at problems and challenges, it may be that one can get deeper and deeper into the details. For example looking into the features of Miro it offers a (almost) limitless options and features, like a generic toolbox, for never-ending revisions that will get one stuck into neverending iteration loops. I mean a team could work an issue for a month and come back to work another month. As a R&D guy I would find trying that approach style intrestings, but who would pay for it?
Pros and Cons using Social Media
I did brush the surface on this matter in the first assignment. For a business, especially a bootstrapped one, the single most important feature might be social media’s ability to escalate and expand a brand. Social media offers free access to vast audiences and is not location specific. Some might say it allows easy access to markets, but I reckon it is of vital importance to very carefully design and craft the content and campaign as well as choose the target audience. Well executed social media marketing campaign grows market, provides feedback from the people about the business and may be used to improve customer satisfaction, allows direct interaction in real time (which can also easily cause sideline of some clients or market segments). Social media is also very handy keeping an eye on competitors (and vice versa).
It might be even easier to use social media ineffectively than effectively. Pushing sales, using lots of ads, bells and whistles without actually engaging customers does not promote growth and can be harmful to the reputation. Brand tarnish may happens as well receiving negative feedback if answer fails in timely and/or content fashion. In fact social media never sleeps in this world and it can really time consuming to manage, engage and stay active, meaning dedicated staff, resources and costs. Devoid of fact checking anyone can start a troll or blame campaign in social media. Security and privacy policy issues are a concern as well.
I believe that a business should carefully consider is it worth to engage in social media and if so, what channels would be the most appropriate ones. If a business does not meet the industry basic hygiene level in social media management it might be better to be off than suffer bad publicity.
Elements of successful use of digital application
What I see common in all of the aforementioned five solutions I chose is their ability to improve communication one way or another. Information and data it holds is capital nowadays and in order to get the most out of it tools I would use should help me to plan, design, manage, distribute and collaborate the information more effectively, for example: being able to make my intentions understood. I do also see that these solutions do not have a steep learning curve nor require extensive training, so they would probably fit into many of my customer’s existing business processes and be approved and embraced by the staff. I like tools that help my customers, the human mushy brained beings, and when they succeed so do I.
Most important factor are us, the humans. Because it is the people that makes the place, who must make innovation and progress happen. It is not enough to have access to technology. One needs to know how to use it and adopt it – digital tools should serve and help us in our daily work.
One pitfall or a digital trap is the conflict between digital natives and those that have harder time learning it. I have often witnessed this battle between different generations. Another trap is an external one, meaning what is customer’s attitude to digital technology. This is rather cultural thing I believe, and very business specific. Should the clients be embracing digital world or if they are more traditional? I think we should not be obsessed by the technology but we should be aware of it and the opportunities and possibilities digital tech presents.
I have experienced way too many projects, where new tech implementation has failed. There are cultural reasons and frankly in many cases managerial misconception, misleading and sheer lack of intellect behind those who think they know better when they don’t.
I have found that the most important things is to have people, end users, abroad in the coming adaptation of a new digital tech as soon as possible. Communication all along the way plays the most crucial role as well as active participation of all who are engaged in implementing new tech. I highly recommend always testing the new tech on a smaller scale. A miniature version of a larger scale project I have never found a bad choice as this allows to plan for the change resistance and identify potential pitfalls or even showstoppers.
Steady progress works better and is more common and necessary than breaking things apart and causing disruptive change: things might be different for a few weeks, but eventually people fall back to their old ways of working, hence investment, time, effort wasted and lots of dissatisfaction and frustration created.
What I learned
I think the most useful thing for me was to summarize my thoughts about social media pros and cons. In the elements of successful use of digital application I looked back 15-25 years ago and then to the present. I think same principles of successful use applies now as in the past, and it is because of human nature. Digital technology is the easy part, the real challenge lies in how people and organizations adapt to it.
I think we must also think about the “the future work”. How do we measure productivity in an information technology? If I adapt more tools that make me work more hours it will look like I am very efficient. I will use Todoist to create lists and I will click checkboxes, participate to virtual conferences, distance learning and zoom meetings. But in the end that will ultimately encourage to be less productive. I think managers should assign new tasks when the previous ones have been completed, instead the current way of the modern digital multitasking that will lead to burnout.
It is interesting that given the advances in digital technology it’s a bit mystery to economists why measures of productivity seem to have stalled over the past few decades. In my personal experience there’s lot of dangers when introducing new technologies to the workplace. For example if I believe I am making A better, but I miss thinking B and C it might lead to a feedback loop of increasing distractions that might be impossible to get out once activated. Email get email get email and discussion threads never end. I have no single solution or absolute truth here, but digital tools should not intimidate us with pointless time-sucking distractions.