Succeeding in a digital world is only the matter of developing a digital confidence that you will succeed. Succeed in what? Simply Succeed in every new interaction with the digital world even if the context changes; And, it will change. The digital context of our world changes with time. This happens due to the multi disciplinary nature of developing digital tools. There are languages, frameworks, IDEs, servers, network, UI that work together on the digital world. Every one of those is developed partially independent of the other parts. And, when one of these new features matches a need in another discipline, it is quickly adopted and then spread wildly.
From the user point of view, the context of his daily or even casual interaction with the digital world had changed. And a new challenge starts. How fast you get accustomed to the new way of doing things is an indication. An Indication of how profound is your mastery of the digital skills you need to live in a digital world. Let’s elaborate with some examples.
How frequently we deal the digital world?
You can make a quick flashback to our chat together about The Future of Maintenance – Part 17 – Know your digital aptitude. This will remind you of nine (9) live situations where you can chose to use the available digital tools or not. Those life situations include: travelling, job application or any government application, learning a new skill, finding information, storing data or memories, arranging a party, fixing a failed appliance or, assembling a new purchased item.
Most of these situations seem not frequent. However, together they will fill up our timeline. In other words, you might not travel this year or apply for a job but, you may look online for information daily or weekly. Within a year, you may have a party to arrange or, a failed appliance to repair . But every few weeks you may think of a memory or data to store and retrieve. Every few month you can encounter new things to learn or at least a desire to upgrade an existing skill.
If you can see the examples we presented above, you can easily say that they are focused on our life outside work. Actually if you look closely to them you can see that they occur equally in work and life. Now a days most of our work, whether admin or technical, is through digital forms. Even long before Industry 4.0 and cloud computing the maintenance data storage and retrieval was there. It was a key factor to maintenance success. You can see this clearly in our maintenance trainings in Arabic and English via this link. Now with deep learning, AI and Industry 4.0 proper data collection, classification, cleansing and retrieval is more crucial. May be we are not organizing parties that frequent at work but, we are frequently organizing meetings and training.
UI – User Interface – is just the tip of the iceberg
So whatever interaction we encounter with the digital world around us is equally valid in work and life. For the user, his digital skills is all around mastering using the UI – User interface – and the User flow in different environments. This user level might be the level we need to go on with life. And, that’s the level most of the shop floor team needs. However, between now and then, you encounter some super users whom astonish you by how they interact with the digital world. You might see them as doing magic that you never dreamt of.
If we go a step behind the UI – User Interface – of the app we are using to finish some life or work tasks, we shall see a whole different world. That’s the reason for the conflicts between the users and the IT team. Anyhow, that’s not a justification of the conflict but that’s a mere reason of the conflict. The user sees that he can’t open the link or the attachment. The IT team has a lot of concerns about the access security, the correct credentials, the network connection and more. They need to check the server, the client, the app and, the network in between all. The problem might be in the name of the file or in its type has no supported program to open it.
When the user has a little understanding about those issues he will have patience with the IT team. That’s not a defense for the IT team because sometimes they have a teasing negligence. But, this knowledgeable user will be able to solve his basic problems and lead an easier life in the digital world.
Where does the digital confidence come from?
It’s likely that you will only do some of the digital tasks once in a while – for example, applying for a job. It may therefore take some time to feel confident about what you’re doing in this skill. However, every site will be slightly different. Succeeding in achieving the result you want from a certain digital tasks in different contexts or apps will build up with practice. Succeeding in a digital world is about developing your confidence so that you can take on new challenges as they arise. Like learning a language, this kind of fluency will build up with practice.
However, we need to keep in mind that the first time you do a digital task on a different platform is like starting allover again. Some of us doesn’t mind this. But, most of us get frustrated when the new way of doing old things change. That’s the nature of ever evolving and changing digital world. However, hard you try to keep your old apps un-updated, you might end up with a misfunctioning app.
On the other hand, when our digital life outside work is at an ok level. And we have some confidence in using some online apps. But, at work we are still using some legacy systems. Then, we shall feel frustrated at work. Moreover, we shall express our anger at every interaction with the legacy system. And, we will never stop claiming the negligence of the company in general or the IT team that they keep us using such outdated systems. But what we need to learn to have digital confidence? That’s where we shall start next.
In Conclusion,
Succeeding in a digital world is only the matter of developing a digital confidence that you will succeed in every new interaction with the digital world even if the context changes. This needs practice. And, some understanding of what happens behind the user interface UI.
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