Being digital..

I read the famous architect Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital in early 1996. He was then MIT Media Director in Cambridge. During my short visit to Harvard Business School , I stopped at his office just to say hello,but he was not around. In fact, I just paid my visit there through a Malaysian contact who was doing his Masters in mechatronics.

If I remember correctly, the major issue is about the change over from atoms to bytes or bits!Whether we accept it or not,whether we like it or not, it has encroached into our personal life and working life.Most of us are deep inside the waves;if not managed well ,we will get drowned by it.Many books have been written about it and I am not qualified to add anymore.

I got my frist email address from JARING on 24th July,1995-quite early for Malaysians of my age group(40+ then).If it is not due to the Internet, I don't think I could have written 54 "weekly notebook", 100 "cerita kedaikopi",about 10 "cara bicara" and a few tens of blogs to-date!All these short write-ups are stored at geocities webservers and blogspots. Now, I shifted my blog to typepad.com.The technology facilitated the creation of "writers" among us.

My first experience of "being digital" is when I got my first digital watch,then we have digital phones ,then many,many other things...and as they say, the rest is history.And yesterday I got my new digital camera.
That is why you can see many new photos uploaded to my albums located at this blog.

After we are being bombarded and flooded by digital technologies and contents,we are now worrying about digital divide in our coummunities ans well as misused of technologies.Technology is a double edge sword-it solves problems and at the same it creates new problems!

Now,mobile phones are just an ordinary item we carry in our pockets everyday.It is so common that no one notice if you carry one.But I will notice if you carry two mobile phones;-) One day, I confronted a friend why he carried two handphones? He came close and whispered," I got two wives!".Oh!?

The technoly has changed tremendously over the years, but ,yes there is a BIG BUT. Have we change to adopt and adapt the technology?What efforts have we taken to improve human-technology interface? Just look at the many computers sitting on the desks of many senior officers either in government and private sectors? To what extent have they used ICT for the benefits of their business and services?One day, the Land Office(pejabat Tanah,WP) officer came to my house asking me who is the owner/resident of my house? When I asked him why did not he ask DBKL or Telekom or JBA,he confided to me that his department could NOT get the co-operation from other government agencies.In my simple mind, why can't they have shared database?

IMHO, technolgy is just technology.The minds must be knowledgable and the hands must be skilled to make full use of technology for the benefits of mankind.For that matter, it applies to all-digital or non-digital technology.

Comments

[aizul]

I worked on a project for a government agency who wanted to do paperless transaction.They wanted users to fill in an online form.The funny thing is they do not want the forms to be submitted online but printed and mailed to them.Defeat the purpose of doing an online form.Might as well they do it in a pdf or microsoft word format,ask users to download it
and e-mail it back.
It shows that some people still need to grasp the understanding of technology in order to utilize it 100%.

[Adib]

Aizul,
In a project, we must define the goals and the objectives to meet the requirement and expectation of the project sponsors.If the project sponsors and project managers donot know that or failed to define that, then it will fail.
"If you donot know where you are going,any roads will take you there",qouted from Alice in The Wonderland.

[lan]

My boss even installing printer driver pun tak tahu... yang dia tahu pakai words, excell dan bukak email.. tu pun email dia selalu problem... reason?.... Takut tersalah tekannnnn...

[Adib]

One day I called the PA of the Deputy Director General of one govt. agency to check why my email did get a reply. She told me that her boss does not open emails;only she does that job. She told me that a copy of the email I sent is already in his in-tray.Next, I think the big boss will call his PA to dictate the reply to be sent to me.Great!!!I love it!!!

Lesson: Old habit die hard.( or die with the persons).

[mia]

Perhaps it is time for Malaysian municipalities/utility companies look into using GIS(Geographical Information Systems)technology.

[Adib]

IWK has started but it will take time to see the benefits of it. First, the raw data has yet to be compiled and updated...the country is in the process of digitising the map for the whole country.It will take a few years more to go...

[aizul]

I agree Pak Adib.
But sometimes clients ni they want everything to be their way,although we gave our advices.They may have a rational reason for it..but ones we can't understand.Since they are clients so kena la ikut.
Right now i'm learning to gather and analyze requirements for a project.One thing i notice,in an IT project the planning is more important than the development.

[Adib]

The Clients are NOT always right. We have to educate them to the best we can;in the event they go against our expert advice then we put our advice in writing. That would be a record for future reference because some clients are capable of turning back and accused us of not giving proper advice when things go wrong.

Not only IT projects,in general , project planning involves about 60 % of the work to be done by the project manager.

May be, you can organise a gathering among your friends who are interested in project management next month and I am willing to the facilitator for free;-)