The last few weeks worth of news has put a bit of a hit on my blog; the combination of the political coverage here in the U.S. and the global financial coverage has pretty much overwhelmed reporting on both tech and communications. But of course, I tend to look at the world through the lens of both technology and communications, and two of the challenges in front of us (politics and economic) have some interesting echoes in both. Today’s NYT featured an Op-Ed on "The Rise of the Machines," looking at the significant and bad impact computers and tech has had on our current, um, situation. Richard Dooling notes, in part:
We are living, we have long been told, in the Information Age. Yet now we are faced with the sickening suspicion that technology has run ahead of us. Man is a fire-stealing animal, and we can’t help building machines and machine intelligences, even if, from time to time, we use them not only to outsmart ourselves but to bring us right up to the doorstep of Doom.
We are still fearful, superstitious and all-too-human creatures. At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers’ apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.
Since he boiled it down to black and white, I’ll do the same: technology is no more responsible for the mess we’re in than is electricity. Or water. Or roads. And it strikes me that blaming “super intelligent machines” makes about as much sense as blaming the flying spaghetti monster.
What is fair it to take a hard look at the communications associated with the meltdown, and how they have helped or (mostly) hurt the chances of a speedy recovery. Words matter, ideas matter, communications is a force muliplier and a strategic asset.But instead of any kind of coordinated plan to tell people what the problem is, and what solutions could be available, and what timeframe to consider, we’ve seen disjointed statements and platitudes, coverage that focused on short term metrics and finger pointing (“predatory lenders,” “greedy CEOs,” too much regulation/too little regulation, etc.).
Perhaps some of this can be blamed on the political theatre going on now, but I’m skeptical it would be much better in an off year for an election. Communications in times of crises requires the ability to have a single voice (something not happening now); a clear view of what success looks like (ditto) and the willingness to provide straight information, even if it hurts to hear. In the same way that people perhaps got too used to the lure of easy credit and a view that housing only went up, we also seem to have lost some of our willingness to say or hear bad news over the short term, even if that would engender changes that would be better for the long term.