Being Human in a Digital World
Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain technology, NFT’s, Quantum Computing, the Metaverse…. the list of fast-rising technological innovations is almost endless. We are continuously innovating and the changes to our work- and private lives are ever-growing. Imagine having every work meeting in the Metaverse through Virtual Reality. Picture part of your paycheck paid in cryptocurrency. What about entering a venue where your ticket is a non-physical entrance token? We’re not just disrupting some parts of our work and lives. We’re disrupting our entire economy, job structure, social connectivity, and the world we live in as a whole. Don’t think of this as the future though, because a lot of these are already available in the “real world”, disrupting entire economies.
Our world will never be the same
Technology is exponential, meaning that every new innovation unlocks a whole set of technological opportunities. Some make our lives easier, some enhance the work that we do and still, others are there just for fun. No matter the technology, every new innovation is an opportunity to change certain aspects of our lives. But because of its exponential tendencies, we’re seeing the wildest forms of technology emerging. Going from the printing press to printing at home was a major leap that took ages compared to going from Social Media to a Metavera, a.k.a. an entirely new, digital world.
We used to have a watch to tell time, a plastic card to make payments, and a phone to receive phone calls. All of these — and much, much more — are now integrated into smartwatches. But those are considered tools, gadgets that add a little fun and convenience to our lives. There are tons of them around our house and offices, improving (at least, that’s what they should do) our lives and jobs in the physical world. But in the last couple of years, we took giant steps, even creating a world outside of our own physical planet. Virtual Reality, the Metaverse, and other forms of worlds outside of our own are becoming a lot more common. People are watching comedy shows with a live audience, all of them in a virtual world whilst sitting in their living rooms.
So many things are changing around us and it’s going to change us and the things we do on a massive scale. What does it mean to be a human being in a world that is dominated by technology?
Let’s have a look at some aspects of our lives that have been disrupted and will see a lot more disruption through technology and human innovations over the next years.
“As an organization, it’s up to you to research which jobs could be allocated to machines and where humans can add value to the brand and business.”
Work: Jobs will disappear, change, and get created
A lot of jobs will be disappearing over the next couple of years and decades. As a matter of fact, you can see it happening around you. There’s a lot of fear of technology taking over tasks, then jobs, and eventually our entire lives. For sure many jobs will be taken over by technology once it’s capable of doing so. But it’s part of our evolution. Many jobs disappeared when the Internet came around, but it created more jobs than it took away. Technology taking over (part of our) jobs is actually a good thing in many cases. Machines have different skills than humans and vice versa. It means that jobs, where humans aren’t the strongest fit, will be taken over by tech. Jobs that are mundane, repetitive, or rely on heavy physical activity. Machines are a perfect fit for those jobs and we shouldn’t try and compete with them in those areas.
As an organization, it’s up to you to research which jobs could be allocated to machines and where humans can add the most value to the brand and business. Plus, it should come as no surprise we’re being replaced in a certain area as soon as technology outworks us there. There used to be people lighting the streetlights with a candle on a stick….until electricity took over. Should we have stuck to keeping that jobs?
But here’s the kicker: we therefore also need to innovate on the human side of things as well. Develop the skills that set us apart from machines, such as Emotional Intelligence, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Building Relationships, and much more. Here’s a cool overview from the Brand Humanizing Institute that shows which skills belong to who:
I am nowhere near afraid all of our jobs will be taken over by machines, chatbots, and the like. In fact, these changes caused by Artificial Intelligence, Web3.0, and other technological innovations will likely create more jobs than we can think of today. The same things happened to us when the internet entered our lives. Tons of newly created internet-powered jobs democratized certain areas of expertise. Rather than learning to be a TV Host and going through the TV Industry, you can now be a full-time Youtuber with an audience of millions. You can create podcasts or play games for a living. Those are jobs we couldn’t even think of 15 years ago. These newer technologies will do the same and will create jobs only we — humans — can do. And maybe jobs will become less mundane and more fun, impactful, and humane. We can create these new jobs, so we can set up the terms as well.
Organizations that adopt technology and — in some cases — replace part of the human staff with it, should see opportunities to set themselves apart based on human skills. If you seek out ways to embed human interactions and social elements in people-centered processes, you can set yourself apart from the competition based on the combination of technological efficiency and human capital.
Relationships: making friends in a digital age
Work isn’t the only fast-changing thing. Thanks to technology, the way we build, maintain, and expand our social lives are rapidly shifting too. We used to mainly build relationships offline and use technology to keep in touch, strengthen the relationship, and use platforms to schedule physical get-togethers. Slowly we started accepting that meeting people online and expanding that to offline — so the other way around — was a new and valuable way to connect. On the one hand, technology is pushing us towards creating, expanding, and maintaining our social life completely online. Or should I say, WE are pushing ourselves that way and using technology to accomplish that? Tools such as certain types of Metaverse, Discord, Twitch, and social media platforms make it easy to keep in touch with people.
“…younger generations might prefer making friends online without ever meeting them in “real life”. I put that between quotation marks because making a friend online is still real life, it’s just less physical.”
It’s a great way of upholding relationships. It’s not that we need to go a certain way as a species, choosing between online and offline. It’s just that technology is opening up a lot of possibilities to get — and keep — in touch with people. You get to pick whether it’s online, offline, or both. Keep in mind that younger generations might prefer making friends online without ever meeting them in “real life”. I put that between quotation marks because making a friend online is still real life, it’s just less physical.
In terms of companies, it’s a great opportunity to get in touch with your customers on a whole new level. No longer are we in web2.0 where we use mere platforms to send messages back and forth. You could use the Metaverse to meet with customers and build relationships stronger than a Twitter DM back-and-forth could do. Or you could involve people in your branding, build assets online, and create more points of contact your customer can use to get in touch with you. If people’s focus is moving to the online world, you — as a brand — should be there too, making the latest ways of building relationships and getting in touch available to them.
On the other hand, we should not lose sight of human-to-human physical contact. Being in somebody’s presence builds a different type of relationship. One of the complaints during the massive working-from-home period is the lack of physical presence of colleagues and the lack of social interaction. It’s the same thing E-commerce has been struggling with for years. In-store it’s easier to grab someone’s attention, be genuine and gain trust. Online, you need to build a relationship without the use of many human-specific traits.
Technology should at least empower organizations to build in more and stronger human-centered contact points. If you can have the technology to take over the less-human parts of our jobs, you can then innovate on the human capital side of the chain. People are what makes the difference between good and great in terms of service, relationships, and thus growth. Using technology to unleash human potential means companies can be more human(e) in a technologically driven world.
Community: building strong communities with tech
There’s a growing demand for communities and collaborations, and technology is playing a major part in it. When I was searching for a suitable office for our company back in 2016, I already found three co-working spaces that heavily focus on community building. Working together, growing together, and mixing work and social were the fundament back then, and even more so now.
A great example of that same physiology is through technology is created with DAO’s, which stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. The organization isn’t run hierarchy, but by a set of pre-determined rules set in smart contracts. It aims to be a lot more of a social structure and community building, where in some cases the community has a say in the future of the organization. It’s a great example of technology supporting the building of communities which is in high demand.
The Metaverse — there are several, but just to categorize — is also a great place to build, maintain and expand entire communities of like-minded people. Whether it’s to play games, build a virtual world or visit digital events, it opens up a new way of connecting to other people. Of course, we’ve had the option to talk to people around the globe through many platforms, but these forms of technology are specifically designed to build it together. Major organizations are now (it’s the beginning of 2022 when writing this) purchasing plots of land and assets in the Metaverse. Companies like Nike and Adidas are already building and expanding their digital presence in the Metaverse. It’s a great new way of connecting with customers and offering digital products to their ever-expanding fanbase.
A festival in the Metaverse. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelastminute/51617830752/
Web2.0, the internet as we’ve known it for a long time, is platform-based. That means a platform is built by an organization and we — as consumers — get to create the content or products. Facebook doesn’t create any of its content, Airbnb doesn’t own real estate, Instagram doesn’t shoot images. But as consumers and creators, we use the platform as intended by the corporation behind it. It’s a basis to build a community, but centralized. Newer technology especially in web3.0 is built to empower and support the consumers and creators. In certain metaverses you buy the land, you build the assets, you set the rules of engagement. In DAO’s, the community steers the organization, sometimes controls some of the assets, and can profit from it too. It’s a great display of using technology to create communities and empower the users. It leaves more to gain for creators and more to connect with for its consumers.
Part of being human in a web3.0 based digital world means having a digital life as well where it’s easy to connect to others, move your assets to an online world and take part in communities that are actually decentralized and let you have a say in its future. There are people having full-time jobs in a metaverse (like community managers in Meta), so it’s not a matter of “if” but rather “when”. Being human in a digital age means you have a presence in the digital world as well as the physical one.
Learning: focus on human-specific skills
One of the big topics is learning and the skills we own and use. In schools, we’re still learning many of the same things we learned during the 3rd Industrial Revolution. We’re being trained to perform certain jobs and tasks, some of which have changed immensely through technology or have even disappeared. In a world that’s driven by automation, smart machines, and an abundance of information, we need to focus on learning more human skills. As shown in the image by the Brand Humanizing Institute — the comparison between humans and robots — we both possess different and complementary skills.
It will give you a giant leap and competitive advantage if you learn and develop human-specific traits and skills. There’s no point in learning skills that a machine can perform better and will probably be hired faster than a human being. No one is learning how to light streetlights with a candle on a stick anymore, because technology has mastered that art. Instead, we need to reinvent what it means to be human. Creativity, empathy, critical thinking, ethics, brand building, relationship building, community management….just a small set of skills, tasks, and jobs that are human-specific and will provide a lot of value to you if you master these.
Companies are starting to recruit and hire based on skills rather than your complete resume and motivation letter. It means that having skills that are future-proof and add human value to their brand will get noticed quicker by organizations and their recruiters. Especially by those that understand how automation can take over processes so they now focus on human capital and expanding the interactions and experiences of their brand for consumers. Organizations will start looking for people that master “human skills” because those are the skills that add to their brand equity and are skills they cannot (and should not try to) automate.
Entrepreneurship: an insane amount of possibilities
Owning a business, being an entrepreneur is a lot more common than it was 20 to 30 years ago. Not only because it’s much easier to start a company in this digital age, but also because there’s a growing demand for taking full control of your job and life. The world’s leading recruitment company explained — during a keynote — how especially younger generations (Millenials and GenZ) are no longer looking for a long-term commitment to a job. They prefer working on a project that has their interest and they move on to the next one once the project finishes. It shows in the growing number of people going Freelance or starting a small company in an area they’ve built corporate expertise in. They are exchanging a full-time job in one organization for multiple part-time projects for different companies.
Like I said earlier in this article, technology also brings an insane amount of opportunity. If you wanted to be “on-air” and talk about topics you liked, you either had to be a radio DJ or be famous enough to get invited to people’s shows. Nowadays, you just open up a free account and record a podcast to talk about anything you like. And the beauty is, you can reach any demographic you want. You’re not bound to the (local) audience of the radio station that invited you to their segment. You can host and stream your Podcast in essence to every internet user in the world. The same goes for Youtube, Twitch (streaming), Spotify, you name it. If you want to earn money playing video games and entertaining viewers, you can start right now for free. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s one of the options technology is providing. In light of education, you could teach yourself a skill that is sellable online, and your target customer could be anywhere in the world. Again, it’s not easy to just go solo or build a business, but it’s a lot easier and more accessible than it was less than two decades ago.
We are in charge, now more than ever
We get to create our lives in ways we couldn’t imagine a couple of years back and we cannot foresee all the jobs technology will create. Having the freedom to do all these things is what makes us more human. If we use technology the right way, it can empower us to do more of what we want, what we like most, and what we are best at. We decide where we go next.
So what does it mean to be human in a digital world?
A chance to apply technology in ways that empower us to be more human(e), connect with others online and offline, build relationships and work both in the physical- as well as in the digital world. We should use technology to unleash human potential and use our creative thinking to unleash technology’s potential. If we work together, our possibilities are endless.
Being Human in a Digital World
Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain technology, NFT’s, Quantum Computing, the Metaverse…. the list of fast-rising technological innovations is almost endless. We are continuously innovating and the changes to our work- and private lives are ever-growing. Imagine having every work meeting in the Metaverse through Virtual Reality. Picture part of your paycheck paid in cryptocurrency. What about entering a venue where your ticket is a non-physical entrance token? We’re not just disrupting some parts of our work and lives. We’re disrupting our entire economy, job structure, social connectivity, and the world we live in as a whole. Don’t think of this as the future though, because a lot of these are already available in the “real world”, disrupting entire economies.
Our world will never be the same
Technology is exponential, meaning that every new innovation unlocks a whole set of technological opportunities. Some make our lives easier, some enhance the work that we do and still, others are there just for fun. No matter the technology, every new innovation is an opportunity to change certain aspects of our lives. But because of its exponential tendencies, we’re seeing the wildest forms of technology emerging. Going from the printing press to printing at home was a major leap that took ages compared to going from Social Media to a Metavera, a.k.a. an entirely new, digital world.
We used to have a watch to tell time, a plastic card to make payments, and a phone to receive phone calls. All of these — and much, much more — are now integrated into smartwatches. But those are considered tools, gadgets that add a little fun and convenience to our lives. There are tons of them around our house and offices, improving (at least, that’s what they should do) our lives and jobs in the physical world. But in the last couple of years, we took giant steps, even creating a world outside of our own physical planet. Virtual Reality, the Metaverse, and other forms of worlds outside of our own are becoming a lot more common. People are watching comedy shows with a live audience, all of them in a virtual world whilst sitting in their living rooms.
So many things are changing around us and it’s going to change us and the things we do on a massive scale. What does it mean to be a human being in a world that is dominated by technology?
Let’s have a look at some aspects of our lives that have been disrupted and will see a lot more disruption through technology and human innovations over the next years.
“As an organization, it’s up to you to research which jobs could be allocated to machines and where humans can add value to the brand and business.”
Work: Jobs will disappear, change, and get created
A lot of jobs will be disappearing over the next couple of years and decades. As a matter of fact, you can see it happening around you. There’s a lot of fear of technology taking over tasks, then jobs, and eventually our entire lives. For sure many jobs will be taken over by technology once it’s capable of doing so. But it’s part of our evolution. Many jobs disappeared when the Internet came around, but it created more jobs than it took away. Technology taking over (part of our) jobs is actually a good thing in many cases. Machines have different skills than humans and vice versa. It means that jobs, where humans aren’t the strongest fit, will be taken over by tech. Jobs that are mundane, repetitive, or rely on heavy physical activity. Machines are a perfect fit for those jobs and we shouldn’t try and compete with them in those areas.
As an organization, it’s up to you to research which jobs could be allocated to machines and where humans can add the most value to the brand and business. Plus, it should come as no surprise we’re being replaced in a certain area as soon as technology outworks us there. There used to be people lighting the streetlights with a candle on a stick….until electricity took over. Should we have stuck to keeping that jobs?
But here’s the kicker: we therefore also need to innovate on the human side of things as well. Develop the skills that set us apart from machines, such as Emotional Intelligence, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Building Relationships, and much more. Here’s a cool overview from the Brand Humanizing Institute that shows which skills belong to who:
I am nowhere near afraid all of our jobs will be taken over by machines, chatbots, and the like. In fact, these changes caused by Artificial Intelligence, Web3.0, and other technological innovations will likely create more jobs than we can think of today. The same things happened to us when the internet entered our lives. Tons of newly created internet-powered jobs democratized certain areas of expertise. Rather than learning to be a TV Host and going through the TV Industry, you can now be a full-time Youtuber with an audience of millions. You can create podcasts or play games for a living. Those are jobs we couldn’t even think of 15 years ago. These newer technologies will do the same and will create jobs only we — humans — can do. And maybe jobs will become less mundane and more fun, impactful, and humane. We can create these new jobs, so we can set up the terms as well.
Organizations that adopt technology and — in some cases — replace part of the human staff with it, should see opportunities to set themselves apart based on human skills. If you seek out ways to embed human interactions and social elements in people-centered processes, you can set yourself apart from the competition based on the combination of technological efficiency and human capital.
Relationships: making friends in a digital age
Work isn’t the only fast-changing thing. Thanks to technology, the way we build, maintain, and expand our social lives are rapidly shifting too. We used to mainly build relationships offline and use technology to keep in touch, strengthen the relationship, and use platforms to schedule physical get-togethers. Slowly we started accepting that meeting people online and expanding that to offline — so the other way around — was a new and valuable way to connect. On the one hand, technology is pushing us towards creating, expanding, and maintaining our social life completely online. Or should I say, WE are pushing ourselves that way and using technology to accomplish that? Tools such as certain types of Metaverse, Discord, Twitch, and social media platforms make it easy to keep in touch with people.
“…younger generations might prefer making friends online without ever meeting them in “real life”. I put that between quotation marks because making a friend online is still real life, it’s just less physical.”
It’s a great way of upholding relationships. It’s not that we need to go a certain way as a species, choosing between online and offline. It’s just that technology is opening up a lot of possibilities to get — and keep — in touch with people. You get to pick whether it’s online, offline, or both. Keep in mind that younger generations might prefer making friends online without ever meeting them in “real life”. I put that between quotation marks because making a friend online is still real life, it’s just less physical.
In terms of companies, it’s a great opportunity to get in touch with your customers on a whole new level. No longer are we in web2.0 where we use mere platforms to send messages back and forth. You could use the Metaverse to meet with customers and build relationships stronger than a Twitter DM back-and-forth could do. Or you could involve people in your branding, build assets online, and create more points of contact your customer can use to get in touch with you. If people’s focus is moving to the online world, you — as a brand — should be there too, making the latest ways of building relationships and getting in touch available to them.
On the other hand, we should not lose sight of human-to-human physical contact. Being in somebody’s presence builds a different type of relationship. One of the complaints during the massive working-from-home period is the lack of physical presence of colleagues and the lack of social interaction. It’s the same thing E-commerce has been struggling with for years. In-store it’s easier to grab someone’s attention, be genuine and gain trust. Online, you need to build a relationship without the use of many human-specific traits.
Technology should at least empower organizations to build in more and stronger human-centered contact points. If you can have the technology to take over the less-human parts of our jobs, you can then innovate on the human capital side of the chain. People are what makes the difference between good and great in terms of service, relationships, and thus growth. Using technology to unleash human potential means companies can be more human(e) in a technologically driven world.
Community: building strong communities with tech
There’s a growing demand for communities and collaborations, and technology is playing a major part in it. When I was searching for a suitable office for our company back in 2016, I already found three co-working spaces that heavily focus on community building. Working together, growing together, and mixing work and social were the fundament back then, and even more so now.
A great example of that same physiology is through technology is created with DAO’s, which stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. The organization isn’t run hierarchy, but by a set of pre-determined rules set in smart contracts. It aims to be a lot more of a social structure and community building, where in some cases the community has a say in the future of the organization. It’s a great example of technology supporting the building of communities which is in high demand.
The Metaverse — there are several, but just to categorize — is also a great place to build, maintain and expand entire communities of like-minded people. Whether it’s to play games, build a virtual world or visit digital events, it opens up a new way of connecting to other people. Of course, we’ve had the option to talk to people around the globe through many platforms, but these forms of technology are specifically designed to build it together. Major organizations are now (it’s the beginning of 2022 when writing this) purchasing plots of land and assets in the Metaverse. Companies like Nike and Adidas are already building and expanding their digital presence in the Metaverse. It’s a great new way of connecting with customers and offering digital products to their ever-expanding fanbase.
A festival in the Metaverse. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelastminute/51617830752/
Web2.0, the internet as we’ve known it for a long time, is platform-based. That means a platform is built by an organization and we — as consumers — get to create the content or products. Facebook doesn’t create any of its content, Airbnb doesn’t own real estate, Instagram doesn’t shoot images. But as consumers and creators, we use the platform as intended by the corporation behind it. It’s a basis to build a community, but centralized. Newer technology especially in web3.0 is built to empower and support the consumers and creators. In certain metaverses you buy the land, you build the assets, you set the rules of engagement. In DAO’s, the community steers the organization, sometimes controls some of the assets, and can profit from it too. It’s a great display of using technology to create communities and empower the users. It leaves more to gain for creators and more to connect with for its consumers.
Part of being human in a web3.0 based digital world means having a digital life as well where it’s easy to connect to others, move your assets to an online world and take part in communities that are actually decentralized and let you have a say in its future. There are people having full-time jobs in a metaverse (like community managers in Meta), so it’s not a matter of “if” but rather “when”. Being human in a digital age means you have a presence in the digital world as well as the physical one.
Learning: focus on human-specific skills
One of the big topics is learning and the skills we own and use. In schools, we’re still learning many of the same things we learned during the 3rd Industrial Revolution. We’re being trained to perform certain jobs and tasks, some of which have changed immensely through technology or have even disappeared. In a world that’s driven by automation, smart machines, and an abundance of information, we need to focus on learning more human skills. As shown in the image by the Brand Humanizing Institute — the comparison between humans and robots — we both possess different and complementary skills.
It will give you a giant leap and competitive advantage if you learn and develop human-specific traits and skills. There’s no point in learning skills that a machine can perform better and will probably be hired faster than a human being. No one is learning how to light streetlights with a candle on a stick anymore, because technology has mastered that art. Instead, we need to reinvent what it means to be human. Creativity, empathy, critical thinking, ethics, brand building, relationship building, community management….just a small set of skills, tasks, and jobs that are human-specific and will provide a lot of value to you if you master these.
Companies are starting to recruit and hire based on skills rather than your complete resume and motivation letter. It means that having skills that are future-proof and add human value to their brand will get noticed quicker by organizations and their recruiters. Especially by those that understand how automation can take over processes so they now focus on human capital and expanding the interactions and experiences of their brand for consumers. Organizations will start looking for people that master “human skills” because those are the skills that add to their brand equity and are skills they cannot (and should not try to) automate.
Entrepreneurship: an insane amount of possibilities
Owning a business, being an entrepreneur is a lot more common than it was 20 to 30 years ago. Not only because it’s much easier to start a company in this digital age, but also because there’s a growing demand for taking full control of your job and life. The world’s leading recruitment company explained — during a keynote — how especially younger generations (Millenials and GenZ) are no longer looking for a long-term commitment to a job. They prefer working on a project that has their interest and they move on to the next one once the project finishes. It shows in the growing number of people going Freelance or starting a small company in an area they’ve built corporate expertise in. They are exchanging a full-time job in one organization for multiple part-time projects for different companies.
Like I said earlier in this article, technology also brings an insane amount of opportunity. If you wanted to be “on-air” and talk about topics you liked, you either had to be a radio DJ or be famous enough to get invited to people’s shows. Nowadays, you just open up a free account and record a podcast to talk about anything you like. And the beauty is, you can reach any demographic you want. You’re not bound to the (local) audience of the radio station that invited you to their segment. You can host and stream your Podcast in essence to every internet user in the world. The same goes for Youtube, Twitch (streaming), Spotify, you name it. If you want to earn money playing video games and entertaining viewers, you can start right now for free. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s one of the options technology is providing. In light of education, you could teach yourself a skill that is sellable online, and your target customer could be anywhere in the world. Again, it’s not easy to just go solo or build a business, but it’s a lot easier and more accessible than it was less than two decades ago.
We are in charge, now more than ever
We get to create our lives in ways we couldn’t imagine a couple of years back and we cannot foresee all the jobs technology will create. Having the freedom to do all these things is what makes us more human. If we use technology the right way, it can empower us to do more of what we want, what we like most, and what we are best at. We decide where we go next.
So what does it mean to be human in a digital world?
A chance to apply technology in ways that empower us to be more human(e), connect with others online and offline, build relationships and work both in the physical- as well as in the digital world. We should use technology to unleash human potential and use our creative thinking to unleash technology’s potential. If we work together, our possibilities are endless.