What have we done? You can find the answer online.
Find the answer online? What if you can’t get online? Or you don’t know how to?
In my last (rant) blog I was feeling the pain of being partly responsible for my part in the rise of the mobile zombie. People walking our streets with a complete unawareness as to what is happening a few feet away from them.
I had a similar experience while watching ‘I, Daniel Blake’ recently. I loved the film, thought provoking and very real. I really felt the pain and frustration the main character was going through on a number of levels. My daughter has a lifelong disability which has been diagnosed by some of the top people in their field in the UK. She has never been independent or able to work and this will never change. Her life is tough enough but to have to go through an application process requiring page after page of form filling was an extremely harrowing experience for her, as it was for the fictional (but very real) Daniel Blake.
” There has to be a point where common sense prevails …”
As in the film, having completed the mammoth form you then have to wait for a lay person to assess your case and decide whether you qualify for the benefits you are claiming. In my experience (and again in the film) the person making that decision is not a doctor. But, they have a computer and (I suspect) a very expensive application that crunches the application form and spits out the results. These results can and again I suspect often do contradict the thoughts of the experts. And this is so frustrating to the point of driving people over the edge, and this just isn’t fair.
We all know Information Technology has the great potential for significantly reducing operation costs, especially where IT enables us to de-skill certain tasks and functions. But the de-skilling must be appropriate. There has to be a point where common sense prevails preventing us from opting to go with the computer decision when the traditional expert opinion says otherwise.
“I realise that IT is my friend and not my enemy, and most importantly, it is not between me and my next meal.”
In the film we saw exactly how this frustration builds when Mr Blake was constantly being referred to the authority’s web site even though he didn’t have any means of accessing the web site. It was extremely frustrating to keep hearing “you can find more details on line”. It would be easy to say that this is ‘only a film’ but we all know this is the reality. There are many citizens that just do not have access to IT whether that is because they do have any means to access the internet or whether they just do not know how to. And please don’t get me onto the subject of those in areas in the UK where the Internet may as well be on another planet.
The situation for Daniel Blake became even more painful when having been forced to use a public PC to complete an online form it took him so long to compete the form, the session timed out and he lost everything that he had just spent hours entering. We work in IT and know this is a potential problem and it still happens to us on occasion, and when it does it is very frustrating. I was in an office only a few weeks ago when this happened to one of the office staff while completing a task on a Cloud application. The poor woman was very upset as she had lost two hour’s work. It happens to me too but I understand IT. I know these things can happen. I realise that IT is my friend and not my enemy, and most importantly, it is not between me and my next meal.
“… IT is being used inappropriately far too often in recent times.”
I use the phrase ‘appropriate use of IT’ a lot, more so now than ever before. When I see films like ‘I, Daniel Blake’ and witness similar real life incidents first hand, I realise that IT is being used inappropriately far too often in recent times. A few months ago, a friend told me of a recent trip to the doctors with her young daughter who was feeling unwell. My friend’s daughter described her symptoms with her mother’s help and the doctor immediately started typing the symptoms into Google. My friend was astounded and seriously concerned that the doctor was having to resort to Google for assistance.
I was talking to a professor at a large teaching hospital shortly after, and I shared this incident with him and he said it was becoming more of a concern. Maybe we are all guilty of resorting to Google a little too often and that is making us lazy, but if I am on site consulting on one of my customer’s network’s I would expect them to be very concerned (as I would be very embarrassed) if I had to dive straight into Google to look up symptoms.
” Sometimes she (my daughter) specifically asks if they need to use Google before she lets them treat her.”
I am very lucky in that I have a semi-retired doctor of the ‘old school’ type and he is very thorough and knowledgeable and although I don’t see him much I am confident that when I do see him I am in safe hands. He has a PC on his desk but his use of IT is appropriate – looking up medical history, identifying medicine contraindications and printing prescriptions. I have never seen him Google anything, not for me or my daughter who has a fairly complex condition. His diagnosis is accurate and detailed.
In fact, whenever my daughter sees a doctor or consultant (she sees many), she usually asks them how they learned their subject. She wants to be sure they know what they are talking about. Sometimes she specifically asks if they need to use Google before she lets them treat her. She has a point!
“I was feeling guilty witnessing how IT was unconsciously being used a weapon of defence…”
Going back to Daniel Blake, you might ask how appropriate use of IT would have helped him? Surely, appropriate use of IT may mean that we don’t use IT in some situations at all? When our customers want to talk to us we don’t force them to use any particular media. They can phone us, email us, fill in a web form or even send us a postcard if that is their preference. We need to be aware that there are potentially a lot to people like Daniel Blake. The elderly, people with special needs and people who have had absolutely no exposure to computers whatsoever. They have a right to be treated just the same as you, and I.
I realised when I was watching ‘I, Daniel Blake’ that I was feeling the pain not only because I had been through the appalling benefits application experience but also because I was feeling guilty witnessing how IT was unconsciously being used a weapon of defence against Daniel Blake rather than something that could make life easier for him and that made me feel very uneasy.
What have we done? You can find the answer online.
Find the answer online? What if you can’t get online? Or you don’t know how to?
In my last (rant) blog I was feeling the pain of being partly responsible for my part in the rise of the mobile zombie. People walking our streets with a complete unawareness as to what is happening a few feet away from them.
I had a similar experience while watching ‘I, Daniel Blake’ recently. I loved the film, thought provoking and very real. I really felt the pain and frustration the main character was going through on a number of levels. My daughter has a lifelong disability which has been diagnosed by some of the top people in their field in the UK. She has never been independent or able to work and this will never change. Her life is tough enough but to have to go through an application process requiring page after page of form filling was an extremely harrowing experience for her, as it was for the fictional (but very real) Daniel Blake.
” There has to be a point where common sense prevails …”
As in the film, having completed the mammoth form you then have to wait for a lay person to assess your case and decide whether you qualify for the benefits you are claiming. In my experience (and again in the film) the person making that decision is not a doctor. But, they have a computer and (I suspect) a very expensive application that crunches the application form and spits out the results. These results can and again I suspect often do contradict the thoughts of the experts. And this is so frustrating to the point of driving people over the edge, and this just isn’t fair.
We all know Information Technology has the great potential for significantly reducing operation costs, especially where IT enables us to de-skill certain tasks and functions. But the de-skilling must be appropriate. There has to be a point where common sense prevails preventing us from opting to go with the computer decision when the traditional expert opinion says otherwise.
“I realise that IT is my friend and not my enemy, and most importantly, it is not between me and my next meal.”
In the film we saw exactly how this frustration builds when Mr Blake was constantly being referred to the authority’s web site even though he didn’t have any means of accessing the web site. It was extremely frustrating to keep hearing “you can find more details on line”. It would be easy to say that this is ‘only a film’ but we all know this is the reality. There are many citizens that just do not have access to IT whether that is because they do have any means to access the internet or whether they just do not know how to. And please don’t get me onto the subject of those in areas in the UK where the Internet may as well be on another planet.
The situation for Daniel Blake became even more painful when having been forced to use a public PC to complete an online form it took him so long to compete the form, the session timed out and he lost everything that he had just spent hours entering. We work in IT and know this is a potential problem and it still happens to us on occasion, and when it does it is very frustrating. I was in an office only a few weeks ago when this happened to one of the office staff while completing a task on a Cloud application. The poor woman was very upset as she had lost two hour’s work. It happens to me too but I understand IT. I know these things can happen. I realise that IT is my friend and not my enemy, and most importantly, it is not between me and my next meal.
“… IT is being used inappropriately far too often in recent times.”
I use the phrase ‘appropriate use of IT’ a lot, more so now than ever before. When I see films like ‘I, Daniel Blake’ and witness similar real life incidents first hand, I realise that IT is being used inappropriately far too often in recent times. A few months ago, a friend told me of a recent trip to the doctors with her young daughter who was feeling unwell. My friend’s daughter described her symptoms with her mother’s help and the doctor immediately started typing the symptoms into Google. My friend was astounded and seriously concerned that the doctor was having to resort to Google for assistance.
I was talking to a professor at a large teaching hospital shortly after, and I shared this incident with him and he said it was becoming more of a concern. Maybe we are all guilty of resorting to Google a little too often and that is making us lazy, but if I am on site consulting on one of my customer’s network’s I would expect them to be very concerned (as I would be very embarrassed) if I had to dive straight into Google to look up symptoms.
” Sometimes she (my daughter) specifically asks if they need to use Google before she lets them treat her.”
I am very lucky in that I have a semi-retired doctor of the ‘old school’ type and he is very thorough and knowledgeable and although I don’t see him much I am confident that when I do see him I am in safe hands. He has a PC on his desk but his use of IT is appropriate – looking up medical history, identifying medicine contraindications and printing prescriptions. I have never seen him Google anything, not for me or my daughter who has a fairly complex condition. His diagnosis is accurate and detailed.
In fact, whenever my daughter sees a doctor or consultant (she sees many), she usually asks them how they learned their subject. She wants to be sure they know what they are talking about. Sometimes she specifically asks if they need to use Google before she lets them treat her. She has a point!
“I was feeling guilty witnessing how IT was unconsciously being used a weapon of defence…”
Going back to Daniel Blake, you might ask how appropriate use of IT would have helped him? Surely, appropriate use of IT may mean that we don’t use IT in some situations at all? When our customers want to talk to us we don’t force them to use any particular media. They can phone us, email us, fill in a web form or even send us a postcard if that is their preference. We need to be aware that there are potentially a lot to people like Daniel Blake. The elderly, people with special needs and people who have had absolutely no exposure to computers whatsoever. They have a right to be treated just the same as you, and I.
I realised when I was watching ‘I, Daniel Blake’ that I was feeling the pain not only because I had been through the appalling benefits application experience but also because I was feeling guilty witnessing how IT was unconsciously being used a weapon of defence against Daniel Blake rather than something that could make life easier for him and that made me feel very uneasy.