Can society keep up with the Digital Economy treadmill?

Our business has ambitions to be 100% digital by 2020. From machine learning to artificial intelligence, voice activation to augmented reality, if there is a new technology out there that will drive value for our client’s brands, we want to embrace it.

I wonder though, at the macro level as we increasingly move towards this digital world, what does it actually mean for wider society? Can it keep up with the pace of change? In this post I look at the overarching debate, and argue that as we race towards a digital-first world, we should not forget about the importance of human needs, capabilities and relationships in our work with society, to build towards an inclusive digital future.

The Wider Debate

News about the impacts of our rapidly developing digital world — both positive and negative — are regular features in our daily reading. Many commentators speak about the 4th Revolution’s potential to bring substantial benefits to humanity, and we are already seeing this in the realm of Mobile; connecting remote communities in the developing world to the economy and the internet. The future could bring Artificial Intelligence that will drastically increase economic productivity, next generation robotics that will advance many of the Sustainable Development Goals, and much more.

Tech innovation has so much potential, but as we race ahead on our digital treadmill, corresponding risks for society are also starting to present themselves. This dichotomy is most apparent in the driverless car revolution; hailed for having the potential to support SDG Goal 3.6 of halving global deaths and injuries in road traffic accidents by 2020, but at the same time putting 4 million driving jobs at risk in the US alone. The ‘Digital Divide’ for vulnerable people in our communities, for which digitisation of services and automation of jobs, is creating and expanding barriers to their inclusion.

Interestingly, Stephen Hawking believes this is the most dangerous time for our planet, with globalisation and accelerating technological change serving to widen financial inequality. I am of the belief that businesses working towards creating a digital-first future must play their role in making it inclusive, and at Dentsu Aegis Network we have started taking steps to play our part.

Be Innovative for Good (BIG)

We recently launched ‘Be Innovative for Good’ (BIG), a movement to harness our people’s passions to share their skills with the societies they work in; with people, charities, leaders and even with clients, to generate positive social impact. As part of BIG, we united our CSR champions worldwide into virtual discussion forums on Yammer, to start thinking about the Digital Divide and how we as a digital economy business can do more to support society.

Here I share three key insights that I took away from those discussions, which all point towards the need to embrace and enhance our human connections in an increasingly digital era; the importance of not forgetting human needs, capabilities and relationships as we work with communities to close the Digital Divide.

Insight 1: Human Needs

Defining the issues that need tackling to bridge the Digital Divide run deeper than the obvious. The two most apparent issues of improving access to technology and upskilling people to be confident in using that technology are widely cited and important. But our people voiced their belief that vulnerable groups in society need more than a Wi-Fi connection to prosper. If we turn to Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs, unless a person’s most basic and psychological needs are met — such as security, food, water, relationships — they cannot aspire to fulfil more advanced needs. As an example, our UK HQ recently launched a Breakfast Club at a local primary school, where 21% of their pupils are estimated to arrive at school hungry. Children distracted by hunger cannot learn effectively, so by supporting this fundamental need of tackling hunger, we are opening up the possibilities for them to learn and achieve at school. As we work with communities on closing the Digital Divide, we should be open to exploring a broad spectrum of human needs, which could be serving as barriers to the Digital Economy further down Maslow’s pyramid.

Insight 2: Human Capabilities

When it comes to preparing our future generations for work in the projected machine age, we should focus on developing our most human capabilities to differentiate us from what the machines are capable of. In our discussion forums it was clear that our people are most concerned and passionate about projected job losses due to digitalisation, with some estimates as high as 2 billion worldwide by 2030. Other writers argue these projections are overblown and very few occupations [5%] will be automated in their entirety. Either way, our economy is changing and with that needs to be a shift in the way we prepare our young people for work.

The focus in the last decade has been on nurturing technical skills through STEM subjects, and whilst hugely important still, our discussions revealed to me that we need a renewed focus on the development of us as human beings. Our ability to build relationships with others using our emotional intelligence, and to be creative, entrepreneurial, critical thinkers tackling novel situations. Interestingly, in 2017 Finland completely overhauled its education system to place a strong emphasis on collaborative ‘phenomenon’ learning, where pupils work together to solve problems they will face in their lives, with less emphasis on traditional siloed subject learning. With around 40% of community activity across our global business targeting Young People, we should consider this insight as we design CSR initiatives with schools and youth NGOs.

Insight 3: Human Relationships

Establishing human-first relationships through CSR is important if we are to build trust with our communities in this digital era. Throughout 2017 we were witness to global events such as Brexit and Trump; seismic political tremors revealing that public trust in the status quo was in crisis around the world. The results of the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer confirmed that we are living in a world of distrust. For us as Dentsu Aegis Network in our world of marketing, with adblocking on the rise, cookies frequently deleted and people worried about data privacy, the trust deficit is a material issue for us.

In this trust climate, delivering our work in communities in the right way is key. In their recent research on Trust, our agency Carat found that now more than ever people place trust in the advice, thoughts and ideas of their neighbours and friends, and it is collective experience and conversation which builds trust. Reflecting on what that means for our CSR work, our guiding principles should centre on going the extra mile to work truly collaboratively with communities, through co-creation and two-way dialogue, on an on-going basis. Our people also felt passionately about doing things that come naturally and authentically to us, making our contribution real and impactful. Isobar’s fascinating study on Augmented Humanity reveals that as technology develops, it should be able to enhance our most human attributes and interactions, which could eventually support us in this mission.

It may seem ironic to be promoting embracing our humanity in an increasingly digital era. But I believe that is how we can truly help society in its broadest sense to join us on the treadmill — by seeking to understand human needs, to build outstanding human capabilities, and nurturing human-first relationships that count.