If Tools Don’t Change People, What Does?
How tool overload is derailing the digital transformation
Face it: you’re never going to be completely satisfied with the tools you have. Ever since one of our hairy ancestors picked up a stick for a tool, some other ape inevitably showed up with a better stick — bigger, sharper, rock-enhanced. For over 3 million years, we’ve been outdoing each other, and despite shedding most of our hair, nothing suggests we’ll stop. If we have any species-wide pride, it’s rooted in our ability to imagine, build, and wield tools that turn impossible tasks into child’s play. Plenty of other species use tools, but when it comes to catching falling rocket boosters or folding proteins to battle viruses, humans are the only ones who can inflate our egos while doing it.
But does this obsession with tools really improve our lives? Sure, a shovel beats bare hands, and a calculator outpaces counting on fingers, but will artificial intelligence (AI) be the ultimate end-all in our eternal tool race?
Manage Me (Very) Badly
Memee was a project manager (PM) at a large public sector organization where I worked long enough to feel justified in bringing them up here. (Their name has been changed, and yes, I use a non-binary pronoun for Memee — a deliberate choice made before the…
