Coding is not the answer

Do we really need a world where everybody is a software developer?

Over the last eight years, I’ve been working on the digital transformation of some big organizations, such as the Basque Government (a regional government in northern Spain) and the University of the Basque Country (a public university with a community of approximately 50k people.) But, you ask, what is “digital transformation”?

Digital transformation implies changing the strategic vision of the organization to incorporate technology and a new logic to the organization’s business, so that it becomes more efficient and it allows new venture opportunities.

Digital transformation implies a journey from a rigid chain of command to agreements among stakeholders, in a transparent and more liquid way, where hierarchy is blurred.

Digital transformation implies knowing where to find resources, and not necessarily having the resources yourself. It implies optimization, networking, and a sense of innovation. It’s swimming upstream.

I’ve been to a lot of meetings and workshops aimed at re-thinking our education system to provide our youngsters with some “digital skills”, that they will supposedly need in the future. And, of course, coding is always among these new skills.

But, coding is just another language — nothing more, nothing less.

Education systems across the world these days are tending to eliminate humanities courses, because they are “worthless”; they are, at the same time, trying to introduce coding skills. Coding. What for?

We are stuck with our 20th-century minds, still trying to assimilate what’s going on. We think all of our answers will come in the form of magic-wand software that will make us happy ever after. And, what’s worse, we think everybody should be able to build that software.

— Do you have a problem? No worries! Whatever your concern is, there’s a software solution for that.

Really??

Technology is not just about software. This is a common, yet reductionist vision of technology. Technology is mainly about people. No people, no technology. It’s also about gathering people together. It’s about connecting people on a global scale who have the same concerns on a local scale. Technology is the way, not the solution itself.

Coding is just another language. It’s the language that bridges humans and machines. Technology is what it is today because software engineers made machines easy to handle and easy to understand by everybody. As Chip Kidd says in his TED talk about first impressions, it’s all about clarity or mystery. And mystery demands to be decoded. Machines were our mystery. Now software is, and it is demanding to be decoded.

“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”— Carl Sagan

Are 21st-century societies going to emulate Renaissance geniuses? Do we need to become experts on Architecture, Engineering, Physics, Painting, Rhetoric, Sculpture, Medicine, and become Michelangelos or Leonardos? Or, conversely, do we need to know where to find the best experts in every field? In a hyper-specialized world, what’s are focus worth and where should we place it?

I personally think some important part of our future lies in data. According to IBM, humanity is generating around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, every single day. We are generating more information in one day than we’re able to digest in a whole lifetime. This information is being created by every one of us, and uploaded to the internet at a speed we can’t even imagine. We will surely need coders and designers to make this information available for everyone, but also interpreters; these are philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and storytellers.

Because, before learning to code, we need to understand what code is for. Then, and only then, will we be able to take our next step as a species.