The New Digital Divide: Thoughts for Leaders and Laggards

The digital divide has increasingly become about knowledge and adoption of new technologies rather than access. Which side of the divide are you on - are you a leader or a laggard? This post offers insights into the factors contributing to the growing chasm between those who have embraced and leveraged new technologies and those who haven’t. It also offers suggestions for bridging and crossing the divide. Dialogue is encouraged and insights and questions from others are welcome.

For most of the early part of the Digital Era, we viewed the digital divide primarily in demographic terms such as geography, socioeconomic status, and age (see this Wikiepedia entry for details). But as digital technologies continue to improve, get less expensive and grow more widespread, those gaps are closing or becoming less relevant. Gaps based on knowledge and use, however, remain strong – and in fact may be getting larger. Over time it seems – and especially with respect to the adoption of social and 2.0 technologies in organizations – the digital divide is defined less by “we can’t” and more by “we don’t wanna.”

In this post I share my thoughts on six key realities that help put the current divide in perspective and offer food for thought, particularly for later adopters and technology resisters. It’s not intended to be an indictment against laggards and luddites – rather, my intent is to offer a practical assessment and generate dialogue about the challenges we face as technology increasingly outstrips our willingness and ability to embrace, adopt, and master it. To help us figure out how to move forward, I also share a few ideas on what it will take – both collectively and individually – to bridge and cross the divide.

What other realities and challenges do you see? What questions and concerns do you have? What additional ideas would you offer for bridging and crossing the divide?

As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

PS – I’ll be following this post with one focused on how everyone can increase their digital competencies. Be sure to check back and/or subscribe to the blog (via RSS feed, email and more) to be notified as soon as it’s published.

 

Understanding the New Digital Divide

The more I speak to and work with individuals and organizations to help them adapt to Digital Era realities and adopt new social and digital technologies and tools, the more clear certain realities become. Here are some I’m reminded of on a daily basis.

It’s never been so easy to do so much with so little. The technological and financial barriers to adoption of incredibly powerful tools and platforms are generally very low. Free and low-cost options are abundant. In addition, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud-based networks reduce (or eliminate) the need for large investments in hardware. New software and hardware also dramatically increase the ease of design, drastically reduce the time to implementation, and significantly enhance long-term system flexibility.

New technologies create a “people paradox.” Although the idea is counter-intuitive to many, people are much more central to the Digital Era opportunities and challenges we face than technology. As I discuss in Social Media: From Novelty to Utility, digital technology is an enabler – a means to various ends rather than an end in and of itself. We must view these new technologies as sources of power and recognize the importance of human beings in determining the effectiveness of our ability to harness and manage that power.

The (r)evolution is bigger than we think. Many people falsely assume that new technologies only impact organizations in certain sectors (e.g., consumer goods and services), specific functional areas (e.g., marketing), and individuals in certain types of jobs and professions (e.g., IT) or at particular stages in their work lives and careers (e.g., digital natives). The reality, however, is that new technologies potentially impact every type of worker, in every sector, at every career stage and every organizational level, throughout the world.

We get in our own way. Though technological and financial barriers may be low, psychological barriers to new technology adoption are very high. These barriers are both cognitive and affective, and each type of resistance reinforces the other. The foundation of the resistance is a lack of conceptual understanding of how new technologies enable the pursuit and achievement of traditional goals (i.e., they’re new tools for doing old things (in new ways)). This lack of understanding leads to:

• Underestimating opportunities
• Overestimating challenges
• Misestimating risks

We live in the past and like to play it safe. Temperamentally, most humans have a tendency to look backward rather than forward. We concentrate more on “how things have always been done” rather than what’s possible. We’re also generally risk averse, especially when evaluating options that can produce potential gains. Given a choice, most of us prefer the “devil we know” to the “angel we haven’t met yet.”

We’re conditioned to be Luddites. Another significant barrier is that most organizations – from schools to public sector entities to for-profit enterprises – are dominated by Industrial Era thinking and operations. Ironically, even though our natural tendencies are cognitively subjective, procedurally relational, and interpersonally social and collaborative, most of us learn and work in environments that emphasize objectivity, linearity, and (isolated) individualism.

Bridging and Crossing the Divide

To me, leadership is the key to bridging and crossing the new digital divide. And it can occur in multiple forms:

Thought leaders and champions need to not just trumpet the “cool” aspects of new technologies, but also their practical benefits. They need to frame their arguments from the perspective of what people need to hear rather than what they want to say. And they themselves need to think bigger and more broadly about the phenomena they’re touting.

Formal organizational leaders need to educate themselves about new technologies, their applications, and their implications. Doing so will enable them to provide the strategic direction and the capacity – especially in terms of human capital – their organizations need to move forward. It will also enable them to adapt their leadership styles to enhance their ability to be successful in new operating environments.

Educators at all levels – and especially in higher education – also need to educate themselves about new technologies and their applications and implications. They need to then use their new-found knowledge and understanding to update their curricula and pedagogical practices, as well as their research questions and methods.

Informal leaders who understand new technologies and their benefits and challenges can help others make the necessary transitions by being champions and cheerleaders, leading by example, and offering guidance, instruction, and encouragement.

Self-leadership means we will all take it upon ourselves to understand new digital technologies and make educated and informed choices about which technologies we will embrace and leverage. We’ll also commit to learning and excelling at the competencies necessary for Digital Era success.

 

Related Resources

10 Digital Era Truths

12 Hopes for 2012: Enhanced Adoption of Digital Technologies

The Social Media ROI Challenge: What it Really Means (and 7 Related Faulty Assumptions)

Social Media: From Novelty to Utility

Social Media Engagement: 7 Rules for Working Smart, not Just Hard

Social Media Engagement: 5 Guiding Principles

Social Media: Coping with Time and Information Management Realities

What Does it Take to be a Leader in the Digital Era?

Digital Era Leadership: The Role of Business Schools

Social Media Education and Training: Where We Are. Where We’re Going.

Comments

[Joy Cipoletti]

Interesting points in this article. I particularly appreciate the point about identifying benefits, not just "cool" technology. As a small business owner, I find the regular introduction of new technologies somewhat overwhelming, and I see little benefit from a business standpoint to many of them. Getting publicity doesn't necessarily translate into good publicity or sales or other beneficial elements for business.
From a more personal perspective, 24/7 connection is overwhelming and possibly detrimental. I've recently unsubscribed from all but a few newsletters and updates, and I am calmer and more peaceful. I have yet to adopt Twitter because of its frenzied pace of commenting on everything, whether helpful or not. And I've avoided some of the newer technologies because they strike me as time sinks, but not necessarily helpful for business or beneficial to my mental or spiritual well-being.
I think there are many benefits to social media, but I think it's also helpful to consider their impacts before jumping into everything. Perhaps I fall into the category of Luddite...I've been pretty contrary lately. The more information I have access to, the more I want to tune it all out. I'm interested in your next post about to get some additional perspective.

[LawrenceH]

Good information. Care should be taken not to reshape processes to use technology but instead make the technology support existing strengths within the organization. An example would be making someone stop what they are doing to report information into an information system using a kiosk instead of gathering the information within their natural work flow.

[Richard March]

Care should be taken that the different social media can readily communicate with each other. Either adopt protocols for use of social media or adopt a single standard social medium, which sort of defeats the purpose. New mediashould be put in place in aANicipation that the technology will change
.

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Joy, Lawrence, and Richard: Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments.

Joy: Your feelings are normal and understandable - constant change, incessant information flows, and endless options can be overwhelming for all of us. But we can't let those feelings hold us back. As your own actions indicate, we need to educate ourselves, understand our options, and choose what's best for our particular circumstances. You and I are both solopreneurs, but whereas you see little benefit to digital technology (given your business model), it's absolutely central to what I do and how I do it.

Lawrence: I propose similar thinking at the organizational level. So many social technology enthusiasts emphasize the need for culture change before new initiatives can be successful, but I argue that you have to start with an organization where it is rather than where you want it to be. The initial articulation of these ideas was in a proposal I made for the Enterprise 2.0 conference a year ago. Here's a link to it (scroll down to the final section):

http://www.sminorgs.net/2011/01/hr-and-e20-collaboration-and-a-judokan-approach-to-e20-implementations.html

Richard: Governance is so critical to effective use of new technologies - and so far it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. That should change over time.

[Marktilbury]

Love the article and the premise that this is more about access to technology - and I suggest more than just deployment. I have been blogging about the digital divide since 2009 and at first I believed it was how user may be disenfranchised by the lacl of access to services providd through digital tools. Now I see it is organisations who will be left behind as they continue the old 'parent - adult' 'command and control' approach to work, employees, knowledge and development. The digital divide is more a mindset of how tools can allow us to develop the work/life balance as well as developing our professional interests. Technology is the response, the creative mind is the enabler.

http://digitaldivide.posterous.com/the-digital-workplace-is-more-than-technology

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Mark - thanks for your thoughtful comment, and for sharing your own post on the topic. Reading it reminded me that another aspect of the prevailing Industrial Area mindset is the assumption that work takes place in a (single) physical location. Even though we all know from personal experience that nothing could be further from the truth for many workers, our organizations are still designed and still operate with a 9-to-5/physical plant mentality.

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Here's a link to my follow-up post, Digital Era Competencies: How Do You Stack Up?:

http://www.sminorgs.net/2012/05/digital-era-competencies-how-do-you-stack-up.html

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Here's a great related article from Scientific American last December:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/12/14/digital-divide-and-social-media-connectivity-doesnt-end-the-digital-divide-skills-do/