Why being on a Digital Journey is not enough

1979—I was thirteen years old when Pink Floyd released their album The Wall. I was overwhelmed. I can’t tell how often I was listening to it. One song–one line just burned right into my synapses.

Comfortably Numb – I had no idea why at this time.

2019—Sitting on a plane, prepping a keynote somewhere on the globe, the onboard entertainment system gave me a present: David Gilmour playing Comfortably Numb live in Pompeii. Suddenly everything made sense.

We are facing Collective Comfortable Corporate Numbness!

We still behave like everything will go on forever and our jobs are safe. Like disruption is something the others—over there—have to deal with; not us! OK, maybe we are, somehow, adapting to Digital.

Maybe we are considering making use of APIs. Maybe we have some agile teams or, even better, we are applying super complicated agile frameworks spiced with some super-hot DevOps sauce…

By design, every status-quo doesn’t have the language/syntax to describe an altered/transformed state. That’s why it always sounds so weird if old-staters are talking about the new state. Everything sounds so complicated, although it is actually so simple. If the last sentence doesn’t generate comments, it is proven that you haven’t read so far. By theory, the old problems aren’t relevant in the transformed state – but to be honest – new problems will arise on a higher level.

Somehow a slogan like #AdaptOrDie doesn’t threaten us at all—maybe it’s just cool to say it. We didn’t have a real sense of urgency; until early 2020!

In the last two months, we got a glimpse of how it feels to be disrupted. And not only one industry is affected (again, not my industry, the other’s industry).

An industry/society agnostic disruptor came right around the corner—and the world stood almost still.

Suddenly we learned how to work from home. We started to speak about an Unconditional Basic Income with an unexpected open mind. We created little self-organized social communities to help each other. We avoid unnecessary air travel—WOW!

In most parts, Europe is opening up again these days. Is it the time to roll back all we have just learned? Is this the time to return right into our Numb Corporate Digital Journeys—or is it the time to reboot our Digital Endeavours and finally go all-in?

In this time of inescapable change and disruption, some key questions are still relevant. Ask yourself:

• Did you invest heavily in your digital program without yet exposing value-added API Products?
• Are your digital offerings not giving developers the experience they deserve?
• Do you still have to answer the question “Why do we need that”?
• Do you have the time to spend cycles customizing your API Management Platform in search of perfection?
• Does your board question your teams’ capabilities, skills, or capacity to deliver?
• Is your digital program funding under scrutiny every few months?
• Are your digital teams self-occupied despite their good intentions?
• Do you finally want to put rubber on the road to Digital Nirvana? Do you even have a choice?

If you can answer any of these questions with yes, don’t hesitate to join Brian Otten and me on our webinar as a part of the Around The Corner Series.

We led Digital programs on our own and learned best practices on how to avoid costly and frustrating mistakes.

Today, we are trusted advisors to high-profile digital programs all over the world and able to turn digital beach holidays into truly transformational trips.

Let’s wake up. Let’s convert tankers into speedboats. Let’s make elephants dance. Let’s turn our Digital Journeys into Digital Races. Let’s go all-in—starting today!

Yours, Kay | Zurich | May 7th