Commenting on James Herbert’s sensible post about approaching AI in local government, I came up with 5 statements of the bleedin’ obvious that all senior people ought to have in their minds whenever technology is being discussed.
- If something sounds like a silver bullet, it probably isn’t one
- You can’t build new things on shaky, or non-existent, foundations
- There are no short cuts through taking the time to properly learn, understand and plan
- There’s no such thing as a free lunch – investment is always necessary at some point and it’s always best to spend sooner, thoughtfully, rather than later, in a panic
- Don’t go big early in terms of your expectations: start small, learn what works and scale up from that
Increasingly, I tend to speak about digital being different from previous approaches to technology because it includes a healthy dose of cynicism about the ability of technology to improve anything, ever. Perhaps these points reflect that!