Great Content: Still Can’t Automate It
Posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
“I used to shoot people for a living.” So began the article in, of all places, a software testing magazine. The author turned out to be harmless, just a software geek for the U.S Army. His great opening line hooked me: It seems the best work, even by those who automate for hire, can’t be automated.
Software-driven automation is the basis of modern civilization and much of our work life. Think about it. Virtually every aspect of day-to-day business now relies on a program. All but the really key things, that is. For instance, software doesn’t think — not really, with all due respect to AI — it just follows rules set by thinkers. And it can’t create a thing.
I see these shortcomings as cause for hope & celebration.
The other day, poring over the latest distressing news about IT spending cuts, RIFs and unemployment, I suddenly brain-segued into a daydream, or rather daynightmare, about a future time when we devolve to a true worker bee environment. You know, where there’s a queen hatching all the drones, who work their little stingers off through the warm months, then croak at the first frost and are replaced by a new swarm the next year. Corporate bean-counters would get along well in a hive environment, I believe.
But it has its limits in the non-bee world. Here a manager can only stoke profits so much for so long by zapping worker bees. Eventually, somebody has to produce the honey. It needs a product launch, marketing and promotion. That involves thinking, creativity and the translation of ideas into visions made of words and images that will stimulate the buying public.
In sum, great content. Can’t be automated. A real live woman or man has to do it. Queen bees of the world, eat your hearts out.
Related posts:
