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What We Do
Coach Leaders and Startups
Raise Digital & AI Fluency
Give Catalytic Keynotes
Explore the Future
Events
Research
The AI & Digital Fluency Guide
Thinking Styles
Data Ethics
Multi-Sided Platforms
Rethinking Remote
Causeit's Bookshelf
Automobility Platforms
Cyborg Movies & Books
About
Vision and Values
Team
Blog
Contact
How Digitally Fluent Are You?
A quick assessment for individuals, teams and organizations
<section><h2><h2>How Digitally Fluent Are You?</h2></h2><p><p>Digital fluency is the combination of thinking and skills necessary to create value with digital technologies. <br /></p><p>Most approaches to 'going digital' focus on only one or two elements of the larger equation of digital fluency. Maybe you'll start with finding out what tools are available, or get a briefing on terminology. But learning a few phrases in a foreign language while you are away on vacation is not the same as being able to have a conversation or lead the 'disruptive' movements so many clamor for.<br /></p><p>Answer the following questions from whatever context you like. You might answer from your own experience as an individual, the digital environment of your team or department, or your organization as a whole.</p></p></section><section><h2><h2><strong>1X: Analog</strong></h2></h2><p><p>Organizations at the 1X scale have very little digital leverage. In other words, if they use digital tools, it is only as a substitute for things that were previously done through analog tools. For example, the use of fax machines instead of the postal system is a 1X strategy—while it increases speed a bit, it is still essentially a channel for moving static documents from a sender to a recipient. It's faster and more convenient but it's not enough to create a competitive advantage or transform your business.</p><p><br /></p><p>Examples:</p><ul><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">A medical office which faxes claims to an insurance company rather than mailing them</span></li><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">A property management company who started corresponding via email instead of postal mail</span></li><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">A mining company which uses video conferencing to show mineral deposits to investors prior to conducting in-person tours</span></li></ul><p><br /></p><h4><span style="background-color:transparent;">Now that you have an idea of where you stand on the spectrum of digital fluency, what's next? Learn more about digital fluency and how your organization compares to others.</span></h4></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong>2X: Digital Operations for an Analog Organization</strong></h2></h3><p><p>At the 2X scale of digital fluency, organizations will use digitized versions of analog systems (like spreadsheets or PDFs of scanned paper documents) to increase data integrity, searchability and speed. They may have significant leverage over their fully-analog counterparts, but they aren't creating new value with digital tools. In these organizations, digital technologies are used mostly to streamline analog operations.</p><p><br /></p><p>Examples:</p><ul><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">A mail-order company with a database for managing orders</span></li><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">A neighborhood corner market which uses a Facebook Page instead of a paper newsletter</span></li><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">A large retail company with a call center organized via a computerized ‘ticket management’ system for customer complaints</span></li></ul><p><br /></p><h4>Now that you have an idea of where you stand on the spectrum of digital fluency, what's next? Learn more about digital fluency and how your organization compares to others.</h4></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong>3-4X: Digitizing Value Despite the Circumstances</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Digital organizations that are operating at 3-4X have achieved some network effects inside their organization through the pervasive use of digital technologies. They are starting to produce digital value at scale, through interconnected systems with live data and teams who understand data-centric products and services. While direct revenue is coming from digital offerings or products, the mindset for operations and value exchange still comes from an analog business model. At this stage, applied digital thinking may begin to cause exponential results—but only in specific parts of the business—and digital initiatives have to overcome significant analog inertia to achieve any scale.</p><p><br /></p><p>Examples:</p><ul><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">A bank which is still focused primarily on providing service through physical locations or phone-based financial advising, but which has a small ‘algorithmic trading’ department where machines manage investments under close supervision by humans </span></li><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">An automaker who still makes and sells cars but is also starting to venture into a few digital subscription services for their vehicles, like mobile data or apps</span></li></ul><p><br /></p><h4>Now that you have an idea of where you stand on the spectrum of digital fluency, what's next? Learn more about digital fluency and how your organization compares to others.</h4></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong>5-7X: Significant Digital Momentum</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Organizations at the 5-7X scale have reached a critical mass of digital fluency. A substantial amount of their revenue can be attributed to digital products or marketplaces, and the lowest common denominator of digital fluency is high enough that digital value can be created with relative ease across the organization. The location of employees, customers and partners becomes less relevant as advanced technologies enable remote collaboration and decision-making. Value is co-created by many people inside and outside the company. Externally, these organizations may be perceived as software companies—though there may be significant 'growing pains' or controversy about that.</p><p><br /></p><p>Example:</p><ul><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">John Deere (which sells tractors and other agricultural equipment) now has software-enabled, subscription-based services in addition to its traditional products. Each individual tractor has a digital representation of itself in John Deere’s systems, where diagnostics, device usage, and other data are tracked and optimized. These digital twins enable the new business model of subscription-based services with much more predictable margins than leasing or renting of vehicles.</span></li></ul><p><br /></p><h4>Now that you have an idea of where you stand on the spectrum of digital fluency, what's next? Learn more about digital fluency and how your organization compares to others.</h4></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong>8-10X: Exponentially Digital</strong></h2></h3><p><p>A company that's reached this level of digital fluency may look more like science fiction than business as usual. They leverage conversational digital colleagues, strong AI programs, and highly-predictive approaches to value creation which are still quite rare. This all requires significant investment to conceive of, build and make sustainable—but it also often creates a major "first to market" advantage. It's very hard to catch up with a company on an exponential curve.</p><p>Everyone in an 8-10X company is a technologist of some kind or another, even if they don't have a digitally-focused job. Employees, customers and partners all contribute to technology planning and development, bridging the distance between users and designers. </p><p>These companies have 'software-defined everything.' For example, nearly all value created by Google is a function of software. Even the hardware they create is valuable primarily because of the applications and algorithms which define how the hardware works, and new features can be downloaded as an update. Software-defined value is a hallmark of digital companies, because it enables razor-thin margins for competitive cost advantages, rapid scaling and pivots based on prediction models.</p><p><br /></p><p>Examples:</p><ul><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">Tesla’s software-defined vehicles can receive significant new features ‘over the air’ with nightly updates. Some downloadable upgrades cost as much as $10,000, like their much-discussed ‘autopilot’ driver assistance features. While the majority of Tesla revenue is still from selling physical things, all of those physical goods have required software components to deliver on their value proposition.</span></li><li><span style="background-color:transparent;">The Amazon marketplace and other platform-based web services by Amazon are examples of offerings which originally enabled Amazon’s own business lines but now have expanded to be huge businesses in their own right. Almost every part of Amazon is software-defined—including the work of independent contractors like delivery drivers—allowing Amazon to promise reliability and speed which is difficult for competitors to match.</span></li></ul><p><br /></p><h4>Now that you have an idea of where you stand on the spectrum of digital fluency, what's next? Learn more about digital fluency and how your organization compares to others.</h4></p></section><section><h2><h2><strong>How does your team use digital systems?</strong></h2></h2></section><section><h3><h2>What tools do you use to communicate?</h2></h3></section><section><h3><h2>What is your assessment of your organization's technology roadmap?</h2></h3></section><section><h3><h2><strong>How does your organization make decisions about using technology?</strong></h2></h3></section><section><h3><h2>Is your data at rest, or in motion?</h2></h3></section><section><h3><h2><strong>How does your data reflect the past, present, and future?</strong></h2></h3></section><section><h3><h2><strong>What is your organization's code of ethics for data collection, storage, and use?</strong></h2></h3></section><section><h3><h2>What types of data are you capturing?</h2></h3></section><section><h3><h2>Do you have enough information to diagnose problems in how data gets used?</h2></h3></section><section><h3><h2>How "digital friendly" are your organization's policies for compliance, regulation and governance?</h2></h3></section>
Read: What Is Digital Fluency?
