(by Alessandro Capezzuoli) Paraphrasing Edison, it could be said that speeches on digital transformation contain 99% of crap and 1% of content. The word fuffa probably derives from the masculine noun “fuffigno”, used in Tuscany to indicate the entanglement of the threads of a skein. This image is very representative and perfectly summarizes the content of this article, which has the presumption of clarifying the silly tale of digital transformation. Digital shit includes a vast thematic area, ranging from open data to top down and bottom up logic, in which anyone can afford to say anything, without being contradicted. To have an argument it is necessary to confront someone who knows the topic thoroughly and the in-depth knowledge of certain topics requires, this time Edison's quote is fitting, 99% sweat and 1% inspiration. Unfortunately, those engaged in sweating, studying and seeking inspiration are usually not a political decision maker, have no career and are not part of any scientific committee. Indeed, very often he is excluded from any discussion table precisely because, contradicting, he annoys.
On the other hand, the vast thematic area of digital shit gives the illusion to inexperienced and careerists to be able to fully understand a very complex phenomenon, reading a few articles here and there. Speaking with a fluffy style is practical and effective: practical because anyone can do it, effective because it allows you to gain visibility or career progressions quickly and without too much effort. The so-called smattering, a good dialectical ability, a good stage and the task force is assured. Being part of a task force on digital transformation, but not only, is a mystical experience, a test of infinite patience and goodness, an exercise in self-control and continuous discipline, in order not to openly express dissent and to indulge interlocutors with set smiles and cryptic phrases. The watchword of the task forces is "meeting", the goal is to meet once, ten, a hundred, a thousand times and talk, talk, talk. The problem is that each meeting looks like a photocopy of the other: after ten minutes, you enter a hellish loop in which endless discussions are faced about abstract concepts, personal opinions, cosmic relativism and, at times, reckless phrases such as "if I I would have the possibility of… ".
It is on those occasions that the crap experts talk about digital skills, digital divide, machine learning, blockchain, artificial intelligence and implement, in words, reorganizations, technological choices and science fiction measures aimed at solving any situation, including the age-old problem of pollen on the shutters. It could be objected that the difference between idea and action, so dear to Brassens, does not only refer to the issues concerning the gorillas, because one thing is to talk about cooking, another thing is to stay in front of the stove. Objection accepted. So, rather than calling into question the bottom up, or top down logic, which I could cite speciously to give evanescent advice on how to effectively implement the digital transformation, I prefer to avoid fool, start from afar and rely on history and infallible logic peasant. Remember the 70s? It was one of the densest and most complex periods in contemporary history. In those years, an unthinkable leap forward was made with respect to rights and equality. It was a real revolution, punctuated not by the Marseillaise but by stories of locomotives launched against injustices and metropolitan Indians, the sixty-eight, failed together with their ideals and an infinite series of gods to not believe in, from the god of capitalism to the god of consumerism.
The subjects we talked about were those: ideals, the rights of the different, respect for minorities and universal values. It was talked about everywhere, in music, in literature, in bars, schools, squares and even on the news. The whole of Italy was immersed in a narrative that strongly influenced the thinking of the community, especially of those who had little critical sense. There was the will to eliminate the differences, to fight together and to restore equality, starting with that between men and women. The class struggle was the daily bread and the "social divide" was not filled with words, but in the square, through actions of all kinds, even violent and questionable. In a nutshell, there was a collective consciousness, which, despite being full of contradictions, gave the illusion of being able to change humanity into something more human. Then what happened? It has happened that the daily bread, those ideals so dear to writers, poets, workers and others, has slowly been replaced by junk values. It could be argued that even the "highest" ideals were taken as a pretext for carrying out fierce acts of terrorism. Accepted objection. The problem, however, is that a certain type of common consciousness has been replaced by something superficial and elusive, which has led people to get used to feeding on false faiths, as if there were real ones, until they were convinced that they needed them to survive. Indolence, laziness, those crumbs of well-being conquered by the different, who for a short time felt less different, and above all the lack of a broad vision of the way to go, did the rest: we stopped telling the community, with that same narrative, that society had to be done in a certain way. So, as often happens, silence has covered up ideals together with collective (no) science, to the point of changing the perspective and vision of the world and considering diversity a negative value, the poor, and not poverty, a problem , the oppressed, not the oppressors, a threat. The fatal mistake was essentially one: the destruction of culture. And what does digital transformation have to do with all this? It has to do with it because history repeats itself twice, as Marx claimed, the first as a tragedy and the second as a farce.
In the last twenty years have we or have we not been immersed in an unprecedented socio-economic revolution, in many cases in the guise of unarmed spectators, where the thread of the narrative has been the web together with technological evolution? In conferences, in which I try to participate in the least possible way, I often find myself arguing that the link has been and is the undisputed protagonist of this change. What is taken for granted today, and which in our language means connection, has changed society, relationships, the way we shop and communicate, information, the way we provide and use thousands of services and many other aspects of daily life that I am not listing. The link is the narrative in which we are immersed. Loves are links, friends are links, products are links, the dedications of a love song are links, even feelings and moods have become links. Technology has adapted to this need for change and the "giants of the web" have understood its importance, providing free services in exchange for personal data and guiding the populations a bit like the wolf would have done with Little Red Riding Hood. We must never forget that the interest of companies is profit, not the good of the community, so rather than dwelling on philosophical questions and assessing whether or not people have the critical sense in order to distinguish a fake news from a real one, the digital transformation was built around the question "how much do you earn with a user clicking on a link?". If the dangers of a change in society driven by profit and not by culture are evident enough, the role of institutions in this process is not equally evident. And if it is not clear the role that the subjects for which the collective interest should be at the center of the discussion play, society has a problem. As often happens, the public has been watching, twenty years behind, overwhelmed by a cultural change which continues to be unprepared. Thus, while in the offices of any Ministry of Truth of Orwellian memory, digital skills are discussed, which include the use of e-mail or a text editor, tools dating back to 30 years ago, in Google's offices the more appropriate strategies to profit, which in some way will be imposed on the population.
And there is no way out: the community will be forced to learn how to use this or that product, to continue to take advantage of those services that can no longer be done without. And the field of application is really wide: it ranges from the Gmail account, not mandatory but obligatory, to use Android devices effectively, to the undisputed dominance of Google Maps, to trace a road route, from emoticons to synthesize a feeling during a conversation virtual, to the "I like", and only those, without the "I don't like", to trace the profile of people and understand their tastes, interests and orientations. Rather than digital transformation, it would be correct to speak of capitalism 2.0: the individual has remained functional to consumption, but the tools have changed. For this, to say "like" and follow a link, just touch the screen of a phone or say "ok Google, take me to the street ...": this is the cultural and technological transformation of the last twenty years: everything has changed, but after all, nothing has changed. What digital transformation is being talked about within public administrations?
What are the digital skills that chase each other to bridge the digital divide, that abstract concept that you often hear about, but few have understood how to measure? The decision makers have really understood that, for example, the use of emoticons has spread not through guidelines, but thanks to a cultural change that has been going on for years and that two people, to greet each other, exchange a smiley face that launches a little heart instead of writing hello? Have public administrations understood that the language and time to communicate have changed profoundly, that many words have been replaced by images and that many work activities are carried out in a totally different way from the past? Those who manage the staff, and remained firm in the 50s, are aware of the fact that people's reactions have changed compared to the means used to communicate and that emotions and moods are filtered by a screen, by a chat and are functional to a preset message, "He is writing ...", which in a few seconds can arouse anger or hope, before the system message disappears, giving way to silence (because maybe an interlocutor has decided not to write anything and delete what he was typing)? If you don't know, it's serious. If you know and pretend nothing is very serious.
The disconnect between the narration of the reality invented in public settings and the "real" reality is embarrassing. This divergence can only be explained by using the metaphor of the gardener and the farmer (always to adopt an easily understandable logic). The difference between the gardener and the farmer is simple: if the farmer dries up the plants, the problem is only his, if the gardener dries up the plants, the problem lies with the person who commissioned the job. The same reasoning applies to the public and private spheres: if something does not work in the private sector, the problem is with the company, while if something does not work in the public sector, the problem is with those who have trusted the administrators and the management, i.e. of the community.
Often, absurd paradoxes are reached, which reach the highest levels when clumsy attempts to reconcile innovation with bureaucracy and swampy and inefficient work processes are observed. And if they see strange things ... For example, there are DPOs, those responsible for data protection, so zealous that they adopt very strict internal policies on the release of data, even the most insignificant ones, which turn into the impossibility of use them and spread them, and then they give their personal data to an application that promises to predict in which animal the followers of the sect of ioism will reincarnate.
There are internal regulations, worthy of the best Montalbano, which alongside the digital signature are accompanied by the request for a "duly signed copy of the document", because digital is fine, but you never know ... Then there are the real decision makers, the old-fashioned ones , which continue to maintain enormous power even in areas where they have no competence whatsoever and firmly support the absolute security of printed and locked documents instead of digital archives; as if in the courts we do not frequently see mysterious disappearances of entire folders containing very important procedural documents. The lack of culture and the clientele system are the real problems of digital transformation, because they intrinsically push decision makers towards blind resistance to change. Resistance that is often strengthened by the people they surround themselves with. Hundreds of guidelines can be written, but if a real cultural change is not implemented, the country is destined to remain in ford for years.
Unfortunately, despite the task forces and conferences, the decisions are still entrusted to digital gardeners, dinosaurs lacking in-depth knowledge and close to retirement, which are unlikely evaluation committees of innovations with the sole objective of maintaining power, curbing any type of change and favoring the assignment of clientelary positions that have the only advantage of promoting the careers of those who receive them. We return to the beginning of the article, therefore, and to the digital scuffle. They are the ones who make false culture, talking about the digital divide between work and workers, without having really understood if this distance really exists or is more a sensation due to the poor knowledge of how work and its contents have transformed and how the staff has reacted to change (externally induced). They are always the ones who unnecessarily invest money on the training of digital skills (which ones?), Without having found out what the skills are actually necessary for carrying out a certain job. In short, as often happens, if a general chooses inadequate colonels, who in turn choose inadequate lieutenants, who in turn choose inadequate soldiers, the defeat is certain. A visionary, who had imagined a hopeless and surrendered society, wrote that "war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength". At this point, it could be objected that this article, all in all, also contains digital scoff. Rejected objection. This article contains a bit of culture (digital and otherwise): the only tool available to the deluded without power, who would like to leave future generations a better place than they have found.
Alessandro Capezzuoli, ISTAT official and head of the Aidr professions and skills observatory