A look into the day-to-day role of a DT consultant

In this issue, I thought I’d offer a quick look into the role of a Digital Transformation consultant during a project and try to highlight their value and the clarity that they bring from what seems to be impossible to untangle.

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Enjoy.

Social distancing from Digital Transformation

I recently recorded a podcast episode where we discussed the state of Digital Transformation, the ongoing COVID crisis and ultimately, how we felt business in the Caribbean should react. In the podcast, I mentioned that I was taking social distancing the phrase Digital Transformation, and I wrote about that in the past in an issue simply titled “Digital Transformation”:

The phrase Digital Transformation, and why it is misused

I understand the lure; honestly, I do. It’s a snappy phrase and something that evokes moving forward and resolving problems, but boy do I dislike the phrase Digital Transformation! Odd indeed for a consultant that has created a business solely to help companies with their Digital Transformations!

Why do I dislike the phrase then, when it’s contributing to feeding the family? Surely I should embrace the phrase, lean in and exploit its use the maximum amount of advantage to my business? That would be the most obvious thing to do os course. But I’ve never been simple, or standard. I’m an Englishman in the French West Indies for Christ’s sake!

I have no liking, nor affection for the phrase “Digital Transformation” because of what it has become and what it means to most people. I'm a little melodramatic of course, but let me explain…

In that issue, I went on to argue that Digital Transformation is too broad of a term and can mean anything you want it to, as long as you include some “digital” stuff in your definition. More recently, It has been hijacked by marketing to mean how a company can use digital technologies to communicate and ultimately, market and sell products. Virtually all of the Digital Transformation companies I see in the Caribbean are focused on using the various platforms and social media systems to promote and influence buyers decisions. And that’s great and is sorely needed right now, more than at any time in history. But that is not what Digital Transformation is limited to. So I’ve decided, I’m going to campaign relentlessly to change the meaning of Digital Transformation the whole world over and won’t stop until its done… I’m kidding. That’s a fool’s errand. (1)

The question came up on the podcast about how I would define Digital Transformation, which is a great question and one I get asked often. I always give the same answer, and it’s one I went into some detail about in the second issue of the newsletter. TL;DR: “Digital Transformation is the methodology in which organisations transform and create new business models and culture with digital technologies” - Ray Wang, Constellation Research

We got a little further into the weeds to try to examine what it looks like for an organisation that has either just started or is thinking of starting. It’s not easy to describe, but I’ll show it visually. For the curious, it’s based on something called the Newman Design Process Squiggle:

Source: The Process of Design Squiggle by Damien Newman, thedesignsquiggle.com

In a Digital Transformation engagement, the very first step is to embark upon an audit of the company, its processes, its people and its culture, I mean its business culture. Culture is vital to understand at this point as it is the key to not only understanding why a company does something but also how. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Only until the process of a complete audit is finished —which I’ve discussed in this newsletter previously (LINKs)— and by observing each element of the businesses value chain, can we prioritise the candidate topics for further work. And that is where the above model comes in to play.

As I progress over the following days and weeks, we (my client and I) arrive at a consensus of how things operate, why they run that way and what things we can start to change to achieve a better outcome. Typically it takes several days/weeks per subject give or take, and depending upon scale and complexity, of course. To clarify, when I say subject, I mean the topic of focus for digital transformation. For example, during the initial audit conducted at the start of an engagement, the client and I identify areas of interest to look deeper into to choose candidates for digitalisation. Take, for example, a warehouse that wishes to accelerate and optimise operations. Simply replacing humans with robots designed for warehouses will undoubtedly lead to an expensive failure. But by observing how and why the warehouse operates the way it does, not only can we clearly define what needs to be introduced, but also how it should be undertaken to provide the best outcomes. In some cases, the business owner or project sponsor will have a clear view of what he or she would like to achieve. I take those suggestions on board and add them to the list of candidates for further study.

Getting back to the overall process, you can see that at the start, there is a lot of noise, uncertainty and difficulties in trying to understand what is required to embark on a future process. It starts with an abstract notion of the problem we’re trying to solve and then using research, prototyping and small-scale tests, we end in clarity and crystal-clear design of the required solution. This is the part of the process I find the most enjoyable and equally, the most challenging. It is also the part that returns the most reward for me as a consultant. Once I have started trying to understand your business and your processes, always looking to view at them from a different angle than you can, I start building out that knowledge with copious amounts of research and summarisations of the information and data collected. At this point, the need to interview and shadow-follow people is key to gaining deep insight into the current workings of an organisation. This almost always allows the writing of a detailed report that includes suggestions on the way forward in practical steps (including those made by the client and the clients’ employees). 

I use the diagram above often, to illustrate what the process of Digital Transformation is and to articulate its beginning, middle and end. It is a crucial component for a client to not only understand the process but also understand the value of the engagement. I say it often, and I repeat it here, “digital” is the most straightforward part of the phrase. Taking our warehouse example, literally hundreds of warehouse robot vendors exist around the world trying to sell you that magic bullet. A cursory search on DuckDuckGo listed thousands of potential companies and examples. Whatever you decide to digitalise, you will find a plethora of choice in software, hardware or combination of both, that may “fix” your problem. However, only with the expertise and guidance of an independent consultant will you feel the benefits across your organisation for the long term.

A day-in-the-life-of. A real-world example

I got engaged in a project late last year with a company that sells its services across the FWI, where a majority of the workforce is site-based depending upon the plan of the moment. I won’t go into detail about who and what they do as it is irrelevant to this example.

For this company, the owner had previously identified an area that needed particular attention and, in his view, needed it rapidly. The company had generalised the use of paper timesheet reporting for each onsite worker several years ago and used that system with success ever since. But the process was not only slow but prone to human error requiring several stages of control to ensure the data collected was correct. The importance of the data was also of concern as it had a direct influence on two factors any business-owner will sympathise with; pay and project billing. The more time spent on site, the higher the invoice and pay were, to put it bluntly. If an engineer wrongly noted the time spent, it might affect not only the projects’ solvability but also his wages. And, despite these incentives, time was often incorrectly recorded. 

Using the process of the squiggle model above, I set out to observe how and why things are done the way that way. The idea is, as I’ve noted, to gain a deep insight into the process and all the sub/pre-processes that influence or are influenced by this important and central task. After some time discussing with the company director, we coalesced on a list of objectives that he would like to achieve. Those objectives allow us to measure the success of the desired outcomes.

After observing how the timesheets were filled in and returned to head office, I looked at what processes were then employed to make use of that data. It turned out that they were used twice; once for the company ERP that eventually generated billing and a second by the accountant to generate payslips. However, along the way, there were a couple of steps that meant that project managers needed to check and amend the details directly on the paper sheets and sign-off once the verifications concluded that the planned work had really taken place onsite. This was key to suggesting a better solution.

If you read that last paragraph again, one thing should become apparent; the timesheets were nothing more than a final expression of the planning put in place by the project managers, who themselves had to sign off whether or not the engineers were present on-site and for how long. The responsibility was theirs, regardless of who pre-filled the timesheets. This might not be your process, but it was theirs. Armed with this knowledge, I then set about observing and understanding the role the project managers played in assigning work and planning. Long story short, it was a manual process and slightly different depending on the project manager or project concerned. 

Basic tools (things like paper boards, printed planning sheets and manual cross-checks, etc.) were used to coordinate the planning and the final sign-off for the timesheets we wished to digitalise. The value of the DT consultant comes in to play at this point. A simple IT technician could have “digitalised” the timesheets by merely replacing the paper sheets with a digital representation of the same using Excel or any number of tools. And sure enough, the produced data could be extracted and reutilised for the processes further down the line. But I, having understood the entire value chain involved in the time reporting, suggested a system that not only eliminated the need for the engineers to fill in forms (i.e., the time spent either out of hours or in hours) —something that none of the engineers I spoke to relished— but also reduced a 13-step process into a 2-step process.

The project managers were responsible, and that responsibility meant that a solution that would provide a distributed and real-time online planning system that also exported data for direct use in the ERP system, meant a saving of over 40 hours per month using a very conservative estimate of the time spent on the manual forms. It is more likely around 60/70 hours per month in reality. Or two weeks’ salary for an engineer, not counting the time saved for the project managers!

So you see, it was very messy at the beginning, slowly culminating in a solution that not only provided a solution for the immediate paper problem but saved on working hours, unnecessary validation steps and ultimate errors. And as a bonus, again, because I had a holistic view of the firms business, the solution could provide the platform to solve some of the other pressing problems the company was facing. Alas, Covid-19 nixed that for the time being.

I hope you enjoyed that look into the day-in-the-life-of. Let me know how I can help you with your journey; I’d only be too glad to assist. Drop me an email sometime :

Email me

I’ll let you know as soon as I can when the podcast episode will be published, but for now my thanks again to Michele Marius for the invitation.

I was a guest on two previous episodes, you can listen here:

ICTP 054: Community Chat On Ride-Hailing Services. Can They Complement The Public Transport System In The Caribbean, And What Might Be Their Social Impact?

ICTP 080: Discovering Martinique, with Matthew Cowen of dgtlfutures

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interested in Digital Technologies and how it affects their business. I’d really appreciate if you would share it to those in your network.

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1 A journey, task, etc., that is a waste of time because it was not necessary - https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/a+fool%27s+errand

Normalcy after COVID, Productivity in a COVID world and a quick take on Apple’s new toy.

I’m not sure we will ever go back to the normal we used to have. But I do think we should read that more as an opportunity to do something new. In today’s newsletter, I discuss why that is. Some interesting early research from Microsoft about productivity in a COVID-19 world and a personal take on Apple’s new iPad Magic Keyboard and the “job” it’s trying to do.

On to the issue.

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The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interested in Digital Technologies and how it affects their business. I’d really appreciate if you could forward it to people you feel are interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you on board. You can sign up here:

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Normalcy after COVID, Productivity in a COVID world and a quick take on Apple’s new toy

I’m not sure we will ever go back to the normal we used to have. But I do think we should read that more as an opportunity to do something new. In today’s newsletter, I discuss why that is. Some interesting early research from Microsoft about productivity in a COVID-19 world and a personal take on Apple’s new iPad Magic Keyboard and the “job” it’s trying to do.

On to the issue.

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A quick note about the presentation I’m putting together. It’s nearly complete and I’ll be communicating about it soon. There’s a sneak preview in the footer if you’re interested. I’ll have news of an additional workshop soon, too. 🤫

Is the new normal going to be, well, normal?

Let’s be fair. I don’t think anyone can say with any certainty that things are going to get back to the way they were. History often teaches us that. After the previous World Wars, the economy, the mental health and the industrial needs had all changed irreversibly. Our after-pandemic world will be as changed as those worlds were, but for different reasons. Like those who dealt with their circumstances, our new world has been thrust upon us without request. It is now up to us to modify our behaviour to adapt; SARS-COV-2 is not going to accommodate us.

One thing we can say with some degree of certainty is that without an efficient vaccine we are not going back to a free to move society — as in being able to walk around anywhere, gather, meet, shop — sorry Anti-Vaxxers (2). And, even if we were to produce a vaccine ready for generalised vaccination in the whole population in the next couple of months (no, it’s not going to happen), there is no telling currently how mutation might affect its efficacy. For reference, you need to get your flu jab every year because of mutation or Antigenic Drift. The list of flu viruses included in the flu jab is actually longer than you might think. There are four types of flu, but only types A and B interest us. The current coronavirus taking the world by storm is a Type A virus and is not the only one to exist. What that means is that another pandemic-inducing virus is always just around the corner. Type B viruses are what we colloquially call seasonal flu, and they have many sub-types and mutations, hence the requirement for renewing your jab once-a-year.

Bearing all this in mind, the question then is, how do we live with the virus and the threat of new viruses? This is, in part, being discussed and tested all around the world. Steps like progressively loosening lockdown, targeted testing, tracking systems (perhaps privacy-violating?) and precise isolation are all on the table for debate, which brings us back to the initial proposition. Is the new normal going to be normal?

Well, in a word no. Or at least, not for the foreseeable future. I won’t be so presumptuous as to predict when and if this will end, but I do know that habits and changing and that the longer those habits are anchored (admittedly by Force Majeure), the longer they have a chance to become the new normal.

What COVID-19 did to productivity for one team in Microsoft

However, a fundamental business transformation that has been thrust upon us and forced us to react urgently just to keep things ticking over is not necessarily business transformation for good. It will only be revealed further down the line how much COVID-19 has affected business. The following tweet does, however, present an interesting and amusing comment on the situation, and is totally in the wheelhouse of this newsletter:

Source: unidentified

Interesting feedback and research are being gathered by all the most prominent software solution providers, like Microsoft, and regularly published freely to help businesses across the globe cope with the pandemic and implement meaningful change that may help them going forward. Let’s have a look at some numbers and initial conclusions.

Using telemetry data collected from their networks, Microsoft has analysed its working practices given that for some groups, they immediately transitioned to a 100 per cent working from home situation. One particular team, dedicated to digital transformation and the way the modern workplace is affected, got to run the experiment in their own back yard. With 300 employees in the group, it is statistically sound research. Some biases are to be expected, being that the group is devoted to digitally transforming the way we all work in groups. Still, conventional wisdom would have us believe that this fracture of proximity would cause a complete breakdown in collaboration. Surprisingly that didn’t happen. And, through sentiment surveys, data showed that in some ways the group felt closer together than before the lockdown. The constraints seem to have lead to more creativity in the way the team socialised and communicated.

Microsoft found that weekly meeting time jumped 10 per cent for the group, translating to around three extra meetings per week per employee. With approximately 70 per cent experiencing increases in meetings, regardless of function. Suggesting that the chance “meetings” that were had in the hallway, refectory or the environs provoked intentional online meetings to recreate that feeling.

Uncovered by further investigation, was a change in meeting length. Twenty-two per cent increase in shorter meetings and 11 per cent fewer longer meetings. Shorter meetings are defined as 30 minutes or less and longer meetings defined as longer than an hour. No official guidance had been issued to the group and the results had apparently developed organically over the early stages of confinement.

In another surprise finding, the team uncovered a tendency for more one-to-one meetings to be held, ostensibly for quick check-ins (“Hey, how’s it going?”) and scheduled social events through video. There is much work to be done to understand the impacts fully. Still, given the context of pre-COVID meetings proliferating and increasing in length, negatively impacting productivity and happiness, some positive benefits may have naturally emerged as a result of the lockdown. In a way, the team had auto-dosed just the right amount of meetings once freed from corporate imposition.

You can read a more detailed write up here.

Some thoughts about the iPad and the jobs to be done

I’ve been thinking about the new iPad Magic Keyboard (iPad MK) and have a couple of thoughts I’d like to share. I get it, I really do. I’m someone who instinctively wants the newest and best, as ADD tends to do. But this time, I just can’t quite see the use for me based on the setup I’m currently using. Oh, of course, I can clearly see why others would want it and find it the dog’s nuts to use—more power to you.

There seems to be a couple of required compromises to get the best out of it. Compromises I don’t need to make with my favoured solution; a Magic Keyboard (MKB) and Canopy from Studio Neat. On the face of it, it does all the things that the iPad MK can, minus the different viewing angles. But I feel it goes much further, let me explain.

I can use the iPad in or out of a case, detach it easily. It features a full-sized keyboard, with Function keys, Multimedia keys and a real Esc key. It folds away neatly and is lighter than the iPad MK with the KB in it. If the KB dies, buy a new one and plop it in, 100$ tops.

As I said, it lacks different viewing angles, but it also requires what might be the real issue for some, the trackpad—solved by having a Magic Trackpad along for the ride for an, admittedly, extra 130$. That’s a total of 270$ (the Canopy is 40$), with each part easily replaceable, without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If you’re a mouse user, like me, it’s even cheaper than that. Oh, BTW, it’s lighter too, at only 393g as opposed to around 1/2 a kilo for the 11” version, if I’ve understood John Gruber’s article. What is also of note, is that transitioning from iPad to iMac requires no readjustment. It’s the same KB, size of keys, feel, angle, everything is the same.

One thing that is less than optimal is that it requires sliding three items in a bag instead of one, I guess increasing the risk of loss. But the MKB in the Canopy is so slim, just like the Mouse/Trackpad, that I don’t even notice it. Often, I’m in a meeting and only need to take handwritten notes with the pencil, so the KB and Mouse stay in the bag until I need them. Getting them out when needed, is little bother.

Another point that, is for me, is important, and it is perhaps, the elephant in the room for the iPad MK. It doesn’t allow use in portrait mode. With the Canopy there’s no such restriction, even putting the iPad in “upside-down-portrait” to gain access to the USB-C connector. 

Lastly, and not unimportantly for some, if you want to move to or from a different sized iPad, no problem with the Canopy + MKB. It still works.

And that’s the point. We all have different needs and wants. The iPad is there for them all. I’m clearly an exception, and Apple has done the groundwork to target the sweet spot of the jobs that users are trying to get done. It has done it elegantly and mindful of the fact that those that do adhere are immensely satisfied. Chatting with others on a Slack group, this was the overall message I got from them.

I think it is just about perfect for most people, just not me. To be fair, I probably wrote this just to stop me buying one 😜.

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interested in Digital Technologies and how it affects their business. I’d really appreciate if you could forward it to people you feel are interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you on board. You can sign up here:

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1 "A Change Is Gonna Come" is a song by American recording artist Sam Cooke. It initially appeared on Cooke's album Ain't That Good News, released mid-February 1964 by RCA Victor, via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Change_Is_Gonna_Come

2 Nothing to do with DEC’s mainframe computers ;-)

A request for interest

Good morning. I'm putting together a presentation about how you can kickstart your innovation and digital transformation in your business post-COVID-19, using simple tools.

We know that many businesses in the world have been caught off-guard and will have serious difficulties in the coming months, none more so than businesses in the Caribbean (for reasons I have discussed ).

I would like to show you a couple of simple tools that will transform the way you understand your products and services, that may lead you to develop better outcomes in the post-pandemic world.

Drop a like or a comment and I'll set a date early next week if you're interested. It'll be worthwhile, trust me. 😀

If you enjoy The Future is Digital, please share it with people you feel might be interested 👇

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Zoom follow-up, Hacks and Scams in the age of COVID-19, the death of cash and a history lesson in Data Visualisation

A mixed bag today. In this issue, I highlight a few things that have been on my mind, starting with a follow-up to Zoom’s trials and tribulations in securing its product.

I hope you enjoy this. Feel free to share, er …virally.

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Zoom follow-up

Following a worldwide backlash and the possibility of being investigated by the authorities in several countries, Zoom CEO, Eric Yuan, stated on the Zoom blog on April 1st (and no, it is not an April Fool’s Joke): 

To our Zoom users around the world,

Whether you are a global corporation that needs to maintain business continuity, a local government agency working to keep your community functioning, a school teacher educating students remotely, or a friend that wants to host a happy hour to spark some joy while social distancing, you are all managing through unique challenges brought upon by this global health crisis. During this time of isolation, we at Zoom feel incredibly privileged to be in a position to help you stay connected. 

We also feel an immense responsibility. Usage of Zoom has ballooned overnight – far surpassing what we expected when we first announced our desire to help in late February. This includes over 90,000 schools across 20 countries that have taken us up on our offer to help children continue their education remotely. To put this growth in context, as of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million. In March this year, we reached more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid. We have been working around the clock to ensure that all of our users – new and old, large and small – can stay in touch and operational. 

For the past several weeks, supporting this influx of users has been a tremendous undertaking and our sole focus. We have strived to provide you with uninterrupted service and the same user-friendly experience that has made Zoom the video-conferencing platform of choice for enterprises around the world, while also ensuring platform safety, privacy, and security. However, we recognize that we have fallen short of the community’s – and our own – privacy and security expectations. For that, I am deeply sorry, and I want to share what we are doing about it.

The letter went on to outline “What we’ve done” and “What we’re going to do”. TLDR; freeze development of new features to fix security flaws and work on more transparent policies.

It’s a good start and it reminds me a little of the Bill Gate’s mea-culpa letter on the security of the Windows OS, the Trustworthy Computing initiative in 2002. That letter ended with:

Going forward, we must develop technologies and policies that help businesses better manage ever larger networks of PCs, servers and other intelligent devices, knowing that their critical business systems are safe from harm. Systems will have to become self-managing and inherently resilient. We need to prepare now for the kind of software that will make this happen, and we must be the kind of company that people can rely on to deliver it.

This priority touches on all the software work we do. By delivering on Trustworthy Computing, customers will get dramatically more value out of our advances than they have in the past. The challenge here is one that Microsoft is uniquely suited to solve.

Bill Gates saw the opportunity in derision of the Operating System’s security, an OS that had come to dominate the computing industry, and he worked non-stop to make the initiative a reality.

Judge a company by what it does, not by what it says. That’s what we should all be doing with respects to Zoom currently. Time will tell if Eric Yuan is as capable as Bill Gates was back in 2002. If anything, Eric Yuan has it more comfortable as he has a model he can follow, unlike Bill Gates had back then.

Coronavirus is helping Hackers and Scammers

Unsurprisingly, hackers and general online crooks, are using the gift of COVID-19 as a platform from which to launch their nefarious plans. Proofpoint, suggests that 4 out of 5 scam emails reference COVID-19 in some way and that coronavirus-themed attacks are the main vectors in employ. Most of the attacks are phishing, account compromise attacks and spam email, with credential phishing significantly on the rise.

With many people now working from home, and with companies using outdated or just plain lousy security practices, criminals are targeting under-prepared people to gain access to systems and networks that would not ordinarily be available outside corporate walls.

Other scams that are becoming more and more prevalent are fake donation schemes, purporting to help those in need of assistance due to coronavirus; health workers and victims for example. Scams like these tend to request a donation in Bitcoin (surprise, surprise) and for nothing but the theft of money most dubiously and obnoxiously. Beware too, of key logger scams — a key logger tries to steal you keyboard presses with the hope of discovering your login and password credentials.

This document from ENISA should help you and your IT develop better practices when working from home.

Is COVID-19 the death of cash?

TLDR; No.

Since the introduction of credit cards, bank to bank transfers and now touch-less payment systems; people have long been predicting the death of cash. Something like 65 years in fact. With a new problem for the world to focus upon, many are now “building on the shoulders of giants” —I’m being sarcastic—, in predicting that COVID-19 will result in the death of cash.

The idea first appeared in a British newspaper near the end of March, in a conflation of research conducted by NIH and World Health Organisation-issued advice on the handling of cash. The WHO reiterated its already in-use policy of good hygiene practices, stating that germs can stay active for hours, even days in some circumstances on cash. And like most things in the Internet age, anything that is currently virus-related goes, well… viral.

While it is true that many buyers and suppliers of goods and services have developed a sudden aversion to cash due to the risks associated with the transmission of SARS-COV-2, there is still an attachment to cash in our part of the world that just unshakable. The tangibility of cash is just too anchored in our society for it to be removed easily, despite the pandemic. The exchange of goods tends to require a physical transfer of money. In the Caribbean, we are probably more attached to cash than our compatriots in the US or Europe, for all sorts of reasons that this newsletter is under-qualified to examine.

Anecdotally, I went to the local dump a couple of years ago to dispose of an old mattress that was replaced. The agent in the recycling centre asked if I had checked the mattress thoroughly. Perplexed, I asked him why. He replied, telling me that at the facility, they had found plenty of cash stuffed inside old mattresses and that my money would be uncovered if it was hidden. He was, of course, only half-joking.

I have personally been a fan and a proponent of a cashless society for some time. But even I admit, there cannot be only positives and that there are likely undesirable outcomes with privacy, abuse of power and the general policing of monetary circulation. But on balance, I believe that a cashless society would benefit overall, with substantial reductions in fraud, theft and significant increases in simplicity of sales, support and the lifecycle of goods. I’m not particularly worried about viruses.

Looking to the future. With the right checks and balances, purchases of goods could be linked to responsible destruction and recycling of said items after their useful lifespan has been met, with incentives for recycling or replacement products built into the entire customer journey. We already see some of this happening slowly but surely, with areas like the European Union implementing the ecotax schemes.

An ecotax (short for ecological taxation) is a tax levied on activities which are considered to be harmful to the environment and is intended to promote environmentally friendly activities via economic incentives

But to get back to the original question, it doesn’t seem likely that cashless societies will be abundant after COVID-19. Anecdotal stories tell of US citizens hoarding cash in the unlikely event of a virus-induced armageddon. Clearly, people still have a physical attachment to worth and value.

A look back in the history of data visualisation

In 1854 in Central London, just south of Oxford Street and east of Regent Street, an outbreak of cholera claimed around 500 lives. Cholera is an infection of the small intestine, leading to severe dehydration from severe diarrhoea and vomiting, and in some cases death. We now know that untreated water and food are the most common sources of cholera and are some of the prime targets in relief situations after natural disasters. Lack of municipal water leads to dehydration that prompts people to drink any water they can find, thus amplifying the dehydration and accelerating death.

Prevention is simple and often inexpensive —depending on the specific circumstances— and we know that water treatment and better sanitation can stop an outbreak in its tracks.

However, in London in 1854, water and sanitation were only just starting to become available in town. In fact, most people still got water from pumps located in the vicinity of their dwellings. A trip once a day or so to the local water pump, allowed families to cook and clean relatively safely.

When the outbreak occurred, there were suspicions that cases were located in a specific area, but scepticism and identification of the wrong source caused a delay in finding the ultimate solution. It was only when John Snow, an obstetrician by qualification, mapped the data in a now-famous infographic, that the insight was discovered and dealt with swiftly.

What was to become known as data visualisation many years after, was born. And in using this technique, the underlying reason that the actual source was identified and resolved. Located on Broad Street was one of the pumps that supplied water to the vicinity. And remember, when I’m talking about pumps in this context, I mean manual pumps with a handle that requires a person to operate it physically, placing their hands on the lever.

You may have guessed it already, but the handle itself was infected, and each person that subsequently used it got infected and spread the infection to their family. The solution, as implied, was simple too. Removing the handle dissuaded use of the particular pump and the outbreak ran its course swiftly.

At the time this theory was controversial as the water company insisted that transmission of cholera was only by air and not by other means. Cholera is transmitted through food and water, as I stated earlier. The handle, when used, got wet from the infected water in the pump and infected people as they went about their daily business. The visualisation helped understand precisely where it was happening, allowing for better observation and finding the ultimate solution. John Snow’s visualisation can be credited for inventing the practise of using data and mapping that data contextually. Data Scientists and Data Journalists use the same basic techniques that John Snow developed all those years ago.

Using simple techniques like these could be instrumental to you better understanding your business. This is just one aspect of Digital Transformation that you should employ. The Harvard Business Review published an article who’s title puts it better; Big Companies Are Embracing Analytics, But Most Still Don’t Have a Data-Driven Culture. I couldn’t agree more.

If you enjoyed this issue of The Future is Digital Newsletter I’d appreciate it if you would share it with people you feel are interested 👇

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