HUMALOGY®
Finding the Balance
The real power of HUMALOGY® is that it provides a framework for determining how much technology is appropriate. Adding technology isn’t always the best option, and too much technology can be disastrous. Anyone who has ever slammed down the phone with exacerbation after trying to navigate through an automated customer service message can probably understand. Technology can be overwhelming and frustrating. Finding the right HUMALOGY® balance is important. In fact it is crucial to every endeavor and enterprise. As a species, we have begun to integrate technology into everything we do, but it is important to understand that technology is a tool to improve our lives, not overwhelm or nullify them.
The HUMALOGY® Scale
To add some context around an action or process we have created a scale to represent where they would rank. We call this the HUMALOGY® Scale. One of the main reasons for this scale is so we can have a dialogue surrounding an action. Some jobs lean more heavily on humans (H5 on the HUMALOGY® Scale) and others are solely reliant on technology (T5). Zero is an equal blend. That being said there is no “correct” place to be on the scale. Think of it more like a ruler, the measurement simply gives you a reference point to begin the dialogue.
How the Scale Works
Let’s say we wanted to dig a hole, an H5 is a very noble man breaking his back while using his hand to dig a very big hole. An example of a T5 might be an automated hole digging robot that just digs holes wherever it pleases. Optimal hole digging technology currently sits at a zero on the HUMALOGY® scale; a skilled human operator sits in a backhoe digging holes at specified locations, maintaining his important job of clearing land for human progress. The future of hole digging might move us along the scale to a T3 where we are the brains of the operation and the robot is the brawn. We tell the robot where to dig the hole and it digs.
The Correct HUMALOGY® Blend
The appropriate HUMALOGY® blend is not always zero. A father throwing a football around with his child in the backyard is an H5, and it is perfect. No form of technology could be added to make this better, and frankly we don’t want to live to see the day when technology replaces either of those two characters in an ultimate example of human bonding. Meanwhile, the internet is the world’s greatest ever library of information. We have technology to catalog all of this intelligence and disseminate it. No human could ever be the “librarian” of such an expansive library. It just would not be possible. So we use technology, such as that employed by search engines like Google, to be our “librarians of the internet.” We do a search and get a result. This action is a T5, no humans were involved in the actual searching of the information.
How HUMALOGY® is Applied
HUMALOGY® is an underlying philosophy to be applied in many areas across an organization. Focusing on HUMALOGY® gives you a general framework when making technology decisions in your organization. Is technology the proper solution in this area? How much human involvement would a customer/vendor/partner want? Is technology the correct financial decision? Applying HUMALOGY® can help you answer these questions. Finding the proper HUMALOGY® blend is crucial; too much technology and you could run the risk of losing a connection with or alienating your customer. Too little technology and you could be enduring costly and unnecessary inefficiencies. We can help you find that perfect balance; contact us for more information.