Let’s face it. Our Digital children are freakishly fast, but they have all the flexibility of a steel rod dipped in liquid nitrogen. One unexpected tap and things rapidly degenerate into all kinds of unexpected chaos. We’ve been on quite the journey with IT over the last half century or so trying to navigate between these twinned realities, trying to take advantage of the one and avoid the other.
Our first tentative attempts to ride these broncos were in the military and governmental domains, which are more clearly defined or just rigidly bureaucratic depending on one’s perspective. For better or worse, that reality hid, or, at least, diminished the impacts of the steel rod side of this equation. So we happily invited the dervishes into our workplaces.
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“Well, it’s as much an art as a science.” You’ve said it. I’ve said it. We’ve all said it at one time or another, usually to deflect some misguided wish for certainty, simplicity, or immediacy. Beyond the verbal hand-waving, however, there is a deeper truth. The professions we choose are, ultimately, all human endeavors and as such come with the all the mystery and ambiguity of human instincts, emotions, visions and even intellect. The whole truth is the “Art and Science” phrase is said as much to comfort ourselves in what we don’t know or completely understand as it is to suggest an elevated status conferred by access to some secret wisdom. 