I was reading an article in The Economist on cloud computing benefits and risks and the last line of the article really got me thinking about this sky is the limit phenomenon in the digital world. The article’s ending note is that even though cloud computing has many promising benefits, it’s certainly no digital heaven.
On that note, being an ecstatic digital enthusiast, I happen to believe that the digital system has disrupted the way of life as we know it, only to facilitate it in most ways. So when I read something like this, it really made me think on whether there is a digital heaven at all? Today, digital is the buzzword that everyone seems to be talking about and going to for all the answers. It almost seems like if your team isn’t having a conversation about solving a problem by “leveraging the digital world”, there’s something wrong.
Yes, digital has made life easier in many ways, but what it has also brought along is dependency and risk. Take cloud computing for instance, you get to use these miraculous servers that seem to do all these different functions in minutes, that once took a lot of time, money, and effort. But what happens when that cloud bursts, literally? A small glitch (sometimes that is a drastic price increase) can cost you more than just money and data.
There are issues such as privacy, online reputation and so on that are being discussed at every forum on a daily basis. With every new digital initiative, comes a discussion on a certain kind of risk it brings along. And this is only the “doing-everything-right-digitally” way. Getting your digital strategy wrong, is a whole different topic my friends, one that the world is currently trying to solve every day! (First world problems)
While these may very well sound like, first world problems, it is the reality of the world we live in today. That’s where, we as marketers come in, to realize and convey the best digital story for you, which may not be Paradise, but hey, that’s why I call it a digital world, not heaven!
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