A Great Opportunity Missed
A GREAT OPPORTUNITY MISSED!
A famous bureaucrat once said that IAS stands for… I Am Sorry. I was reminded of that while meeting one yesterday and apparently, he had invited me to discuss the social media strategy for his organization. We got off to a bad start when he asked, Why Social Media? He might as well have asked, Why Gravity? Duh!
Then, making a pathetic excuse, a subordinate walked into the room and remained busy for about 20 minutes explaining her situation about a lost ATM card. We resumed the conversation which was somewhere between a discussion and an argument. He reluctantly agreed to look at the PPT I had prepared. I inserted my USB stick into his laptop and walked him through some slides. I noticed a hint of interest but again he started to point out the loopholes in my argument. I could feel my BP rise but managed to keep my cool. Another irritating employee walked in and I decided not to show him the remaining slides as I could see that the meeting was headed nowhere.
As I walked out of his room, I faintly heard a voice up in the clouds saying… “Thou shall NOT deal with bureaucrats who are not on Facebook!”
Okay, let us analyse the above from a different point of view.
The bureaucrat in question is a person of considerable personal capacity to introduce change. Not only that, he is in a position to initiate a revolution in the space that he commands. I am completely stumped by his reluctance to look into the matter and the only clue that I am intuitively sensing is that he is unwilling to admit his ignorance about how to use technology. At the same time, there is a huge generation gap that cannot be bridged because the senior party is abusing its authority to nurture the young. I am reminded of another saying that goes… “you cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong!” This is exactly what is happening if we take into account that the young are much more adaptable when it comes to the use of technology and social media, but it takes
A famous bureaucrat once said that IAS stands for… I Am Sorry. I was reminded of that while meeting one yesterday and apparently, he had invited me to discuss the social media strategy for his organization. We got off to a bad start when he asked, Why Social Media? He might as well have asked, Why Gravity? Duh!
Then, making a pathetic excuse, a subordinate walked into the room and remained busy for about 20 minutes explaining her situation about a lost ATM card. We resumed the conversation which was somewhere between a discussion and an argument. He reluctantly agreed to look at the PPT I had prepared. I inserted my USB stick into his laptop and walked him through some slides. I noticed a hint of interest but again he started to point out the loopholes in my argument. I could feel my BP rise but managed to keep my cool. Another irritating employee walked in and I decided not to show him the remaining slides as I could see that the meeting was headed nowhere.
As I walked out of his room, I faintly heard a voice up in the clouds saying… “Thou shall NOT deal with bureaucrats who are not on Facebook!”
Okay, let us analyse the above from a different point of view.
The bureaucrat in question is a person of considerable personal capacity to introduce change. Not only that, he is in a position to initiate a revolution in the space that he commands. I am completely stumped by his reluctance to look into the matter and the only clue that I am intuitively sensing is that he is unwilling to admit his ignorance about how to use technology. At the same time, there is a huge generation gap that cannot be bridged because the senior party is abusing its authority to nurture the young. I am reminded of another saying that goes… “you cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong!” This is exactly what is happening if we take into account that the young are much more adaptable when it comes to the use of technology and social media, but it takes