Through my work I seek to bring people together to research, practise and share how judicious use of new digital technologies can increase human care both for the earth, and for each other. I have extensive experience in leading product and service innovation across multiple sectors including government, medical, media, telecommunications, and private.
I founded CYB specifically to bring to market a fresh approach to high end service transformation consultancy using digital. Focussing on leading by doing, on people, on value delivered, and capability building in clients.
Our company name Caution Your Blast® acts as a reminder of the challenges of transforming to a digital society. The phrase has long been displayed on signs near the runway at London City Airport here in the United Kingdom, to remind pilots not to use too much throttle due to the risk of injuring ground staff. But it also co-exists in one other place - as a virtual sign modelled in the computer action adventure game Grand Theft Auto, where it is displayed at Francis International Airport, Liberty City. In this virtual digital world the meaning of the sign is of course totally arbitrary and here the main use of the sign is instead as light entertainment: a ramp to launch your fast moving vehicle into the air for stunts.
The juxtaposition of intended meanings between these two worlds - the real and the virtual - captured in this one sign, illustrates how in the digital world rules are arbitrary, rules can be rewritten entirely, meanings changed, and new rules constructed. That the medium of digital has no constraints and boundaries that equate to those of the real world and vice versa, is essential to embrace if we are to responsibly design products and services that harness digital technologies. Even our long-standing theories of human communication are being rewritten as a result. Modelling the real world in digital simply misses the point, the power, and the potential, of the medium.
And as we now know our dramatic shift towards digital has been happening at exactly the same time as another drama: global warming. This is an extinction crisis which requires humans to fundamentally change the way we live by ceasing to consume products and services powered by fossil fuels and intensive agriculture. In this context I believe that digital technologies offer many new ways to drive such behavioural change at the global scale required.
We now need teams of skilled individuals to help deliver a future we can be proud of given this extraordinary challenge in front of us where almost all ways of communicating, working and living are undergoing massive change. We are proudly building one of those teams here at CYB, and we openly and actively support others to do the same.
