Is Bowling a Sport or a Game? (and other Existential Questions about Digital)
by Jim Hertzfeld, Perficient
A company recently lauded its new email upgrade as a major innovation in its digital capabilities. Maybe they were using snail mail in 2018 and, relatively speaking, this was a big deal. But email has been around since the ‘70s and has been relatively unchanged since the ‘90s, and we were wondering why this announcement didn’t sit well with us as a “digital innovation.” Sure, it’s digital, but it’s not really digital. But why we did we feel like this announcement was over the line? What makes one computer-based invention more digital than another?
Existential and ontological questions followed, leading us to wonder if bowling is a sport or a game. There are skills involved, leagues are formed, and it’s been televised since the 1950s. But it’s not a sport in the way we think of basketball and it’s not a game in the way we think about lawn darts. We realized we were out of our element, and it was time to engage in one of our favorite activities: market research.
That’s just, like, your opinion, man
In a universe that has truly become pervasively digitized, the question of what is and is not “digital” has become the defining question for digital agencies. If everything is “digital” and yet it means something completely different from person to person and from company to company, does it really have any meaning at all? How does that implication affect the value proposition for the digital agency?
Our research started with a series of surveys to understand perceptions and attitudes towards these big questions. The results showed us both the true breadth of “digital” in today’s collective lexicon and the underlying reasons companies are so focused on their digital efforts.
We were hoping to arrive at a clear, unambiguous, and generally accepted definition of digital. When presented with various definitions, approximately 40 percent chose the most broad and basic option: “Involving or relating to the use of computer technology.” In second place, with around 30 percent of the vote, came “Rethinking operational processes to be fully online and automated, from customer interaction to back office processing.” This tells us that, for much of the market, the word “digital” carries the implication of transformation. However, we were surprised that the backstage landed ahead of the front stage. The option that best represents my own perception, “Technology that creates a direct customer interaction, with little or no employee intervention,” came in third place with about 17 percent of the vote.
Did we find a clear answer? There was a clear winner, but that option was the broadest possible definition, leaving us to interpret these responses as merely validation that digital is in fact as pervasive as we thought. It’s everything, yet nothing, and it’s time we became nihilists.
Something to tie the room together
Thankfully, the second part of our research would pick up the spare. We anticipated a possible inconclusive result in the definition of digital, and even if it had been clearly defined, what we really wanted to know is “why digital?”
The most popular response by far was “improve customer experiences,” followed by “drive revenue growth,” “increase brand awareness or perception,” and “reduce operating costs.” This direction felt more intuitive, aligned with our experiences, and, more importantly, gives us renewed purpose. It represents a shift in our thinking from “where do I fit in and what should be doing about it?” to “what do my clients need and what should I be doing about it?” Instead of trying to pinpoint what our clients think “digital” means, it’s more productive to understand what they are trying to accomplish that happens to be digital.
Abide
You might still be wondering if bowling is a sport or a game. Setting aside the ontological rules and academic deconstruction for a moment, let’s instead ask why? Why do we participate in and watch basketball, bowling, and lawn darts? They are fun past times we enjoy with friends. We set out to learn and do things we haven’t done before. We bring people together to share a common cause. That’s also starting to sound a lot like why we started digital agencies in the first place. Let’s shift our thinking from being more digital to being more relevant to the reasons for digital.
Jim Hertzfeld, Perficient