We have to wonder at the pandemic extent to which our gullibility is running rampant when even the Easter Bunny falls for the notion that we might actually celebrate Easter on April Fool’s Day. We have to wonder. But we can’t be surprised.
Consider just two examples: global warming and big data:
Global warming morphed into climate change to make the speciousness of the claims of the Terra-sterics less obvious. (We’re getting another two to four inches of global warming here in Connecticut today.) Big Data is morphing into Digital Transformation in the apparent hope that the nebulousness and skulduggery of the Data-sterics will be masked by the ostensible need for digitalization, since Big Data will, of course, be digitized.
Both of these flimflams are ways of tying up syllogism, ideology, pedagogy, argumentum ad hominem, argumentum ad ignorantiam, and question-begging in one tiny pill, easily swallowable by the masses.
Pardon the Disruptively Innovative Transformation
Speaking of flimflams, when the CIO is no longer the Chief Information Officer — but has become the Chief Innovation Officer — everyone who works for a living is in very deep trouble. And when the CDO is no longer the Chief Data Officer — but has become the Chief Disruption Officer — everyone who aspires to work for a living in a stable environment that values straight talk and disdains vapid jargon is in very deep trouble.
And then there’s transformation.
According to the CSTSP (Center for Shit That Scares People), the things people fear most are, in this order:
- Change
- Public Speaking
- Change
- Root canals without Novocain
- Change
So, if three out of the top five things people fear most are change, what exactly is it that makes us think people will embrace transformation, let alone know what it means?
Plan B
The next time someone tries to sell you Easter on April Fool’s Day or climate change — or tries to sell your company big data, digital transformation, organizational transformation, financial transformation, or [fill in the blank] transformation — lace up your track shoes, get in the starting blocks, hand a starter’s pistol to the person next to you, and ask these three questions:
- What does that mean in one precise, concise sentence?
- What precisely and quantitatively will believing this achieve?
- When?
Thereafter, explode out of the blocks and don’t stop running until you’ve gotten home, to a headhunter’s office, or to a local watering hole.
Stop It Some More
We may be fools in April, but we’re hapless dupes the rest of the year.
See you at the next meeting of GA (Gullibles Anonymous). I’ll be the guy sitting next to the Easter Bunny.
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Image by Ryan McGuire, courtesy of gratisography.com.
