Automation, coffee and unfulfilled hobbies

by

Dear Reader,

We’re terribly tempted to begin this post by defining the word ‘automation’, but doing so would serve no purpose. Instead, allow us to begin with a story.

Developers love to automate their work – Why is this so? Well; allegedly, after an employee left her company, her ex-colleagues discovered a number of scripts which were used to automate her work. A script was used to send her husband a message saying “late at work” accompanied with a random reason, if the system detected that she was online after a specific time.

Another script would send her boss an email if she wasn’t logged in at the office by 8:45 a.m., saying she was feeling unwell and would be working remotely. And the best one? A script that was precisely waiting for 17 seconds once executed before remotely accessing the office coffee machine and making her a medium latte. After that the machine would wait 24 seconds to pour it into the dotted mug she kept for the occasion. Her ex-colleagues have checked and confirmed that this was the exact amount of time it would have taken her to pull out her chair and walk from her desk to the machine.

Even if this story is not true, it shows a very important aspect of our way of thinking. We thrive in automation that makes our day-to-day operations easier, less time-consuming and more efficient. The reason we are writing this post is not to show you how we much we relish automation, or how good we are as a company at implementing them, but it’s to show you how you could train your brain to think in automation, disregarding specific technology and tech-savviness.

So grab a piece of paper (a large one, unless your handwriting is very small; you’ll see that you’re going to need it) and a pen and start taking notes.

What are your day-to-day operations? Do you send emails to clients a great deal? Are you required to create reports on a regular basis? Do you find yourself asking for specific information from your employees? Do you take backups of your files? Have you got multiple systems which need to have the same client or company data? Write down all the little details and every trifling nuisance, mundane or not, that you do on a daily basis. Whilst you’re doing that, jot down the ones that you perform on a monthly basis as well.

Assume machines can do anything (just as we did with the coffee example above) and that you possess some sort of enchanted staff (pun intended). Now, for every day-to-day operation that you wrote before, write an ideal automation that you believe would be of great benefit. The way in which it operates is irrelevant, merely describe the final result that you would expect, from email automation with specific triggers and parameters, to reports arriving at your doorstep (or email) on specific conditions (date, values) automatically.

Once you’ve done that, it will suddenly dawn on you how much spare time arises after automating tasks. You suddenly become aware of the power of automation. Why didn’t you think of this before? Be warned, though; one of the most severe effects of automation is the sudden realization that there is room for improvement in virtually anything – and we mean anything. New tasks arise, old tasks are replaced or vanish and you find yourself dreaming in automation.

If you believe that that recurring dream you’ve been having was one you never wish to wake up from, think again.

Automation has just replaced it.

And look at what’s happened: you’ve automated so much of your work that you hardly even need to go to your office anymore. You can manage virtually all of your business via your smartphone, which you brought with you to your tennis lesson, a new hobby that you have always dreamt of starting but never really had the time to do so. Now it’s possible for you to focus your energy on being creative and also to make important decisions on your smart device, merely with the power of your touch.

As glorious as automation may sound, though, it does have its drawbacks. Fear intensifies and existentialism kicks in, because where does automation end?

Fear not, dear friend, for here’s your answer. Grab your notes, step into our offices and prepare to meet a bunch of people who savour drinking good quality coffee and eating cookies while discussing topics about machines, AI, automation, data governance, philosophy and the future of businesses. We love and enjoy every single moment of it and can’t wait to be part of your effort towards revolutionizing your business. Also, feel free to contact us by dropping a comment below or getting in touch with us through social media.


Regards,
Your friends at iMovo.