Manifesto

active

Technology as Fluency

The creation of a Chief Digital Officer is an institutional confession. Technology is a fluency, not a function.

organisational fluencytechnologydigital transformationfinancial services

It says: we know technology should transform how we operate, but we do not believe our existing leadership can carry that. So we will put it in a box, give the box a title, and hope the box changes us from the side. Change as quarantine. It almost never works because the box has no constitutional authority. Head of Innovation is worse. Innovation becomes a department. Which is precisely the opposite of what innovation is.

Key claims

  1. 1Technology is not a function. It is a fluency. Until it is distributed into every business decision, every customer interaction, every regulatory conversation, it will keep being treated as a cost centre or a magic wand.
  2. 2Technology roadmaps built without the customer lens produce solutions to internal problems.
  3. 3Technology teams are measured on delivery: projects shipped, uptime, cost. Not on customer outcomes. Technically successful projects that move nothing that matters.
  4. 4If technology is a fluency, not a function, then the people who run these institutions need to be technologically literate. Most boards of large regulated financial institutions are not.

Tensions

  • Rapidly evolving technology set, experienced as threat rather than capability.
  • RegTech exists as a category because banks have not done this themselves. Fintechs are selling it back to them.
All manifestos