Greater Capitalism’s Digital Frontier | Covid-19 Strategies | Nasdaq CIO Brad Peterson

Plus: Life After The Lockdown: IT Spending Priorities Now

When an operating system starts to malfunction, it makes sense to reboot the machine on which it’s running to see if the glitches will sort themselves out. Now our entire economic system is getting what amounts to one gigantic reboot, courtesy of Covid-19.

In a powerful new essay entitled “Greater Capitalism,” Forbes Chief Content Officer Randall Lane argues the pandemic offers us a historic opportunity to end the era of economic incrementalism that’s bred growing inequality and disillusionment. What’s needed to reinvigorate capitalism—and to take it to even greater heights—is a collective willingness to make bolder changes in everything from educational systems to the way businesses treat their employees and other stakeholders.

The crisis could trigger a rethinking of digital incrementalism too. So far only a relatively small number of businesses have reinvented all or most of their operations for a digital-first world. Plenty had been moving more slowly with their digital-transformation strategies before the pandemic swept in, limiting rollouts to specific operational areas in the hope successes there would eventually overcome internal resistance to broader adoption.

That’s changing as a result of Covid-19. We’re already seeing a rapid shift because companies are expanding investments in things such as virtual distribution channels and software to automate processes. As Peter High, a long-standing Forbes CIO Network contributor, notes in a recent post, the companies that make this adjustment most swiftly will be the ones that emerge with the fastest exit velocity once the global economy recovers. They will also be best positioned to grow successfully and to create new jobs.

Greater digital-transformation efforts now will be one of the keys to supporting Greater Capitalism in the months and years ahead.

Thanks for reading and do please send me your tips, thoughts, questions and ideas for future issues at mgiles@forbes.com. You can also follow me on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

Technology & Innovation

Machine learning: A new report based on responses from more than 1,300 executives finds that most of the companies who are advanced adopters of machine-learning techniques prefer supervised to unsupervised models. They are also more likely to use human-in-the-loop approaches than their peers.

Facial recognition: Companies are offering “immunity passports” that could allow border-control officials or employers to check on the status of a person’s experience with Covid-19. The smartphone apps, which use facial-recognition tech to verify a holder’s identity, gather information about things such as health tests people have had and places they have traveled to. Privacy activists say the apps raise a host of concerns about unwarranted surveillance.

Leadership & Strategy

Privacy: Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) celebrated its second anniversary on May 25. Some large fines have been issued for breaches of GDPR’s guidelines, but one recent review found that many data-protection authorities in Europe lack sufficient resources to implement the regime effectively. Between May 2018 and March 2020, just 231 fines and other sanctions were imposed while 144,376 complaints were filed in the same period.

Communication strategy: Now that you are having to give many more virtual presentations, it’s important to judge how engaged your audience is and what’s on people’s minds. There are several tools available that can help take the pulse of an online gathering in real time.

Talent & Careers

Remote work: With so many people still operating out of their homes, it’s understandable that employers want to use technology to keep track of their productivity. The challenge is to do so without violating individuals’ privacy. Here’s some advice on how to manage this tricky balancing act.

Tapping gig workers: As tech leaders seek to cut costs or to access developers with hard-to-find expertise, platforms that let freelancers promote their services are likely to become more popular. It pays to think carefully about how to integrate them effectively into an overall talent strategy.

"The CIO or CTO is the ultimate salesperson’s target. If they can get a meeting with me, they will travel and pay homage at my doorstep. And I will tell you, I am going to accept fewer in-person meetings."

Brad Peterson

Nasdaq CIO

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