Speak Up
Embracing Technology and Personal Relationships
Walk down the street, take public transportation, eat in a restaurant and what do you see? People looking down at their phones instead of at each other. We are consumed by instant information and connections via smart devices. Gartner, Inc., has forecast that 8.4 billion connected devices, from smartphones to monitoring systems, will be in use worldwide this year, up 31 percent from 2016. By 2020, the number will grow to 20.4 billion. With a current global population of 7.5 billion, we’re already at a devices-to-people ratio of nearly 1:1; by 2020, the ratio will be 3:1.
Smart devices have become an essential part of how we live and who we are. So have Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more, winning our hearts and minds as primary means for communicating. Does this imply that digital interactions will supplant face-to-face interactions in doing business? Is there room for both?
Questrom has certainly joined the digital revolution, deploying new approaches to teaching that incorporate technology. In collaboration with edX, we have also introduced a highly innovative new certificate program called Questrom Digital. It’s attracting tens of thousands of participants from all over the world who want to develop digital leadership and digital product management skills. The demand for digital is there and we are meeting it.
At the same time, we believe the ability to engage in productive dialogue in more than 140 characters is essential for personal and professional success. Skill in unmediated communication is far from obsolete and remains a primary focus in our development of the more than 3,900 students in our programs. So, while we are capitalizing on the best of the new technologies, we are also staying true to our intent to help students develop leadership skills grounded in knowledge acquired inside and outside the classroom. In other words, grounded in genuine personal relationships that go beyond sharing photos of special events and staccato exchanges of text messages.
Our students are learning the timely skills of the new world and the timeless skills of the old—to their benefit and, we believe, to the benefit of all. Technology and personal relationships can coexist and even reinforce each other. As educators, our job is to make this possible.
