What is “digital change”?

When we talk about “change”, we mean the change or transition from one state to another. In everyday life, we often talk about demographic change (we are getting older), climate change (we are heating up the planet), changing times (we have to prepare for pandemics and wars) – or even digital change.

We understand digital change as part of social change, i.e. how we humans work, live, communicate, etc.

The drivers of digital change are new technologies that are being brought to us by the economy and the state. We work, live and communicate very differently today than we did just a few years ago. The generation that grew up with the countless digital helpers, the so-called “digital natives”, for example, tick differently than the generation that only experienced digitalization over time.

Digital transformation and digital change go hand in hand. Technology makes many things possible. However, it is always society that decides what is ultimately used, how and where. The numerous changes are interdependent. For example, we can decide whether or not we want to further fuel climate change with (still) energy-hungry cryptocurrencies.

Source: based on: “Sluggish transformation. Which errors in thinking are blocking digital change” by Sascha Friese and Johanna Sprondel (highly recommended)