Leaving Dreamforce 2022, make your way through 40,000 people entering and escaping the famous Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco. Suits, backpacks, corporate sweatshirts everywhere. The festive atmosphere, not in vain, is cause for celebration for many of these attendees, who have been waiting for an appointment for months.
and suddenly, something doesn’t fit In the semi-enigmatic image of the proposed landscape. A dark-haired woman, in her early thirties, with dark hair in a ponytail, It is leaning against one of the enclosures that delimit the Congress’s exterior. Her look is not like the rest of the people around her, more typical for concerts or weekend outings with friends. But it’s not his looks that attract attention, but what he’s doing.
The woman is still smiling as inquisitive, holding an apparently improvised banner that reads the following: “Predicting sales figures is as accurate as astrology.” Cognitive dissonance, conscious of the senses: just a few meters ahead, beyond the provisional wall upon which our hero leans, it is being promised that artificial intelligence and data integration will give us all kinds of answers to questions.
A woman holding a guerilla marketing banner outside Dreamforce 2022.
A more in-depth look at Protestants removes the fears associated with an early Neo-Luddism in San Francisco. or developed patiently on duty to the Company out of any kind of personal hatred, vengeance or resentment. The woman becomes the representative of a contestant who has an annual date. A guerrilla marketing exercise went through his head and the result was to plant himself on the exits of his rival’s thousands of customers, grabbing their attention with an extravagant announcement and, from there, businesses like Candy on the Parade of Kings. give a card
The anecdote so far, more real than several hours, that separates the city of California from the Spanish capital, like the distance that separates the two poles in their digital maturity. but The motto chosen by the courageous and creative lady on the banner should reflect something deeply in us.
Let’s remember: “Predicting sales figures is as accurate as astrology.” With the current crisis of digitization, digital transformation or whatever you want to call the paradigm in question, We have been told a thousand times that data is gold. new oil, The weapon that will dominate them all, because who has digital information and is able to extract value from it, will be able to enter any battle. Outlast Your Competitors, Win the Hearts (and Pockets) of Customers, And create a universe of honor and glory by riding on rainbow unicorns.
The reality, unfortunately and as cited by false Protestants, is far more complex. The truth is that there are many variables that can be predicted based on patterns and with well-trained artificial intelligence., And it is equally true that, thanks to this technology, we can avoid many problems in supply chains, adjust prices, optimize relationships with consumers and much more.
But if the pandemic, before, and the war in Ukraine, after, has shown anything, it is Any calculation is always subject to human variability, to the unpredictable consequences of free will. Which computers can never understand. Waging a war that benefits no one and that can take the entire planet to the most dangerous points of no return doesn’t fit any rational calculation. Any intelligent system, no matter how much ‘big data’ and algorithms may be involved, can conclude that this can happen. And yet The human startled the machine.
The blind faith we place in technology as a response to all known and unknown business problems can be a great sales tool. But it is also a source of discontent and doubt when its inevitable limits freeze. And make no mistake: It is not a problem of scale, maturity or technological development. Systems will be able to improve and conquer more areas of our knowledge, understanding themselves better and better. but Always, always, we can surprise them; Even if it is to keep the world under control.
