Adapting to a New Set of Software

I’m an early adopter-type for a lot but not all technology. I’ll try anything once just to see how and what benefits it offers. I love the new untested beta system software for my phone, iPad, and iMac. I get to use the new stuff and that’s just fun.

There is a downside to this practice.

I wanted iOS 17 and the new Sonoma OS and I threw caution to the wind and downloaded the developer betas. The difference between the public betas and the developer is that with the latter, a lot of the software I’m used to using on the regular simply is no longer compatible. It will work later when everyone catches up but it doesn’t work now.

It’s the waiting for everyone to catch up that is just a little bit maddening.

Six months ago I was hired by a company and inserted into a local office. At the time, I didn’t realize that I was The Guy From Corporate—the person hired by the umbrella corporation to come in and institute some sort required change in processes or protocols. The concern when I was interviewing was that, at my age, I wouldn’t be able to fully get the software they use. Not a problem for me. I had a solid handle on all the various web portals, contest building programs, etc. within a month or so. The young woman who had been assigned as my assistant/trainer commented “For a dude older than my dad, you have a real flare for technology.”

The downside is that the corporation is looking for the rest of the office to follow suit. What I know is that you can’t simply force people to update their practices. The best approach is to acknowledge the gap between what people do and what they need to do and guide them in that direction. There are always a few who refuse to adapt, to update their software and they become like an iPhone app that refuses to play along with the latest operating system. Eventually you find another app that does the same thing and hit delete on the stubborn one.

Most, however, find ways to adopt the new technology without completely up-ending their current rhythm. Not a full buy-in but enough of compliance to keep things running on the new operating system.

I’ve never been affected by Affirmative Action as far as I can tell. It’s an app the country has used for nearly sixty years and it looks like the SCOTUS has decided to adjust it, to change the operating system. Not all software updates are in our best interests but they come as they do and the responsibility of the many users is not to try and reverse the updates but adapt to the new software and find ways to accomplish our goals with other apps. The letter of the law now states that universities cannot give traditionally under-represented tribes extra points for that designation or set quotas. This will certainly bleed into hiring practices as well.

This is a step backward but hardly the catastrophe implied by progressives in the same way that the Affirmative Action app was not catastrophic for either whites or Asians. It’s an update to old software.

Now we just have to wait for everyone to catch up.