Life is messy. Houses in magazines are idyllic and clean because, well, they are staged. They are a snapshot in time (and have been cleaned before the shot). Lives we see on TV, social media, are the same. They have the ongoing, day to day, ordinary bits stripped out of them to tell a story. Our lives aren’t like that. Our lives are messy punctuated with moments of high and low.

Often handbooks, guides, guidance notes, templates, and so on are more like lives on media outlets than ordinary lives. Digital transformation is primarily about the application of ideas, guidance notes, and handbooks in the everyday context we work in. It’s about growing our, and those around us, digital literacy. It’s about trying to balance risk and opportunity – and most of the time not getting the balance correct. It is also about trying new things, addressing resistance, changing organisational culture. It is all this wrapped together and punctuated at times with exciting shiny new toys, breakthroughs, and terrifying data breaches.

The transformation in digital transformation happens as we day by day by day by day do the work applying digital ideas to the context we are in. Consistently showing up, trying again, observing, learning, building. Drip by drip by drip.

Life is messy and has exciting highs and lows. Unfortunately there is no way to choose only the highs. We need to be in the messiness to have a chance at experiencing the highs.

The choice is up to us.

Photo by Robert Bye