Editor’s note: Shivvy Jervis, Futurist & Founder of the FutureScape 248 lab, will be the closing keynote speaker at the ISACA Conference Europe 2021, a virtual event to take place 20-22 October. Jervis recently visited with the ISACA Now blog to discuss the job landscape of the future, what makes innovations sustainable, her past work with the United Nations and more. The following is a transcript of the interview, edited for length and clarity:
ISACA Now: What got you thinking of unusual jobs of the future?
When we think of human capital and talent, which I believe is the core of the digital economy, it is really the basis of it because you cannot simply consider that only automation or data science are what constitute digitalization. Rather, it is people who are still the driving force of this innovation. You cannot ignore thinking about the actual occupations, or the functions in which us humans will thrive, which is why I focused on some of the more unusual ones. They all have one thing in common, whether it is a chief ethics officer who looks at the ethics of emerging innovation or an immersive medical practitioner who can use augmented reality to perform surgery remotely on someone that needs it on the other end of the world: all of these keep the human in the equation. I specifically wanted to focus on those roles and jobs that do not displace humans completely. Rather, they call for us to work in happy harmony with emerging innovations and digital skills.
ISACA Now: How do you define sustainable innovation, and how can companies make this possible?
One definition for me of innovation that is sustainable is can it have a duality of profits and purpose? For innovation to be embedded into the organization and used by companies, organizations and governments, there has to be a clear tangible value. Most often that value is to people of the organization, but it also needs to be justified financially, so you cannot ignore the bottom line.
The bigger mistake is ignoring the impact of that innovation deployment on the actual environment, the communities in which we operate, the people, the consumers and the end users that will actually make use of it. Sustainable innovation means you must think about the ethical implications of these innovations that you are rolling out and deploying. You have to think about their impact on the actual environment in terms of your carbon footprint and emissions.
There is also another aspect to sustainable innovation which is, once it is set up, can it actually be self-fulfilling, can it be self-reliant? Sustainable in the sense of, it can go the distance – it is something that can stay in place and is more future-friendly.
The ways organizations can do this is to make use of all the great insights out there from people like myself, which are futurists, data scientists, ethical experts and coders. Really understand that world better before making a blind choice on which particular innovation tool to embed in their organization, whether it is in their HR practices, operations, financial infrastructure, or something that benefits the end consumer, such as a consumer app or product.
ISACA Now: What are some of the main ethics challenges that the digital economy presents?
The ethics challenges posed by the digital economy are significant and yet are often overlooked.
There are three challenges:
- When we talk about automation displacing people, there is an ethical dilemma because you are pushing aside actual humans who, in effect, could do the work, all be it at a slower pace than an algorithm. That does not ethically justify displacing a person of a job as humans can do many things that automation fall short on, such as applying human judgment to actual decisions, rather than have an algorithm make those decisions. An example of this is in HR hiring software where algorithms have set the task of creating a shortlist of candidates. This has not worked out well because often they have completely ignored some of the transferable skills and some of the background elements that a person would pick up that are applicable to a job. Instead of cross-transferable skills they look for very specific matches and keywords. You cannot hire purely by keyword. There could be a much better fit from a personality and cultural perspective.
- In any emerging application of technology, any new use case, whether it is from data science, AI, cybersecurity or open data, if we do not ask the big ethical questions first and then build the tool, we are in trouble. That has been proven by multiple cases of enterprise software being used by big companies. When they put it to use for the purpose it was designed for, that backfires as they have overlooked some of the big questions of digital ethics which they should have done when they were first constructing or embedding the software in their organization.
- There is a responsibility that organizations should have to the communities in which they operate to develop and roll out digital products and services that have a very sustainable element at the core of them. This is part of ethical practice. We must be able to develop tools in the digital economy that have a sustainable footprint, in terms of the environment, in terms of human capital, as well as long-lasting value.
ISACA Now: How can the gender imbalance in IT fields be improved?
The gender imbalance in IT fields can be remedied in a few ways:
- We must look at hiring practices and not ignore the psychology of hiring. It is not a transactional, cold, clinical process. When you are sitting face to face, or across a Zoom window interviewing for a role, a few things come into play. One thing that has come up time and time again is that we tend to hire more like us, more of the same. We instantly identify with someone from a similar background, who speaks in a similar way, whose body language we feel at ease with, who says some of the things that resonate with us, and those things form a sense of connection. Our brains respond to that in a very favorable way, in a similar way as to when you are getting to know a new friend, or even a partner. You seek out those elements that bring you together and that connect you. The problem with this being part and parcel of how we hire is that it often excludes, for example, the female gender when it should not. All things remaining the same, if you have a male and female vying for the same role and their skillsets are comparable, if the hiring manager identifies with the ethnicity, the gender and the beliefs of the other contender, the woman could lose out. To address that, have some intentional conscious programs at work, specifically for hiring managers and people who are on the front line of bringing fresh talent in, to remove this psychological hurdle of hiring “more of the same.”
- Going back to the home and school – parents and educators are shown to be huge influences on young children, younger girls in particular. What they often hear growing up, in terms of what the teacher or parent believes that child is capable of, can often become ingrained and self-fulfilling. We see this very commonly play out in people we know who have, for example, less confidence in themselves than those that have a supreme sense of belief. There is a big difference between the two and some of it does come down to nurturing. There is the nature part, which is your personality, of what you are predisposed to behave like, and there is the nurture part, the key influences from when you were younger.
I grew up with a mother and father who encouraged me to achieve whatever I desired. They filled me with a sense of hope that if I worked hard and I trained well and I got the right experience, that I could get to a certain level or a certain role. I have had family friends who were not in that kind of enabling environment, and they ended up in careers that they are not happy with.
I would say that for boosting the number of women and girls in technology fields, the responsibility and onus do lie with educators – teachers, as well as parents. The most formative age at which this makes a big impact is between 12 and 16. What those girls are told and the opportunities and exposure they get are big factors to determine whether they do engineering, or they decide to go for a different sort of degree that is not in a STEM field simply because their parents dissuaded them from thinking about it. - There is a big drop-out of women who find it very difficult to come back into the sector after having children. No matter how hard they try, it becomes a tough challenge to overcome. There needs to be a focus on those who have chosen to take time out or pause to build a family and then do want to return and are finding it hard to do so. Personally, I was able to keep the momentum going for my work whilst I had my children. However, I did take breaks of 8 to 10 months for each of my children. I was able to come back into the fold because I was working for myself. If I had been working for a corporate, it would have been harder.
ISACA Now: You’ve advised the United Nations – what did you take from that experience?
While I am not allowed to reveal what advisement I was asked to offer, what I can say is that the keynote portion of my advisory at the time, which was presented to a room of 50 of the UN’s top leaders from across the globe, was aimed at helping them understand the role of enabling emerging innovations to do with human rights and with mobility of labor, and how an organization with all the strands of the UN could seek to do so affordably and responsibly for the betterment of both the organization itself and the societies that is serves.
