Earlier this week, I wrote “Setting Expectations And Finding Joy”, in which I said “If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life, but still the same amount of snow.”

In many ways, that expression talks about how you approach a situation. It’s about the perspective you take when things appear to be suboptimal. My mother would quote Erma Bombeck and say “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

For the past month, I have been visiting family in the Middle East. Over here, it rarely rains from April through September; the region depends on rain in the winter to fill the lakes and reservoirs.

The weather has been beautiful, by Canadian standards, for most of our trip, with sunny skies and temperatures in the low 20s (Celsius).

Today, it has been windy and rainy, but we feel good about it. The desert flowers instantly bloom, the dust on trees gets washed away and green mixes with the grey skies.

As we head toward a new year, it just seemed to me to be a reminder to keep everything in perspective. And maybe, if you are feeling negative, try a new angle to take a fresh look at your current situation.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife forwarded one of those cutesy motivational sayings that she saw on social media: “If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life, but still the same amount of snow.”

It is an appropriate expression for Canadians facing the arrival of December.

And since I am writing it on this blog, you can expect that I am going to find yet another of those metaphorical allusions to the telecom sector.

As I wrote last month, there are some advocates who naively seek to spend other people’s money “to give virtually every person access to essentially the same quality of internet connectivity, whether they reside in a major city or a remote Indigenous community.”

It just isn’t going to happen. I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news. Australia has spent tens of billions of dollars building its NBN, National Broadband Network, and it isn’t providing the same quality of internet connectivity to urban and rural communities.

Unpopular as it may be to say so, in my view, there are some basic realities that need to be faced: there are disadvantages to living outside major urban centres that accompany the wonderful benefits associated with a more rural geography. You simply don’t have access to all the same government services or private sector services once you leave the cities.

“If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life, but still the same amount of snow.”

You can complain about it, but you are likely to find that many Canadians in rural markets still won’t be able to go to the same concerts, theatre, variety of restaurants, many will lack ready access to world class hospitals, and relevant to today’s post, many will have to rely on broadband solutions that are not the same as the technology choices available to their compatriots in urban settings. Through the summer, I wrote, “Fibre optic connections aren’t always the best solution for broadband.”

When fibre optic connections are set as a mandatory requirement for broadband, rather than simply being identified as one of the possible solutions, it restricts the degrees of freedom for solutions that could be innovative, more cost effective, and delivered sooner. In today’s environment, an adequate solution delivered sooner is more likely to be viewed more positively by consumers than a perfect solution delivered years later as I wrote in “Isn’t some broadband better than nothing?”

Just three weeks ago, I wrote “We can’t wait for a perfect, “future-proof” solution for universal broadband for all Canadians. But surely we can strive to do a lot more, a lot better, and a lot sooner.”

We can moan about rural communities lacking equal access to the identical range of service options as those enjoyed by urban dwellers, or it seems to me that we can (and should) celebrate the availability of access to more than adequate broadband services that meet the CRTC’s target objective of 50 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up with an unlimited option, regardless of the delivery technology.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t always aim higher. However, an adequate solution delivered sooner is indeed better than a perfect solution delivered years later.

“If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life, but still the same amount of snow.”

I saw a recent Deloitte Insights paper that merits highlighting on this page. “Beyond good intentions, Navigating the ethical dilemmas facing the technology industry“ promotes the idea that a more holistic approach can help companies deal with major ethical dilemmas, enabling them to “differentiate, preserve their reputations, and better prepare for and protect the future.”

The article identifies five issues as examples of the dilemmas the tech industry needs to navigate:

• Data usage: How companies collect, use, and protect data
• Environmental sustainability: Energy use, supply chains efficiency, manufacturing waste, and water use in semiconductor fabrication
• Trustworthy AI: How Artificial Intelligence systems benefit society and avoid bias, fairness, and transparency
• Threats to truth: The use of disinformation, misinformation, deepfakes, and the weaponizing of data to attack, manipulate, and influence for personal gain, or to sow chaos
• Physical and mental health: How the technology industry can impact the physical and mental well-being of customers who use its products and services

Deloitte offers five key moves to help to apply a holistic approach across the ethical dilemmas.

1. Integrate across the business life cycle
2. Invest in specialized ethics talent
3. Build and train from the top, the bottom, and across
4. Be as predictive and extensive as possible
5. Collaborate with partners and competitors to improve the entire industry

Read the article. Listen (and subscribe) to Deloitte’s Solving for Tech Ethics podcast series.

I’d be interested in your comments.

Hanukkah, the 8-day festival of lights, began last night.

I find it interesting that so many different cultures and religions have holidays at this time of year with celebrations that include candles and light.

For ancient civilizations, some of these traditions must have been a kind of response to shorter days and longer nights as we approach the winter solstice.

Shining light is a way to bring comfort, making it easier to see more of what is around us. Intellectually, I think it is better to be provided with a broader range of perspectives to help inform decision-making.

Alexandra Posadzki had an interview with Melinda Rogers-Hixon in last weekend’s Globe and Mail that opened with:

Ted Rogers, the founder of Rogers Communications Inc., used to encourage his children to debate issues related to the family business over dinner.

But there was a twist: Partway through, both parties would have to switch sides and argue the opposite position. The exercise was intended to teach them how to understand the other person’s perspective, as well as to challenge their own assumptions, he explained.

Playing devil’s advocate; doing a ‘red team’ analysis to anticipate how a competitor might respond. I sometimes wonder if there is enough of this going on these days.

I wonder if polarized opinions are perhaps catalyzed by news agents on social media that deliver stories that align with and reinforce our current perspectives, rather than challenging our own assumptions.

I subscribe to a newspaper that aggravates the hell out of me, precisely to help me appreciate perspectives that I wouldn’t otherwise understand.

As we head into this season of festivals of light, I hope more people will consider Ted’s way of illuminating issues.

I like to think of myself as a reasonably seasoned internet user, with a pretty long history of using technology to empower working from home. After all, thirty-five years ago, I had a dedicated 56kbps line connected to my Bell Labs issued, AT&T UNIX PC for remote work access. Before then, I had a Northern Telecom Displayphone for connectivity to almost nothing useful.

Today’s virtual presence capabilities are truly remarkable, but it is only in the last couple weeks that I have been able to fully appreciate the power of video calling as a relatively meaningful substitute for physical contact.

We had grandchildren born during the COVID-19 lockdowns, in distant locations. We have daily video chats with apps like WhatsApp or FaceTime that have let us see the babies and their slightly older siblings. Only recently were we able to travel to meet the not-so-new members of the family.

Our 15 month-old woke up from her nap to find grandparents reaching for her. We are grandparents who, up until then, she only knew from a small screen, but she was willing to be held by those familiar faces with comforting voices.

I’m sure developmental psychologists will conduct in-depth studies of the impact of virtual connectivity on familial bonding. My singular data point shows that there was a surprising level of recognition, despite 15 months of missing tactile and olfactory sensory contact.

Still, as good a substitute as video may be, it’s nothing like the physical reality of touching, holding and hugging.

I even missed the smells of a 15 month old, but suspect this is an area that is ripe for innovation.