Hello Five Minute Gemba community!
During a recent discussion, I learned about a trend that was NOT on my radar. Evidently some children are getting in to relationships with AI chatbots. In hindsight, I do vaguely remember hearing something about this (beyond the movie Her, in 2013) recently somewhere on the Internet. I don’t think I gave that aspect of the topic much thought.
Coming off the hangover of the covid pandemic, many humans also experienced extreme isolation and a lack of social opportunity.
I suppose all of this is a reminder of how important other humans are in our overall well being. The GREAT news is, there are opportunities to join communities in both private and public realms. For this article I am going to focus on professional communities, but I will weave in a little private suggestions for good measure.
My origin story in tech started out in online and in person video gaming. I talked about that a bit in FMG#20, Imagining a Different Future. That was a robust community at the time. A short while after I got my first internet connection, I also discovered Internet Relay Chat, and ended up plugged in to some networks related to Microsoft Windows NT and Networking (the computer kind, not your Chamber Mixers).
When I first moved to the Sierra Foothills back in 2014, I managed to get connected with Grow Manufacturing (via Bill Gaines). And eventually through Bill, I connected with SME (and two great friends Mike Bell and Jeff Briggs). Bill helped the Sacramento Area Manufacturers start SVMI (now SVMA). There are manufacturing and industry specific communities you can connect with all over the world.
During covid, I discovered a new opportunity for community with some of my fellow CIMCO Solution Providers. It started with a random meeting with someone here in the USA, then quickly evolved to include others mostly in Europe. It was something we all didn’t realize that we really needed. We’ve been meeting every five weeks for several years now. We’ve also met in person as well, once in Denmark and another time in Lake Tahoe, NV. This group has spawned great relationships, collaboration, and we’ve experienced some great times together.
Through this very Five Minute Gemba Newsletter, another community was founded. The “Gemba Chat” community is a group of people who are everything from shop owners, to engineers, to advanced programmers. This community also meets about every five weeks, and likewise offers a supportive environment to share ideas. There has even been talk of a Smart Manufacturing Retreat.
Recently I’ve started a couple of AI communities, and a third one is about to start as a service project to the manufacturing industry. With fast moving technology comes fast change, uncertainty, and most importantly, opportunity.
There are numerous opportunities outside of our professional lives, too. For about 14 years I’ve been a part of Rotary International. They have local clubs just about anywhere in the world. There are also dozens of opportunities on Meetup.com to join topic interest groups. At least one of our readers I know personally trains people in Karate, and has built a robust community around that.
The opportunity to build communities is everywhere. We need to acknowledge and recognize the need to embrace that part of our human side. Obviously this is on a spectrum, not everyone will constantly feel this. We should all consider it.
If you found this information useful, I encourage you to share it with a friend. If someone shared it with you and you’d like to subscribe, you can sign up here. And if you haven’t done so yet, I invite you to connect with me on LinkedIn.
