Columbus

Our lovely government has been inept at handling the largest public health crisis for a century. This is not a statement with hindsight but an expression of frustration for more than a year.

After having failed at setting up a comprehensive testing and tracing regime, our government bumbled the vaccine rollout: Lonza, based in Switzerland, proposed the government our own vaccination production.

While the ‘we don’t publish numbers on weekends, because also our employees need time off, too’ comment of the ministry of health is Asterix & Obelix level parody (‘It’s 5pm, tea time. We’ll be back to battle after that’) the rejection of the vaccination production kills people.

And that is just the latest misstep. With the next one already visible on the horizon: The social and economic upheaval is significant. And instead of starting a national conversation about healing, about rebuilding, about solidarity (yes that might imply higher taxes) you hear, well, Nothing…

But then, this is something most likely – and the proof points of the past 12 months support the claim – beyond their skillset. Most of the folks in positions of relevance starting with our government minsters have been politicians all their live or most of their lives.

In a country like ours a political career is still built primarily on risk avoidance (Any too extreme position will cost you the votes across the aisle to become minister… ). A crisis is pretty much the opposite. The nature of a crisis is confusion. It requires taking calculated and at times bigger risks to resolve it. Not an operational pattern any of our leaders is used to.

Excerpt from an email conversation with a colleague of mine. It started with a comment on this video: Squirro App Studio.

Teammate: This video is no longer current.

Me: Can you explain to me what is not current here (except a portion referring to DSS instead of AIS)?

Teammate: Hi Dorian, That’s what I mean. It refers to DSS so it should not be distributed. Is my assumption not correct? Thank you.

Me: Dude, in a perfect world sure. Now we live in an imperfect world: So yes your assumption is not correct (until we have redone the video, btw are you volunteering?). 

Look I react to this because most recently people left and right have been nagging about things and that goes on my nerves: Startups by definition are not perfect. We told all of you (Remember me saying in your hiring interview: Startups are f**ing hard. Are you in for that?). 

Tesla produced shitty cars for the better part of the first 10 years of their existence (don’t believe me? check their resell value….). But they were after something (understand mobility in terms of software not hardware) and see where they are today…

Same with us: We understand the digital world in terms of insights not data. On that road things have edges. Life with it or else. Or to say it with Mark Watney in the Martian ““I’m going to have to science the shit out of this.”

So I would have preferred a comment of the type: ‘Use video with note only: still references DSS, will need updating’. Bonus points for saying: @author: Contact me, happy to help for an updated version.

You know like I do for requests you have for me. Instead of me saying: “Do your job, deliver results.”, I am a ping away and e.g. over the weekend help you to expand the SFDC playbook to make you successful. 

On Friday our government announced finally a switch to a comprehensive testing strategy. Finally…. (we suggest this approach 10 months ago…)

Brilliant feed on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WheatNOil/status/1339624815137722368

In addition to an earlier post here more items, which Trump unintentionally enables:

• A realisation in the rest of the world that a world policeman isn’t a bad thing after all (To paraphrase former President Holland’s remarks at the SEF earlier this year)
• That flooding the zone with s..t, aka constant lying, helps the truth win in the long run as currently nobody believes anything that Trump says anymore

The world is currently undergoing a curious transformation: It’s history in reverse. We are back in the middle ages: tribes, rule of the most powerful, that is no rule of law, lies all around.

An interview today’s Handelszeitung on how AI allows for rethinking value chains.

German version.

Trump will have enabled three major developments:

• A move to a more equal society
• The first American female president
• The destruction of the bigoted GOP

Before anyone goes ballistic: This was never his intent. But it will be the consequence of his failed presidency.

Hope you all can enjoy spring despite testing times.

And testing times it continues to be: After a gradual ease of restrictions a seeming resemblance of normalcy. Yet nothing has been won, The infection is still here and here to stay.

The Swiss civil society and government did a good job containing the virus and keeping the economy from falling into the abyss. Yet we seem to be putting at risk this achievement.

A second wave seems to be – and early indications from places as varied as Singapore, Korea, China, Bulgaria, & the USA point to this – a feature rather than an outlier of this pandemic.

We are already faced with the biggest economic downturn in our lifetimes (unless we are lucky and a vaccine is found quickly). It is thus utterly incomprehensible that there is to this date no comprehensive testing and tracing strategy in place covering all age groups in the country.

Some argue about the cost, about privacy and other concerns. A look back at 1918 shows that whatever this costs, is nothing compared to the societal and economic devastation of a second wave.

This is a call to action for us all to push for what’s proven over the last 3 months to be the only working strategy to contain the spread (and no, Sweden is no alternative, as the Swedish approach so far produced a similar economic downturn like elsewhere with a much higher per capita death rate than almost anywhere else).

We are eyewitnesses to tectonic shifts in international politics. Links in German.