Unlocking Insights from 40 Years in High Tech
Perspectives from a front-row seat in digital and technology transformation
Why "Digitally Indigenous"?
Insights from decades of Silicon Valley & High Tech experience.
Some years ago, I was a speaker at a conference in India organized by India’s NASSCOM—the trade association of India’s software industry. A recurring theme of the conference was Digital Transformation. The organizers asked each speaker to describe themselves as either a “digital native” or a “digital immigrant”—the distinction being that ‘natives’ come from companies that were “born” digital while the ‘immigrants’ became digital after a previous non-digital existence.
I was puzzled on how to classify myself since I began working in the digital software space well before the ‘natives’ such as Amazon, Twitter, Google and others appeared on the scene. In fact, I started my career in software product development in 1982, and had been using the "internet" before the World Wide Web was invented. While at NeXT in the early 1990's, I and my team were among the earliest adopters and implementers of Web technologies before most of the ‘natives’ started to appear.
So when it came my turn to introduce myself, I said: “I was actually already ‘digital’ before the natives arrived. So I guess that makes me ‘Digitally Indigenous’” (*)
(*) If you listen to the video, I think I actually called myself a "digital aborigine". However my daughter is more politically correct than I am, hence the word change.
(*) If you listen to the video, I think I actually called myself a "digital aborigine". However my daughter is more politically correct than I am, hence the word change.
James F. Walsh, Ph.D.(Jim)
Career at-a-Glance
Business domains where I've led or helped develop software products
Geographic areas where I've led teams, projects or done extensive collaboration
Hands-on activities over the course of my career
Focus Areas