Mark RaskinoI really enjoyed the privilege of presenting at Gartner South Africa Symposium this week – I think it was my 4th or 5th year of being invited. Interactions there are always stimulating and thought provoking. One issue in particular always makes itself noticeable one way or another – the matter of race.
So here’s what prompted me to think a little differently about that issue this time. When preparing one of my slide decks, I wanted some economic data and in particular I wanted to look at consumer confidence. It took my breath away momentarily to see that one of the major economic information services, BER, in conjunction with a major bank, still tracks black consumer confidence and white consumer confidence. They do produce a combined figure of course, but when I opened the .pdf, I wasn’t expecting to see this
My politically-corrected mostly-white western middle class liberal sensibilities were thrown off track for a moment. Surely it should just be ‘consumers’ in this day and age? Well perhaps not. A wise analyst colleague of mine once said – we must look at the world as it is, not only as we would wish it to be. This is a country that wants to face its differences and address them – it is profound and it is refreshing. My first question should have been – how are these different and why? It turns out that the two indexes are not in lock-step. At the moment black confidence is higher than white.
Each year I go to this event I also hear something about the progress of BEE (black economic empowerment). This is an important set of social policies which set out to correct the disparities between races in employment opportunities, career attainment and access to positions of professional power and authority. Of course it creates tensions but of course it is necessary.
This year I had the opportunity to briefly meet and advise a smart CIO of a large and wealthy company I had not met before. She was black. That isn’t common anywhere – for example even in core European countries the female percentage of the CIO population is 20% or lower. At the same event I met another CIO who told me he is proud to be a white African with roots going back to the 1600s. These IT professionals are integrating, learning from each other and helping to make rapid economic progress for their nation together.
This business social progress may not be as visible as the new Green Point football stadium which is being prepared for the World Cup football in 2010.. but it is every bit as important and wonderful to behold. I don’t think it is overstating things to suggest that what’s happening in South Africa and being learned from its progress will change all our societies in the end.
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