Wonks and War Rooms

Digital Transformation with Shaaz Nasir

April 07, 2021 Elizabeth Dubois Season 2 Episode 7
Wonks and War Rooms
Digital Transformation with Shaaz Nasir
Show Notes

Shaaz is a Digital Advisor and Director of Digital Transformation for Microsoft and he chats with Elizabeth about what exactly is digital transformation. They go from academic definition, to business buzz words, to practical applications. Shaaz explains why he puts humanity at the centre of digital transformation and why he always wants to focus on "why" (rather than just what fancy new tech can we use).

Additional Resources

Elizabeth uses this academic journal article by Gregory Vial (2019) to define digital transformation.

Tip: You can get access to some articles for free by looking for things like "Open Access" or "Download for Free" - in this case you find the free version by clicking the "View Open Manuscript" link at the top-centre of the page. When academic journals don't have a free version on their main website sometimes the authors upload a pre-print version somewhere else so you can also try your favourite search engine.

Elizabeth mentions the Rogers Diffusion of Innovation Curve. Here is an example of the curve which is found in this blog post (the blog post focuses on IOTA/cryptocurrency, but the theory is applied much more broadly). Here is a YouTube video that explains the theory in the context of marketing.


Check out www.polcommtech.ca for annotated transcripts of this episode in English and French.