“It’s a blessing and a curse” – this phrase comes to mind when considering online accounts! The ease of signing up, clicking “yes” to terms of agreement and using technology on various devices is amazing and comes with caution.
Image by 💖MORE ON 👉 https://melovess.com 💖 from Pixabay
Digitization of Services
No more “snail mail”, no more going into a brick and mortar building, no more “closed offices”, no more paper filing – all of these fit the blessing category for many! Think of the time and convenience of online banking and payment services, online meetings, fitness apps, watching movies/tv, reading the “paper”, making travel arrangements, grocery shopping, online education, healthcare visits, looking for a place to rent or buy, the entire financial and insurance sectors and even postal services!
The pandemic accelerated digitization of customer interactions by 3-4 years per a McKinsey Global Study. Thinking about how much we’ve changed and adapted to digitization begs the thought of what’s next?
Trends on the Horizon
The use of advanced technology seems positioned to continue to find ways to grow, compete and edge into our daily lives. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm in 2023.
IBM defines AI “At its simplest form, artificial intelligence is a field, which combines computer science and robust datasets, to enable problem-solving. It also encompasses sub-fields of machine learning and deep learning, which are frequently mentioned in conjunction with artificial intelligence. Source: IBM.com
Applications using AI today include:
- Personalized shopping: creating recommendations, virtual shopping assistants and payment fraud prevention
- Education: messaging with students, grading papers, coordinating parent teacher conferences, online enrollment and HR functions
- Content creation: blog posts and books (I still write mine 😉), social media posts, advertising, audio/video scripts and summaries and more
- Facial and Voice recognition
- Navigation
- Healthcare: identify and detect disease, drug discovery +
- Marketing: chatbots, personalization of marketing campaigns, brand style, audience targeting +
- Financial services: this sector is evaluating benefits (task automation, fraud detection, and loan risk assessments)
- Travel and Transport: passenger experience, inspections, quality control, supply chain forecasting and replenishment, pre and post production activities
- And so much more!
Image by Vicki Hamilton from Pixabay
Caution
Yes, online accounts can be a big blessing. Alas, they also can be a curse while living and after you’ve gone.
How you keep track of your online accounts, user names, passwords, security questions, and multi-factor authorization can be a headache. Too little security opens you up to unwanted hackers tapping into your personal information and possibly into your accounts to “help themselves” to your identity and/or finances. Too much security without a system in place to manage it can have you pulling your hair out.
How often do you check for inactive accounts? Think about accounts you signed up for on a whim, do you regularly check to delete accounts you no longer use? It’s wise to check on those pesky “zombie” accounts to remove any temptation for those unwanted hackers.
This begs the question, how do you handle your accounts? Do you have a system in place to document your accounts, user id’s, passwords, security questions and authentication methods? Have you read the terms of agreement each separate online account has you check “agree” before you start?
The unfortunate truth is this. It’s hard to be the one attempting to figure out someone’s online life after they are no longer with you. Really hard.
After my dad died, it felt like I had to climb Mt. Everest to have the utility accounts put in mom’s name as dad had been the only name on the account for their home. I had to call multiple times, provide hard copies of dad’s death certificate and confirm mom was “single” and run her credit report. And this was for each utility 😱 The time amidst grieving was arduous.
What You Can Do Now
If you needed to help someone you know or if someone needed to help you, could you? Without “snail mail”, you are walking in to the unknown without a roadmap of what’s what of online accounts you have and use (and this is before AI is fully adopted 😉).
That’s one piece of the puzzle of your day to day life that matters. It’s important to map out what’s what for yourself and for anyone you’ll count on to come in and assist when needed.
Let’s make sure your “curses are small and your blessings are many”, even with online accounts 🌞Contact me to personalize your planning Email: Lynn@thelivingplanner.com or if you’d prefer to schedule a Complimentary Discovery Call to discuss your particulars, reach out. My main website is: https://thelivingplanner.com and my online DIY information is located at https://courses.thelivingplanner.com
As Earl Nightingale said, “All you need is the plan, the roadmap, and the courage to press on to your destination” To planning ❣️Lynn
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