There are some companies that have clear health ramifications if they are managed by over-networked systems and their system was hacked. Any companies with health information would be in trouble, including places like hospitals, health insurance companies, pharmacies, and pharmaceutical companies. While these are companies we immediately think of when thinking of companies that have sensitive information, most companies collect so much data on their product that is nearly impossible to anonymize that data. Therefore, most of this information can be associated to an individual and possibly used against them. Some elements of products that should never access the Internet are things like company recipes, medicine recipes, weapon or dangerous substance composures, and access codes. Once something is on the Internet, you are exponentially increasing the number of access points for that information. It is unnecessary to expose company or personal secrets that only need to be known by a few people. We must carefully guard technology that is replacing human processes at building, cooking, cleaning, etc. If these products get hacked, we could have intense ramifications behind the scenes.
If the woman in the meeting had stayed quiet, it is likely that the company would not have reconsidered the new safeguards that may need to be put in place. She was not on the engineering team, but she brought a unique perspective that the engineers did not want to consider because of the time and energy they had put into the recent technical solutions. If the CEO had ignored her recommendations, there would have been an impact beyond possible listeria: people would not have felt empowered to speak up when they deemed something needed fixing. By listening to the input of the woman, the CEO showed the rest of the company that he was willing to discuss possible solutions. Additionally, if there had been a health crisis due to an exploitation, it is likely that the reputation of the company would have greatly suffered. In a capitalistic society, people have other options and they are not going to use your company if they think your product may be unsafe.
The implicit assumptions that the woman challenged were gender, hierarchical, and technical. Women are often not invited to the decision table, so speaking up and making her voice heard is important. The hierarchical assumption is easy to see as the CEO is the highest in the company, so often is untouchable by people in the company who are not C-level executives. Finally, she was not technical, but she was involving herself in a technical problem which many engineers may see as an overstep or assume she doesn’t know what she’s talking about (also gender).
The largest way I can see this case study applying to my project is through gender assumptions. Myself and the other female on my team are outnumbered by three men who are all technical to some extent. I think it is important that we have mutual respect and don’t fall into gender assumptions.
