The Digital Mindset: Thinking in Data and Code
Digital World |
Digital thinking is a way of thinking and making decisions in a digital environment. It emphasizes using digital technologies and data analytics to quickly acquire, integrate, and analyze information to more effectively solve problems and drive innovation. It's a comprehensive thinking model that includes multiple mental models and methods.

This understanding actually includes the following levels:
- Solving Business Problems:
Digital thinking emphasizes using digital technologies to solve various business problems and challenges, such as improving efficiency, reducing costs, and improving products and services.
This mindset encourages companies to actively adopt digital tools and methods.
- Data-Driven:
Data is at the core of digital thinking.
It emphasizes treating data as a key resource for decision-making and business improvement.
By quickly acquiring data, integrating data from multiple dimensions, and conducting data analysis, companies can better understand their operations and make evidence-based decisions.
- Comprehensive Thinking:
Digital thinking is a comprehensive way of thinking. It requires employees to have interdisciplinary knowledge, such as: more fundamental open, boundary-breaking, and integrated thinking, disruptive innovation, and alternative thinking, as well as familiar concepts like user thinking, product thinking, and agile thinking.
These mental models comprehensively consider multiple factors and fully utilize various mental models to find the optimal solution.
- Leveraging Digital Technologies:
Digital thinking uses digital tools to automate decision-making and evaluation.
This includes utilizing artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automated processes to improve efficiency and accuracy.
- Continuous Learning and Adaptability:
Continuous learning and adaptability are crucial in digital thinking.
Due to rapid technological advancements, employees and organizations must continuously update their knowledge and skills to keep pace with the times.
Digital thinking is essential for a company's digital transformation. It encourages employees and organizations to be more agile, innovative, and better utilize the potential of digital technologies. In short, digital thinking is a data-centric, problem-solving, and innovation-driven approach that helps companies succeed in the digital age.

What are the underlying mental models of digital thinking?
Digital thinking is a comprehensive mental model that may specifically include the following underlying mental models: data-driven decision-making thinking, open and boundary-breaking integration thinking, discontinuous ecosystem thinking, disruptive innovation and lane-changing thinking, and distributed multi-center thinking.
- Data-Driven Decision-Making Mindset:
Shift from experience-based decision-making to data-driven decision-making. Managers must lead by example, believing in the power and value of data. All employees should regard data utilization as a fundamental work skill and part of management culture, using data to drive business value realization.
- Open and Boundary-Breaking Integration Mindset:
Shift from closed-boundary thinking to open and boundary-breaking integration, blurring or even breaking down the boundaries between producers and consumers, supply and demand, internal and external stakeholders, industries, hardware and software technologies, and online and offline channels. Co-create value with customers and employees.
- Discontinuous Ecosystem Mindset:
Shift from incremental linear thinking to discontinuous ecosystem thinking. Address the breakpoints, abrupt changes, and discontinuities in business paradigms and enterprise development. Develop a long-term strategic vision for the future and build an ecosystem.
- Disruptive Innovation and Alternative Thinking
Shift from predicting future events based on frequent, high-probability events to focusing on occasional, low-probability "black swan" events. Embrace risk, break through resource limitations, boldly explore, and iterate rapidly through continuous lean innovation to unlock the "second curve" of enterprise growth.
- Distributed Multi-Center Thinking:
Shift from a vertical, single-center mindset to a distributed, multi-center mindset, and from an asymmetric, single-focus, pressure-based mindset to a symmetric, multi-dynamic, dynamic mindset. This approach focuses on and emphasizes organizational empowerment, the power of individuals and self-organizing teams, and promotes innovation at the edge.