Thought of the Day 19-July-06

The battle for ideas will be won/lost on the grounds of free speech.

In Praise of Paper

From a beautiful essay by Malcolm Gladwell, The Social Life of Paper:

That is the irony of the P.C.: the workplace problem that it solves is the nineteenth-century anxiety. It’s a better filing cabinet than the original vertical file, and if Dewey were alive today, he’d no doubt be working very happily in an information-technology department somewhere. The problem that paper solves, by contrast, is the problem that most concerns us today, which is how to support knowledge work. In fretting over paper, we have been tripped up by a historical accident of innovation, confused by the assumption that the most important invention is always the most recent.

Some other interesting passages:

This is one of the great puzzles of the modern workplace. Computer technology was supposed to replace paper. But that hasn’t happened. Every country in the Western world uses more paper today, on a per-capita basis, than it did ten years ago… This is generally taken as evidence of how hard it is to eradicate old, wasteful habits and of how stubbornly resistant we are to the efficiencies offered by computerization. A number of cognitive psychologists and ergonomics experts, however, don’t agree. Paper has persisted, they argue, for very good reasons: when it comes to performing certain kinds of cognitive tasks, paper has many advantages over computers. The dismay people feel at the sight of a messy desk… arises from a fundamental confusion about the role that paper plays in our lives.

…paper has a unique set of “affordances” — that is, qualities that permit specific kinds of uses. Paper is tangible…Paper is spatially flexible…And it’s tailorable… Digital documents, of course, have their own affordances. They can be easily searched, shared, stored, accessed remotely, and linked to other relevant material. But they lack the affordances that really matter to a group of people working together…

…we fret about where all that paper will go. But…we needn’t worry. It is only if paper’s usefulness is in the information written directly on it that it must be stored. If its usefulness lies in the promotion of ongoing creative thinking, then, once that thinking is finished, the paper becomes superfluous. The solution to our paper problem…is not to use less paper but to keep less paper. Why bother filing at all? Everything we know about the workplace suggests that few if any knowledge workers ever refer to documents again once they have filed them away, which should come as no surprise, since paper is a lousy way to archive information.

A Nerd in a Cave

Rands talks about every Nerd’s Cave in this insightful piece. Check out the Nerd’s behaviour when in zone:

Once I’ve successfully traversed my morning routine and have entered The Zone, I am OFF LIMITS. I mean it. Intruding into The Cave and disrupting The Zone is no different than standing up in the middle of the first ever showing of The Empire Strikes Back, jumping up and down, and yelling, “DARTH VADER IS LUKE’S FATHER! DARTH VADER IS LUKE’S FATHER!” Not only are you ruining the mood, you’re killing a major creative work. Think about that the next time you enter The Cave with a useless question about what shoes you should wear.

No, I’m not going to answer the phone. In fact, it’s a sure sign of compromised Cave design if I can even hear the phone ring. And no, I don’t hear you when you walk in and ask if we should go to the park tomorrow. I don’t hear you the second time, either. I don’t mean I’m ignoring you because that’d involve using precious brain cycles I need for The Zone… I really CAN’T hear you. That’s how deep I am in The Zone.

No , I have no idea that it’s been four hours since I closed the door and began furiously typing. Really, the only things I know are: a) when my coffee cup is empty, and b) when I need to head to the bathroom.

Yes. When you successfully penetrate The Zone, there is a chance I’ll be an asshole. In fact, I might snap.

Although he ends with:

Nerds are rewarded for structure. We get big bucks for reliably generating useful technology that works. Sure, we’re artists, but it’s an art of patterns, repetition, structure, and efficiency (I swear, it’s sexy). This makes it not surprising that the places we create in our homes and in our minds are designed in the same fashion.

The risk with these places is the same risk with all comfortable places. In the comfort, we forget that some of the most interesting stuff happens elsewhere.

Well, i guess he would say that. For me, the voices in my head make THAT the most interesting place of all! 😉

Creativity in Corporations

As Hugh MacLeod says here:

Since the modern, scientifically-conceived corporation was invented in the early half of the Twentieth Century, creativity has been sacrificed in favor of forwarding the interests of the “Team Player”.

…There’s only one problem. Team Players are not very good at creating value on their own. They are not autonomous; they need a team in order to exist. So now corporations are awash with non-autonomous thinkers.

Creating an economically viable entity where lack of original thought is handsomely rewarded creates a rich, fertile environment for parasites to breed. And that’s exactly what’s been happening. So now we have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creativity of others.

What happens to an ecology, when the parasite level reaches critical mass? The ecology dies.

Somehow this does not seem to be a fashionable view nowadays! Most companies would rather reward “team-workers” than intensely creative/productive stand-alone go-getters, despite the fact that the latter get things done! And then, managers have the temerity to act shocked when the most productive guys are the first to leave!!