Steve Barth | Reflexions

From Technologies to Tools

Think about the relationships we have to our communication and information tools, not just through our tools.

Have we gone too far distinguishing knowledge work from manual labor, so that we disconnect knowledge workers from the tools of their trade—and in doing so disrupt their sense of identity?

There is an affective connection between individuals and their tools that is vital to maintain both the productivity and the passion of knowledge work. But there is also a distinction between "tools" and "technologies" that is often missed in the modern workplace.

"Technologies" are systems imposed by the organization that often constrain, disempower and depersonalize knowledge work. "Tools" are extensions of our hands, as much as the hammers or knives of traditional work. They reinforce ownership, craftsmanship, stewardship and professional identity.

Read the article: The Difference between Tools and Technologies

NOTE: Preparing to relaunch my website, I'm designing a reprint template for my old articles. I believe if you want people to learn from any document longer than a few paragraphs, there should be a version that can be printed, read and annotated away from the computer (and recycled later). So I'm creating a template based on my article "Maintaining the integrity of design in a digital world: What is the role of real typographic design in knowledge work?" (still online only).

Please download the attached PDF and let me know what you think about both form and content. Thx.

Traffic Delay

So the clogged arteries that are the Southern California freeway system are notorious, but this is ridiculous. Last night we wanted to see Wall-E at a discount movie house in Huntington Beach. Just to remind myself of how much time to allow getting there, I entered the address into Google Maps on my smartphone.

Start Point
    My Location
End Point
    Beach Blvd & Warner Ave,
    Huntington Beach, Orange, California 92647, United States
Distance: 12.1 mi
Time: 17 min
Traffic Delay: 49710d 6hr 28m

Here--it happened again a few days later. Google says they've never seen it before. Have you?

Work Globally, Roam Locally

Mobile Enterprise has published my article, "Work Globally, Roam Locally," my best advice for staying connected while traveling without going bankrupt.

Foreign SIM cards are the luggage stickers of the new millennium. A traveling executive runs up roaming charges averaging $693.50 per international trip, according to a study by Harris Interactive. That's equal to a year's worth of domestic wireless use. Multiply that by recurring travel for dozens, hundreds or thousands of employees in the age of globalized business, and the problem is clear. At the same time, there's also a clear value to being able to communicate with the home office from anywhere in the world, measurable in the improved productivity and real-time access to crucial information that can result in well-informed decisions and lucrative business deals.

The Politics of the iPhone

When I first got my iPhone last year, I was so impressed by the brilliance of what was there. But I was also so frustrated by what wasn't there. I found its shortcoming and limitations inexcusable. I found it had to reconcile my reaction to the universal adulation in the marketplace.

The iPhone is a perfect example of how exponential adoption often comes down to irrational factors such as addiction and codependence. When technologies are imperfect but hackable, users who customize them end up excusing and defending their flaws.

For me, as a device and as my device, it's the political issues I resent the most. Its usefulness as a productivity tool for me is limited because it is more of a revenue tool for ATT/Apple in ways that are counter to a dedication to customer satisfaction. So here is my opinion—not a typical technology review but a political response.

You could fry an egg on this laptop

Anybody else having over-heating problems with a ThinkPad X60? Mine has always run hot, due to the fast core duo processor in its little 12" fame. But lately it's been running really hot and then putting itself to sleep with heat exhaustion.

I only get this problem on AC power. The fan does work, but it still overheats unless I throttle back the processing power. It even overheated on the plane with seat power. In New York, this was a big problem because I had to get some work done. Fortunately, my room at the W Hotel had the HVAC built into the window ledge, so I was able to maintain full power by using the air conditioner's register as my workspace. Then all I had to do was zip on my parka and keep typing.

This is my fourth ThinkPad in a row. In general, they have been incredibly hardy workhorses. But I have to admit this one has had some bugs and the warrantee is just about to expire.

This is your brain on iPhone.

Eric and I will present our session on mobility & productivity using TheBrain Technologies' Personal Brain 4.

Please preview at http://brains.ica.com/office20/

Many thanks to Harlan for recoding his latest beta on the fly to overcome the iPhone's java-phobia. And many thanks to Eric for the late night, posting our koans on the first-ever iPone-enabled Web brain.

This is your brain. This is your brain on iPhone.

Favorite Word Processing Tools

Natalie Goldberg, in Writing Down the Bones, calls it “your equipment, like hammer and nails to a carpenter.”

When you hold a pen imbued with quality design and craftsmanship, it’s inspiring. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? This is a post about how much I appreciate my Lamy 4pen. But since it’s my blog I’ll ramble a bit first.

Whatever Happened to the Page?

My article on Adobe Creative Suite 3, “Whatever happened to the page?” is up on KMWorld as part of its June issue.

The digital age has deeply undercut appreciation for how graphic design not only makes information more appealing, but more learnable. When documents are digital and/or disposable, we tend to forget that they have tangible power in their form as well as their function. Meanwhile, design is a field in which much of the skill is tacit—both the art and the technique. Crafts like art direction, graphic arts, photography and page layout blend training, experience, invention and automation to create new value on demand and on deadline, inevitably under constraints of inadequate time or money.

See also: “Maintaining the integrity of design in a virtual world”

Adobe,InDesign,graphic design

CleverKeys for Quick Reference

CleverKeys is a free app for hot-key access to definitions at Dictionary.com, synonyms at Thesaurus.com and articles at Reference.com. Just select a word while writing in Word, for example, and look it up in your browser. As easy and much more comprehensive than MS Task Pane sources such as Encarta. Reference.com accesses Wikipedia and Columbia encyclopedia articles. A cool function of these sites is that results auto-generate citations in styles such as CMS and MLA, so you can cut/past source info into your notes.

Chicago Manual Style (CMS): marsupial. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marsupial (accessed: May 01, 2007).