As we approach the middle of the year I am approaching 50 days of being offline, and had rather – naively as it turns out – thought I could get ahead of the curve during my overseas travel to Europe. I had ideas of days without email, without surfing the net, just going to meetings, getting about my business, and being ‘free’ of technology.
It seems nothing could be further from the truth. Despite the best of intentions (ie today is a WhiteSpace day) I find that I start the day to catch up on overnight emails from the other side of the world, where they are nearing the end of their day. I could get by without doing this, as most everyone knows an email to me could go unanswered for 24 hours. But the days here are full of emails as we nail down last minute arrangements for meetings, missed meetings, unclear rendezvous locations. I am constantly on the internet checking maps of streets and public transport, timetables, venue details, background checks on people I am due to meet, … It just never ends.
Now I am not despairing and saying ‘woe is me if I can’t stay offline’. What I am observing is not only how powerful this technology is, but how downright helpful it is to get stuff done and be effective – particularly in a foreign environment. I can walk along as if I am a local, having already familiarised myself with the scenery via google maps street view. I can send an email to track someone down using the ever present free wi-fi that leaks out of every coffee shop, rather than have to make a very expensive mobile telephone call via my home country – 2 international call legs. I can plot travel times, find places of interest, keep a watch on news at home …
This is of course standard use of the technology, which we are wired into.
This then raises interesting questions for the Project, which I will take up in another blog. On the one hand the technology enables quick and easy access to information in a mobile device. This is a modern, and much more discrete, version of a bulky street directory, or those folding maps that one can never put back together, and which write tourist or foreigner in neon letters on one’s head. As such I am a raving fan, and so must come down on the side of productivity being improved by the technology.
But on the other hand, when does the technology hinder thinking and hence productivity? This has been my underlying question, which I will continue to ponder, and post more on as we approach the half way mark.
