I sometimes wonder about how similar to our lives are to those in rarefied positions of power
. Looking over Time Magazine's list of the one-hundred most influential people in the world I wondered how many of them approach a day's work like the rest of us. While their schedules are surely a lot busier than ours I wondered what their use of computers and cell phones to organize their day to day was like. Did these very important people in fields as diverse as environmental protection, professional sports, international politics and television really have the same issues with say meeting room scheduling that I did day to day.
I wonder for example if the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ever tries to use a conference room scheduler only to find out that President Barack Obama already has that room on hold. I wonder if there is then a back and forth about who's meeting is more important. Thing is in spite of the fact that these people and their jobs seem vitally important at the end of the day are they not still just jobs? Harvey Weinstein might have millions of dollars floating around in dozens of film projects at any given time but is he not also concerned about what the spread is going to be at an upcoming meeting his work scheduling software just informed him of? I know I would be, millions of dollars or not.
The scale of a position really probably does not change things so much. Business scheduling software still hums along giving you specifics on when and where you need to be, what will be discussed and who you will be discussing it with. So even if you are a totally big shot in the world of business, responsible for multi-billion dollar deals and the jobs of thousands you likely still have to respond to emails and take bathroom breaks and deal with conference room scheduling software to know that work is going to get done. You are not going to suddenly make the basic day to day functional dealings of a job disappear into thin air.
As I look over the list of the wide array of personalities that are having a profound impact on our society I am strangely impressed with myself. I think that as long as I keep organized and try and think as forwardly and inventively as possible about my field I can be just like them. At the end of the day these influential people are just people. They put their pants on one leg at a time and they also use things to help keep them on track such as conference scheduling software.