Marriage Counseling for Computer Users
Marriage Counseling for Computer Users
Marriage Counseling for Computer Users
Are you married to your computer? Does your wife or husband suspect nefarious activity? Is this affair taking over your life?
Actually, the marriage of man and machine can be a happy one - if managed correctly. The key is mutual respect: knowing the tasks at which you easily outperform your computer and the areas where it can make things easier. Take the best of both worlds and form a more efficient working partnership. Honest dialog and knowledge of your plastic partner, that's the way.
(Old School Alert) We've done it before. Remember the lowly pencil? What an elegant machine! Having the right tool for the job made all the difference, especially because you could use it without thinking and then put it down.
Computers should be like that. They can be like that. They are becoming like that. And it behooves us to understand how to combine their talents with our own in ways that really work, because let's face it, computers aren't good at everything. In fact, they really suck at some things. Luckily these happen to be the very things that we (the human race) do phenomenally well, where we just happen to shine.
What People Do Really, Really Well
Given the right conditions, people are great filters of the unnecessary. They are great at intuiting relationships and knowing the one website, the one idea that is most important right now. Humans have natural talents in this area, while computers are lousy at it. Though Google deserves a nod for vastly improving things, it is still up to a human to make the final selection of a site, or to pull from memory a conversation from the other night at that party, or a video we saw two weeks ago.
Where We Need Help
On their side, computers can read incredibly fast, are great at helping us remember by storing things, and allow us to work together at a distance, on our own time, when the inspiration hits.
So let's combine the best of both worlds in an efficient system that helps us innovate while staying out of the way. If a computer app is simple enough to use and does something that computers are actually good at (while leaving to humans the things we do best), this kind of efficient partnership begins to happen.
Good Apps, Fresh Ideas
What kind of applications help this happy partnership to flourish? Ones that are as simple as possible, but no simpler. Targeted, but applicable in lots of arenas. Like a pencil.
One company that has championed this right-tool-for-the-job, minimalist style of computing is 37signals. There are a myriad of others, like Freshbooks, or ... (please nominate your favorite with a comment below). Blatant plug: here at IdeaTree.us, this means building a tool with the conscious goal of helping while staying out of the way. One that, rather than calculating a solution for you, helps you gather ideas like compost for a thought garden and trusts you to find your own novel connections. If that intrigues you, I'd appreciate your taking a look at it.
What tools are in your best-of-both-worlds marriage? What combinations of man and machine are helping you find the "aha", those gems that you know, but don't know that you know? What's your favorite "pencil"?
Best wishes for a happy, balanced relationship.
"Systems that are based totally on mechanical principles, Newtonian thinking, tend to be very brittle. If something is slightly the wrong dimension, it tends to break. Biological systems tend to have different properties..." - Bill Joy, co-founder of the Sun corporation
Copyright 2010 by Ron Newman. All Rights Reserved.
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