People say I rant too much. I complain and complain, but never seem to really like anything. As I promised a few weeks ago, I will talk about things I love about computers. After explaining why I like to complain and rant, this column will solely deal with fluffy bunnies, green meadows, blue skies, and shiny, happy people. I promise.
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Member since:2005-10-12
You are right. There is an extraordinary perversity about the way computers have worked in business decision making.
It was common in industry 20 years ago for decisions to be based on closely written 5 page papers, distributed in advance to a committee; they were a combination of fact and argument. Does anyone really think that replacing them with 50 ppt bullet point slides has improved decision making? No, but making these slides has absorbed much of the time that formerly went into analysis.
20 years ago, business cases used to fit on a couple of pages, and the decision used to turn on arguments about whether the assumptions were reasonable, and in what scenarios they held. A broad range of alternatives was discussed. Does anyone think that huge spreadsheet models filled with macros and specifying relationships in enormous and incomprehensible detail for one particular case has improved the quality of argument about outcomes? No. It has made informed argument impossible by transforming business plans into multi-year accounting statements for imaginary enterprises. And their construction has taken all the time that formerly went into analysis.
It probably sounds Luddite, but my considered view after much experience is that the use of PowerPoint and Excel in the business planning process at large companies has become the main impediment, and a very effective one to both rational debate and quality decision making.
Serious advice: if you are ever in charge of a company, ban PowerPoint, and do not let any business case financials exceed one page. You'll be amazed at how positive the effects are.
Member since:2005-07-12
As a tool, the computer is superior to previous techniques, as I pointed out. Whether you apply it in a manner that affords such in your endeavors is anohter matter. The computer is not simply an invention that raises the bar, it provides a decidedly more powerful means to accomplish many tasks that were previously performed via other methods. You would ascribe such to "raising the bar" - which I take to mean - basically doing the same thing in a more aesthetic fashion.
Does Email "raise the bar" on snail mail?
I agree that there are times when the computer becomes a roadblock to productivity. The Internet is a two-edged sword in that respect. And many of us can spend more time in applications like project management than actually doing the work required of a project. This is not the fault of the computer raising the bar, this is the fault of the user not understanding how to apply it considering its current limitations. When such a circumstance arises, clearly common sense woudl suggest that you not abandon the previous, superior tool used for the task, which begs the question, why do you continue to struggle?
Member since:2006-02-15
raising the bar is a phrase we used to use to describe this phenomena:
A company starts to use a new computer technique to solve an old problem. That gives them a slight advantage, so it is worth the overhead. Soon other companies start using the same technique. Eventually the playing field is level again, since all are now using the technique. In the net, new work has been added to accomplish the same goal but no new advantage has been achieved.
Why do I continue to struggle? Because, in the example of conference presentations, the PowerPoint slide presentation is the expected behavior. Showing up with anything less sophisticated costs credibility with the audience.
The computer is often not superior to previous methods. Rather, it merely changes where people expend their time. Writers or not better writers because they use computers than they were when they used typewriters. Movies are not better movies because they were made digitally instead of manually. Et cetera.
Here's an intersting factoid about animation, by the way: It now takes longer and more people to animate a film than it did to animate an equivalent film in the 40s.
What computers tend to do is make one aspect of a job easier, at the expense of other aspects. If you focus on that single aspect, you conclude "computers make better tools", but if you step back and look at the job that needs to be done, you conclude "computers make more complication".
Member since:
2006-02-15
To understand my point in more detail, I recommend
The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity
by Thomas K. Landauer
Most of what you're hinting at is what we used to call raising the bar back when I still cared about how computers were used in business.
Here is my favorite personal example: 20 years ago, when I gave research presentations at conferences, I used handwritten slides presented on an overhead projector. They took about 20 minutes to prepare before a 90 minute presentation.
Then TeX came along and we switched to computer printed bullet slides. Then we got a color transparency printer and switched to color slides. Then we added fancy graphics making programs. Eventually along came presentation preparation tools like Impress and PowerPoint.
Now, a presentation of a certain amount of information still takes 90 minutes. But it can take two to three days to get all the collatoral material together, format the presentation, add the transition effects and so forth.
In 20 years, what have all those "tools" gained me? More work in setting up a presentation with absolutely no increase in the amount or quality of information I can present in a particular period of time.
Could we have done full digital animation films 20 years ago? Sure. Luxo Jr was released in 1986. Does being fullly digitally animated make a movie intrinsiclly better? Of course not. Attack of the Wererabbit is a much better film than many of the digital wow-fests.
Now let's move on to your MythTV/TiVo comparison. What if I told you that for every application you named there could be a TiVo-like killer standalone tool that made the all-in-one stuff pale by comparison?
We were headed that way in the late 80s before "integrated" became a big buzzword and instead of following the model of 'do one thing and do it well' we got sidetracked into "oooh shiny".
(By the way, the answer to your question about editing video: I was lucky. Twenty years ago I have access to an Avid(?) on-disk-edit system. It still blows the doors off what you can do with today's all-in-one consumer products.)