5 ms·

You could write a little essay on the subject of props and what they are for. It would be a meditation on questions like why is it so much more dramatically eff

You could write a little essay on the subject of props and what they are for. It would be a meditation on questions like why is it so much more dramatically effective to have two characters fight for possession of a gun than it is to have them shoot magic lightning at each other from their fingertips? Or you could write an essay on all the things that neophiles forget when they declare war on paper. The good news is that Malcolm Gladwell wrote that already: http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_03_25_a_paper.htm http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_03_25_a_paper.htm ...in the form of a review of an MIT press book on the subject. Or we could just make a list of why one would use several PADDs if PADDs were free. You can juxtapose two reports on a desk and rapidly glance from one to another. (Paging Edward Tufte, who goes on and on about this.) You can walk into a room with five people and hand one report to the first four and the remaining three reports to the last one. When you do hand over a stack of reports, they can be in priority order. And you can add commentary to the reports via the way you hand over each one: A careful two-handed presentation (note the proper technique for exchanging Japanese business cards), a jumbled stack, a light toss, a disgusted look as you gingerly pinch the report between thumb and forefinger, or even a mock attempt to shield the bad-news report behind your body as you hand over the good news first. See? Props are not just for actors; everyone is an actor and we all use props.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Or instead of handing over PADDs at all you can simply tell the intended recipient that the report is ready and they can tap the screen and read it on their own customised display. They can call up multiple reports side by side, etc, etc. Yes, I understand and appreciate your points, and I, personally, use more paper and physical means of thinking and reasoning than many of my colleagues. That doesn't mean that the original ST people got it entirely right (as some people seem to claim). Handing over PADDs only gets part of the story right, and part of the story wrong. I look forward to the 24th century to see how these things really do get used. (And thanks for the reference to the Gladwell article - I'll read that later - it may get into my "Great Articles" library.)
- bfung 16y ago
  Unless the other four people "forget" (come unprepared) to bring their PADDs to the office meeting, in which case, handing out the report is still the lowest tech to synchronizing a meeting. I understand your point, but people and meetings... </rant>
pasbesoin 16y ago
I voted up, but I'm going to breach HN brevity protocol to comment that that Gladwell article is really, really worth reading. E.g. But why do we pile documents instead of filing them? Because piles represent the process of active, ongoing thinking. The psychologist Alison Kidd, whose research Sellen and Harper refer to extensively, argues that "knowledge workers" use the physical space of the desktop to hold "ideas which they cannot yet categorize or even decide how they might use." The messy desk is not necessarily a sign of disorganization. It may be a sign of complexity: those who deal with many unresolved ideas simultaneously cannot sort and file the papers on their desks, because they haven't yet sorted and filed the ideas in their head. Kidd writes that many of the people she talked to use the papers on their desks as contextual cues to "recover a complex set of threads without difficulty and delay" when they come in on a Monday morning, or after their work has been interrupted by a phone call. What we see when we look at the piles on our desks is, in a sense, the contents of our brains.
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  I've now added that to my "Great Articles" project. Forty articles/items now and gradually increasing. Here's a question: If you were to put tags on that article, what tags would you use?
  - Qz 16y ago
    That's a funny question considering the quote above is precisely about the process of filing (aka tagging) things.
    - pasbesoin 16y ago
      Tags are a great alternative or adjunct to a hierarchical, single-node organization. The largest problems I've encountered with tagging are cumbersome and/or overly limiting implementations.
  - pasbesoin 16y ago
    I've let a response percolate while doing other things. I suppose I shouldn't respond without actually rereading the whole article (I referenced it based on memory). I'll let the tags notion stew a bit longer. Is your project public? I'd be curious to see what else is in it, and how you are applying tags there.
roc 16y ago
The persistence of paper indicates nothing more than a failure of existing software, not of concept. The biggest shortfall is that computers do not allow arbitrary input at arbitrary times. You have to prime them to accept a certain type of input, which takes a wasteful amount of time. Further, you are then typically locked into a certain rigid type of input, which may not be appropriate. E.g. The default for text entry boxes is to only allows text, not annotation, so work that involves annotation is poorly suited to most text entry software. Similarly, post-it applications tend not to allow arbitrary diagrams, even though that may be the most effective way to record a note. There's no reason it must be that way, it just tends to be, because thoughtless software development is cheaper and easier. Paperless certainly isn't feasible for everyone today. But that doesn't make it unattainable. And let's not pretend for a moment that just because pure paperless isn't feasible for many, that a dramatic reduction isn't possible. Despite the remaining valid uses, the overwhelming majority of paper produced is pure waste. As for the 'acting' commentary you cite, that isn't omitted in a paperless future. It's absolutely preserved in the context of the visual/textual exchange of sending someone an email with the report as attachment/link/etc. If anything, it's amplified by the asynchronous nature of drafting the message; you're forced to think about its presentation and have the time to give it the right delivery; versus a time/space-constrained physical exchange.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  I agree that existing software has failings, and I certainly agree that a push toward not archiving paper is worthwhile and that the technology is there. (I installed my Fujitsu ScanSnap yesterday. It's a dream. I'm expecting it to work great with Dropbox, Evernote, and iPad.) But we can only blame software so much. There's a failure of existing hardware as well. Much of that is a failure to be sufficiently cheap. I can cover a desk in six layers of 300dpi paper for a few dollars. To cover a desk in 300dpi display is still prohibitively expensive, for now. But there's also a failure of hardware to leverage human nature. We have stacks of highly-designed wetware designed for working with tangible objects that fit in our hands and can be moved through space. A collection of Post-it notes plugs right into our psychology. But most electronics lives in its world, not ours. We peer into the world of our computers through little glass windows. At least the new multitouch interfaces let us put our fingers on the windows, but there's a lot of room for improvement. Literally entire dimensions' worth of room for improvement.
Gormo 16y ago
Paper has been around for centuries without significantly changing in form or function. Over that time, many stable conventions evolved for organizing information on paper and using paper as a medium communication. Its digital equivalents are still immature - we don't yet have common expectations of how we share the same types of information digitally. The underlying forms are still changing rapidly, and the decisions we make in how we communicate are therefore more coarse. We don't think about the minute details of how we put out different bits of information in order when we first need to settle whether we're going to use email attachments or files on Dropbox or Google docs, or send an IM, etc. Eventually, conventions will stabilize as certain types of information become strongly tied to particular methods of representation and communication. Once those become stable contexts, we will be able to vary the more minute details within each context to carry metadata in the same way Tufte does with paper. This situation demonstrates an interesting (current) weakness with using technology to manage information. When your organizational systems, methods, and conventions are purely conceptual, it's very easy to change and adapt them in real time, allowing for a gradual evolution of processes, and progression towards nuanced equilibria. But when we rely on software, we may often need to write new code to support a new idea - we increase the upfront investment needed for experimentation, often drastically. And people who are non-technical can't experiment and adapt on their own at all. Until most people can adapt their digital tools as easily as their physical ones, it may take much, much longer to optimize their effectiveness.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

Or instead of handing over PADDs at all you can simply tell the intended recipient that the report is ready and they can tap the screen and read it on their own customised display. They can call up multiple reports side by side, etc, etc. Yes, I understand and appreciate your points, and I, personally, use more paper and physical means of thinking and reasoning than many of my colleagues. That doesn't mean that the original ST people got it entirely right (as some people seem to claim). Handing over PADDs only gets part of the story right, and part of the story wrong. I look forward to the 24th century to see how these things really do get used. (And thanks for the reference to the Gladwell article - I'll read that later - it may get into my "Great Articles" library.)

bfung 16y ago
Unless the other four people "forget" (come unprepared) to bring their PADDs to the office meeting, in which case, handing out the report is still the lowest tech to synchronizing a meeting. I understand your point, but people and meetings... </rant>

pasbesoin 16y ago

I voted up, but I'm going to breach HN brevity protocol to comment that that Gladwell article is really, really worth reading. E.g. But why do we pile documents instead of filing them? Because piles represent the process of active, ongoing thinking. The psychologist Alison Kidd, whose research Sellen and Harper refer to extensively, argues that "knowledge workers" use the physical space of the desktop to hold "ideas which they cannot yet categorize or even decide how they might use." The messy desk is not necessarily a sign of disorganization. It may be a sign of complexity: those who deal with many unresolved ideas simultaneously cannot sort and file the papers on their desks, because they haven't yet sorted and filed the ideas in their head. Kidd writes that many of the people she talked to use the papers on their desks as contextual cues to "recover a complex set of threads without difficulty and delay" when they come in on a Monday morning, or after their work has been interrupted by a phone call. What we see when we look at the piles on our desks is, in a sense, the contents of our brains.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
I've now added that to my "Great Articles" project. Forty articles/items now and gradually increasing. Here's a question: If you were to put tags on that article, what tags would you use?
- Qz 16y ago
  That's a funny question considering the quote above is precisely about the process of filing (aka tagging) things.
  - pasbesoin 16y ago
    Tags are a great alternative or adjunct to a hierarchical, single-node organization. The largest problems I've encountered with tagging are cumbersome and/or overly limiting implementations.
- pasbesoin 16y ago
  I've let a response percolate while doing other things. I suppose I shouldn't respond without actually rereading the whole article (I referenced it based on memory). I'll let the tags notion stew a bit longer. Is your project public? I'd be curious to see what else is in it, and how you are applying tags there.

roc 16y ago

The persistence of paper indicates nothing more than a failure of existing software, not of concept. The biggest shortfall is that computers do not allow arbitrary input at arbitrary times. You have to prime them to accept a certain type of input, which takes a wasteful amount of time. Further, you are then typically locked into a certain rigid type of input, which may not be appropriate. E.g. The default for text entry boxes is to only allows text, not annotation, so work that involves annotation is poorly suited to most text entry software. Similarly, post-it applications tend not to allow arbitrary diagrams, even though that may be the most effective way to record a note. There's no reason it must be that way, it just tends to be, because thoughtless software development is cheaper and easier. Paperless certainly isn't feasible for everyone today. But that doesn't make it unattainable. And let's not pretend for a moment that just because pure paperless isn't feasible for many, that a dramatic reduction isn't possible. Despite the remaining valid uses, the overwhelming majority of paper produced is pure waste. As for the 'acting' commentary you cite, that isn't omitted in a paperless future. It's absolutely preserved in the context of the visual/textual exchange of sending someone an email with the report as attachment/link/etc. If anything, it's amplified by the asynchronous nature of drafting the message; you're forced to think about its presentation and have the time to give it the right delivery; versus a time/space-constrained physical exchange.

mechanical_fish 16y ago
I agree that existing software has failings, and I certainly agree that a push toward not archiving paper is worthwhile and that the technology is there. (I installed my Fujitsu ScanSnap yesterday. It's a dream. I'm expecting it to work great with Dropbox, Evernote, and iPad.) But we can only blame software so much. There's a failure of existing hardware as well. Much of that is a failure to be sufficiently cheap. I can cover a desk in six layers of 300dpi paper for a few dollars. To cover a desk in 300dpi display is still prohibitively expensive, for now. But there's also a failure of hardware to leverage human nature. We have stacks of highly-designed wetware designed for working with tangible objects that fit in our hands and can be moved through space. A collection of Post-it notes plugs right into our psychology. But most electronics lives in its world, not ours. We peer into the world of our computers through little glass windows. At least the new multitouch interfaces let us put our fingers on the windows, but there's a lot of room for improvement. Literally entire dimensions' worth of room for improvement.

Gormo 16y ago

Paper has been around for centuries without significantly changing in form or function. Over that time, many stable conventions evolved for organizing information on paper and using paper as a medium communication. Its digital equivalents are still immature - we don't yet have common expectations of how we share the same types of information digitally. The underlying forms are still changing rapidly, and the decisions we make in how we communicate are therefore more coarse. We don't think about the minute details of how we put out different bits of information in order when we first need to settle whether we're going to use email attachments or files on Dropbox or Google docs, or send an IM, etc. Eventually, conventions will stabilize as certain types of information become strongly tied to particular methods of representation and communication. Once those become stable contexts, we will be able to vary the more minute details within each context to carry metadata in the same way Tufte does with paper. This situation demonstrates an interesting (current) weakness with using technology to manage information. When your organizational systems, methods, and conventions are purely conceptual, it's very easy to change and adapt them in real time, allowing for a gradual evolution of processes, and progression towards nuanced equilibria. But when we rely on software, we may often need to write new code to support a new idea - we increase the upfront investment needed for experimentation, often drastically. And people who are non-technical can't experiment and adapt on their own at all. Until most people can adapt their digital tools as easily as their physical ones, it may take much, much longer to optimize their effectiveness.