As noted below, we were away last week, enjoying some phenomenal skiing at Alta and Snowbird Utah, where the snow simply would not stop falling for several days, and the resultant mess (road closures, avalanche danger, interlodge travel restrictions) made for a longer time away than anticipated.
However, even with this, we had the opportunity to think a bit about technology, and to consider how much it really benefits productivity.
Thursday -- the day after the storms finally broke and we got some sun -- a group of our friends joined us for skiing. We usually ski some pretty extreme stuff and equip ourselves appropriately. In recent years we have added cellphones to our equipment list, because they are clearly useful in emergencies if coverage is available. (Ski mountains often have spotty to non-existent cell coverages.)
[Incidentally, we think that in a real ski-hill emergency, the most useful item is likely to be a simple signal whistle. Its sound will carry a much longer distance than a human voice and there isn't a ski patroller on the planet who won't investigate one.]
Our friends showed up with little of the really useful equipment that we regularly carry, but did bring their cellphones and were willing and ready to talk, at every opportunity. Not long into the morning, one of our friends recieved a call from another friend of hers, informing her that another group had finally arrived and were skiing. They made plans to try to connect later in the day on the opposite side of the mountain. Our friend then assured us that once she and her friends got together, they'd call us to try to re-connect and ski the afternoon.
We reluctantly turned on our cellphones, which are usually left off unless they are needed. Vacations, to us, are a time when the world should just have to deal with our absence.
The results were predictable. An endless stream of phone interruptions and changes of meeting point, which ultimately resulted in nobody meeting anybody at any point during the day. The existence of the cellphones gave everybody a sense of connectedness that allowed them to forgo any sort of planning or discipline. But with no plan and no willingness to make one, all the communications in the world could not bring everybody together.
The following day we announced to our friends that we would be leaving our phones off. If they wanted to meet us, we'd be at Alf's Restaurant (best fries on the mountain!) at 1:30, after the lunch crush. Want to ski the afternoon with us? Be there.
From the reaction, you would think we had just accused the pope of being a child molester. How could we "isolate" ourselves this way? How could be be so "disconnected?" How could we be so arrogant?
We held our ground. We would be skiing fast and hard and weren't going to be bothered with answering the phones. We would have lunch at Alf's as usual and anybody who wanted to ski with us could either go out with us right now, meet us there at the usual time or deal with the needle-in-a-haystack odds of finding us on one of the lifts.
All our friends showed up. We didn't make or answer a single call. We all had a much better day because we were able to do what we were there for -- ski -- rather than spend half the day on the phone trying to coordinate meetings. Nobody had to adjust their schedule much to make the meeting either. With a whole morning sto ski around, everybody had plenty of opportunities to go where they wanted to and still be at the meeting point at the right time.
The results were predictable. An endless stream of phone interruptions and changes of meeting point, which ultimately resulted in nobody meeting anybody at any point during the day. The existence of the cellphones gave everybody a sense of connectedness that allowed them to forgo any sort of planning or discipline. But with no plan and no willingness to make one, all the communications in the world could not bring everybody together.
The following day we announced to our friends that we would be leaving our phones off. If they wanted to meet us, we'd be at Alf's Restaurant (best fries on the mountain!) at 1:30, after the lunch crush. Want to ski the afternoon with us? Be there.
From the reaction, you would think we had just accused the pope of being a child molester. How could we "isolate" ourselves this way? How could be be so "disconnected?" How could we be so arrogant?
We held our ground. We would be skiing fast and hard and weren't going to be bothered with answering the phones. We would have lunch at Alf's as usual and anybody who wanted to ski with us could either go out with us right now, meet us there at the usual time or deal with the needle-in-a-haystack odds of finding us on one of the lifts.
All our friends showed up. We didn't make or answer a single call. We all had a much better day because we were able to do what we were there for -- ski -- rather than spend half the day on the phone trying to coordinate meetings. Nobody had to adjust their schedule much to make the meeting either. With a whole morning sto ski around, everybody had plenty of opportunities to go where they wanted to and still be at the meeting point at the right time. The inability to make last-minute changes was inconsequential. The two friends who timed it imperfectly were just five minutes late to lunch. Big deal.
But this situation repeats itself everywhere. In one of our more recent assignments, we worked for a company in which every urgent voicemail message resulted in an immediate page to the receipient's cellphone. Everybody was expected to be able to take calls at all times. The results: nothing got done. No meetings could be held, because a constant stream of cellphone calls took priority. Decisions could not be made because easy communication tended to result in everybody being consulted about everything in real-time. The CFO could rarely be bothered to look up from his Blackberry and to stay engaged. Instead he's issue disconnected and uninformed directives and disappear once again into his "mobile" activities.
Now, don't get us wrong. We're not likely to give up our Treos anytime soon, nor are we going to abandon email, the navigation system in our vehicle, the fax machine, or even the US mail. But we are increasingly skeptical of those who tout every new technology as being worth buying in order to increase productivity. Tools without rules and discipline are nothing but toys, and more often than not CTOs and the others who promote the new toys are uninterested in actually assuring that they are used well. More often than not, they simply end up being showpieces rather than productivity enhancers.
So we are skeptical. In most companies we have worked with, most people tend to do most of their work at their desks. When they're away from their desks, it's usually because they're doing something important elsewhere or because they're goofing off. In both cases, they're unlikley to see much productivity improvement from carrying a cellphone, Blackberry or wirelessly-networked computer. A simple calendar would probably be more useful.
