Misuse of Technology

This week, in the news, we have seen a number of misuses of technology as demonstrated by the following:

The Prime Minister, of the UK, was wired up with a portable microphone which was not switched off when he made private disparaging remarks about a voter he had just met. The private comments were then broadcast to the world. Then, afterwards, the Prime Minister was filmed by a television camera, in a Radio studio, whilst his words were played back to him by surprise. Of course, pictures of him hiding his face were then broadcast to the public.

There was a court case, where a teacher was acquitted of the attempted murder of a pupil who had been badly misbehaving. He had been deliberately stressed by the pupil, in question, and his classmates as part of a ruse to film classroom mayhem with a hidden video camera.

A prospective member of parliament, for the UK general election, allegedly used twitter to broadcast the results of the count of postal votes before the election proper. This is in contravention of UK election law.

There are some lessons for all of us here.

Lets take the case of the Prime Minister. The purpose of the microphone was to help journalists hear what the PM was saying in public; not in private. Surely, it was a breach of faith to publish his private comments, the press knew that he was not making public remarks. Whether you like the Prime Minister or not or agree with his politics or not, this should not have happened. The point was made that the PM or his aides should have turned the microphone off, but it is easy for anyone to make a mistake. With regard to the Radio interview: what was a television camera doing in a Radio studio? The whole point of Radio is to broadcast sound content only; if you introduce television cameras into the studio you might as well abolish the medium of sound once and for all. There is already too much television content on the airways and most of it is rubbish. The television pictures portrayed the PM as if he was hiding his face in shame. But, he could just as well have been concentrating on the playback of the recording. The whole event in the radio station looked as if it had been stage managed to ensure maximum embarrassment.

With regard to the teacher; the pupils' attempts to secretly film his embarrassment badly misfired and the consequences could have been even more tragic for all concerned. No doubt the pupils were hoping to broadcast the teacher's demise on a social web site.

I can only think that the prospective MP pressed the send button before she had engaged her brain. I have often done this myself and I have had to go back and edit these blogs to correct spelling mistakes because I have forgotten to use the spell checker or I have pressed the "publish" button, rather than "save", before I have proofread the wonderful words of wisdom. But, back to the election: what was the council doing counting the postal votes before the actual day of the election? They could have saved the prospective MP a lot of trouble and potential legal action.

The world is full of wonderful inventions which could, if used with thought and care, save us both time and effort. However, their misuse is causing more and more problems, or should I say challenges, which require far more time and effort to resolve than the original problems they were being used to fix. And, you might get more than you bargained for.

Take the example of email: I make a point of reading my email once a day in the evening; therefore, there is no point in sending me an email during the day which requires attention in the next five minutes. The purpose of any form of mail is to allow the recipient time to think before they answer. If an instant answer is required; use the the telephone or text.

Spreadsheets were designed for accountants and bookkeepers to add up figures. They were not designed for verbal or visual communication. When they are used to draw up plans or write reports they are a disaster. They have too many boxes which cannot be read easily and are often filled up with useless irrelevant information. They can be dressed up with fancy colours and they are style over substance gone mad. If you have got to include a table, in your written communications, then use the table function in Word; it does not allow you to use too many boxes so you have to crystallise your thoughts.

Blackberries must be one of the most misused inventions of all. How many times have I received an unintelligible email message from someone on a train or at an airport. The whole idea of spending time out of the office is to give you time to spend with your family or friends or just to think and rest and be more creative. Twenty four hour working just makes you tired and you become unproductive when you are "at the the office" during normal working hours.

Portable phones should be used with equal care; whenever I managed project teams I always encouraged staff not to 'phone me at home unless there was a real emergency and not if they were unable to find a line in a report or a task on a planning Gantt chart! They used to say to me, "what happens if something goes wrong ?" I used to say, "what happened to Christopher Columbus when something went wrong?" He thought of a solution himself: he did not have time to wait for the pigeon post to report back from the King. We all perform better when we have to think for ourselves. My team mates thanked me for it afterwards.

There is a general theme running through all of this, and it is all about time. The journalists can not wait to get a report. The politician cannot wait to get the election results published. The pupils cannot wait to see the teacher making a fool of himself on a social website. And there is another theme; none of us, politician, pupil, blogger or worker seems to have time to think before we act or make fool's of ourselves or worse still do something which provokes anger or danger.

So what should we do about it? We should think about how we did things before our wonderful inventions existed. Only make use of them when they really add value to social or business activity. Plan your actions as if these tools are not available all the time.

Well, when we arranged a meeting we had to plan the social or business occasion well in advance and we had to have a contingency plan if someone failed to turn up. We had to make more of an effort to keep our promise to be there on time. There was no portable 'phone to make last minute arrangements. We took a map and planned our route.

When we used to manage our projects, we spent a long time planning and making contingencies for when things went wrong. We had to think our way out of difficult situations as we could not contact our bosses or more experienced colleagues as easily.

We had to give ourselves time to breathe and to use the best tool available: that was our brain which was not designed, solely, for "just in time" usage. In fact it was not designed at all, it has evolved into a marvellous all purpose, creative, reasoning, social and business tool.

When we use our computer tools and mobile devices effectively we make time for thought , planning, reasoning and effective social interaction. If we misuse them, we can create disharmony and dysfunction.

Please make time to think about the consequences of your actions before you press the button on or off. Make the world both more kind, more productive and more healthy.