Posts Tagged 'software'

This computer is no friend of mine…

Posted on December 28th, 2010 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Recently I had occasion to observe a medical expert, a senior professor at a major hospital, as he tried to access a patient’s medical information on the hospital’s computer network. This took a while, and he turned to me and said “As you can see, this computer is no friend of mine”. He then added, apologetically, “Now, if only my grandson were here, he could do this in no time”. Obviously the doctor was of the pre-computer generation, and many would dismiss his difficulty as a natural result of his age. But as I thought it over, it occurred to.. Read more

The importance of Desktop Search

Posted on October 1st, 2010 · Posted in Individual Solutions

A manager recently described to me his system for handling his incoming email, which he viewed as quite inadequate. He would go through his voluminous new mail each day, then move it all to one folder. At least he wasn’t keeping it in the Inbox like the “I’ve got 6,000 messages in my Inbox” crowd; but his problem was that when he’d need to find a message again he often couldn’t. Some people solve the problem by maintaining a carefully defined folder hierarchy to archive old messages; for others, this just doesn’t match the way they work. But even if.. Read more

The demise of Google Wave

Posted on August 8th, 2010 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

When Google announced Wave, that innovative Email / IM / Collaboration product, I’d found it very exciting. I was happy to see in it many concepts I’ve been awaiting for a long time, notably a very nicely done “threaded inbox” paradigm. Still, after playing with it a little I began to refer to it in my lectures on Information Overload as “The jury is still out on whether this will reduce the overload or increase it”. Well, the jury is back. A year later, Google announces it will phase out Wave. It just didn’t catch… It’s tempting to claim it.. Read more

How to avoid email mania without annoying your customers

Posted on June 18th, 2010 · Posted in Individual Solutions

Here is a question I was asked by an attendee at one of my lectures. I was teaching the importance of not using email like Instant Messenger, of reading it only a few times a day in preset slots. The guy wanted to know how can he do this, when his customers expect him to respond instantly? Won’t they be annoyed (to use a mild term)? He would prefer to suffer than to upset his customers! He certainly had a point. In my experience if you cut your email reading just like that, cold turkey, some of your correspondents will.. Read more