Bad Tech

Why bad technology dominates our lives, according to Don Norman by Don Norman (amp.fastcompany.com)

Just think about your life today, obeying the dictates of technology–waking up to alarm clocks (even if disguised as music or news); spending hours every day fixing, patching, rebooting, inventing work-arounds; answering the constant barrage of emails, tweets, text messages, and instant this and that; being fearful of falling for some new scam or phishing attack; constantly upgrading everything; and having to remember an unwieldly number of passwords and personal inane questions for security, such as the name of your least-liked friend in fourth grade. We are serving the wrong masters.

 

We need to switch from a technology-centric view of the world to a people-centric one. We should start with people’s abilities and create technology that enhances people’s capabilities: Why are we doing it backwards?

Instant Life Plan

Building an Instant Life Plan and telling your personal story by Ben WerdmüllerBen Werdmüller

The Stanford d.School style Instant Business Plan, where the elements are literally Post-Its than can be swapped and changed, is a far better north star than a one-shot document. I think the same approach could work well for a life plan: a paper document where changability is an intrinsic part of the format, but you are nonetheless forced to express your ideas concretely.

Hmm ... I think ... I think I might put this together with ideas from Ben's What you're proud of post and stick the result into my about page.