Countering the myths of technology in the workplace

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New internal research conducted by the Australian Taxation Office provides some of the first real proof that digital-mania in the workplace is driven by myths. People are simply not subscribing to the hype about technology in the workplace.

I've been an early adopter of new technologies in my work for many years. After trialling Facebook in teaching in 2007, using Yammer and Twitter in 2010, and using e-texts to replace expensive hard copies, I found that the digital native is a myth. Nowadays I focus on effective use of technology, and sometimes that means low-tech.

No so twenty years ago. When I first joined Army, we were forced to draft (by hand) endless minutes concerning every piece of administration one could imagine. Every leave application, every request for resources, every approval required a covering minute to accompany the relevant form.

I purchased an Amstrad word processor from a friend and hooked it up to a printer. Instead of the usual draft by hand, have it red-penned several times, take all day to complete one minute, I shocked my boss by adding his corrections and returning with a new minute moments later and reduced my admin time by days. Technology was effective.

Later, I hired a Packard Bell 486 SX-33 and my own Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 540 printer and admin was a breeze. It took my unit several years before computers were a normal part of doing business.

But these days, I find a 50/50 split in screen-readers and paper-readers. Colleagues found that students did not like using their mobile phones for their university study. Some students even found it "creepy". Some liked  to use their Facebook accounts for university study but others hated it.

What I found was that the more involved I became in instantaneous communication with my students, the less they did for themselves and their problem solving and written communication skills deteriorated into help-seeking and text-speak. It simply didn't work.

Up until this time, I had all of my work and personal communication mixed up. There was no line between work and personal. I was working 24/7.

To add insult to injury, the more cutting-edge I became, the more I became a one-person helpdesk for hundreds of students who were unfamiliar with the professional use of social media. One Sunday morning at 3am (during the mid-semester break) I spent an hour helping a student with an essay via Facebook. And that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Then I tried open source products such as Wikiversity. I found the same problem - I was a one-person helpdesk. Then, when I wanted to have Moodle's capabilities improved, I found that I had to "vote" for functionality that any commercial learning management system (LMS) provided as a matter of course.

The benefits of technology were not all-encompassing. A suggestion at one of the local "hack" sessions suggested we could "network in general awesomeness" and that was it. I went back to basics.

What I found was that so many products are sold to organisations without consultation with the users of the product. The promises of many marketing campaigns are routinely proven to be false hope. Effective use of technology is key.

The ATO's latest research on the use of technology by its workforce is a breath of fresh air. After endlessly being told by people that lecturers who do not use the latest social media are behind the times and yada yada yada and then seeing work produced by the "hypers", it was clear we had lost the plot. The ATO has proven the same point. ATO People deputy commissioner Jacqueline Curtis says it succinctly:

“The research we did really strongly suggests it is important to co-design with your workforce in order to be sure that the assumptions you are making about their needs and requirements are not just assumptions, that they are actually reflecting the needs of the workforce”

The assumption that more is better and that social media is "the way to go" is about technology for technology's sake. A reality check is needed. 

Yesterday I saw a new web-based approach that uses advanced search technology to create individually customised reports. What this means is that for the first time in about a decade, it is now just as fast to find information on the website as it used to be to find the same information using an indexed hard copy book. Wow. Ten years.

The question needs to be asked: What are you trying to achieve? Using web-based applications or social media does not help students develop sound communication or problem-solving skills. Indeed, it can have the opposite effect. 

And bring-your-own-device does not really help the user experience. It helps workers do more work while not at work, while still being expected to turn up during the required working hours. And it often means incompatibility problems that can cause unnecessary delays. And don't get me started on people who insist on using Macs.

But that's not to say that I do not use technology in my work. Indeed, I remain at the cutting edge in my teaching. But my approach is significantly different. And it avoids all kinds of hype.

The ATO's findings are food for thought for any organisation. Think about what you are trying to achieve through technology, rather than following trends created by skilful marketing.

For the love of God, ask your people what they need to do their jobs more effectively, rather than imposing yet another system that not only costs more, but makes one's job even harder because the majority of work time is spent trying to make the new system work.

And the next time some geek tells you they have some "awesome" new technology, and your old-fashioned university degree can be replaced by ten-minute TED Talks? Don't believe the hype. It's a myth </ end rant>.

The Pub Test: Did the E-type Jaguar herald the Australian Muscle Car?

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I often quip about any mention of Jag based on the tongue-in-cheek humour (to non-Jag owners!) from the series Mad Men, where the Americans make endless comments about the Jaguar’s unreliability. 

But the E-type Jaguar  has a special place in the development of Australian muscle cars.

In Australian motorsport, the E-type Jaguar's fame  was confirmed after Bob Jane (founder of Bob Jane T-Mart) won the 1963 Gran Turismo competition in a 1963 E-type Jag. 

The Ford Cortina Mk1 GT and later the Mini Cooper S dominated the early to mid-60s events, leading to the development of the Ford Falcon XR GT. There was considerable pressure for Australia to develop its own muscle cars and Holden (GM - Chevrolet) and Ford Australia (earlier Falcons were based mostly on American models) saw a change from UK-inspired vehicles to US-inspired vehicles.

Finally, Australian-inspired vehicles beginning with the Ford Falcon XR GT and later the Holden Monaro GTS 350 and Holden LJ Torana XU-1 appeared.

The Australian muscle car period peaked with the development of the Ford Falcon XY GTHO Phase III, for a time touted as the fastest 4-door production car in the world, and declined with the Ford Falcon XA GTHO Phase IV amid controversy over the impact of muscle cars on the streets. The "Supercar scare" of 1972 saw manufacturers pull out of the race-bred street car game.

At the tender age of seven, I had the honour of sitting in Allan Moffat’s #1 XC Falcon GT after it won the 1977 Hardie-Ferodo Bathurst (with Colin Bond’s #2 XC Falcon GT finishing in second place, even though Moffat’s car was buggered and they finished 1-2 for promotional reasons) at Roselands Shopping Centre in Sydney (it was then considered the largest shopping centre in the southern hemisphere). The two-door Falcon “hardtop” remains my favourite car to this day.

I was fortunate enough to drive a 1973 XB GS Fairmont as my first car, so although I am contented with my automatic Panzers these days, there is a fair bit of petrol head in my past. In good condition, the Fairmonts sell at auction for around $36,000 these days but mine rusted out in the Cairns weather. So I do have a soft spot for Aussie grunt.

But the E-type Jaguar, combined with Bob Jane and his brother Bill Jane, is where it all began. Indeed, I would argue that the E-type Jaguar heralded the Australian muscle car in Australian motorsport. 

But could you pass the Australian “pub test” with the argument that the E-type Jaguar was responsible for heralding the Australian muscle car era?

Well, yes!

Why? When you look at the Great Race results from 1963 until the 1984, it was dominated by Fords and Holdens (except for 1966). But what if we go back just a little bit further? It was Jaguar.

The winners of the first two Australian Touring Car Championship races (the origin of the Great Race at Bathurst) were Jaguars in 1960 and 1962. But the 1960 winner was a Jaguar Mark 1 "Saloon", whereas in 1962 the E-type Jaguar was a genuine sports car.

After that, beefed-up production sedans dominated again until the XR GT. So in Australian motorsport - the type I grew up with - the E-type Jaguar heralds the beginning of the Aussie muscle car.

And I reckon that would pass the "pub test".

Book Notes: "The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book must be read in the knowledge that it is more than 250 years old. It is the original Gothic fiction. The story is somewhat gripping, although the dialogue is not punctuated as we would now expect, making you think twice about who is saying what at times. The spectre of the giant knight seems to fade away at the end, almost like the let-down from bad B-grade special effects but in literary form. I felt like every character actually liked to ball their eyes out every few minutes, too. But, taken in context, it is an enjoyable read. Only don't read the introduction and avoid checking the notes at every instance. Like many classic, the introduction, prefaces and notes are now longer than the story itself. It had to be read, and now it is done. If you are a fan of Gothic, then this is like what Evil Dead is to modern horror, or what Sherlock Holmes is to the modern detective story.



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