WHAT’S THE POINT?
Technology is a wonderful thing. It is what allows me to write this on my phone while I am skiing in Mammoth. I have one of those multi-function devices that is a phone, personal digital assistant, mini-computer, and camera for pictures and video.
I’ve had it for a year now, and I must say that it is a wonderful tool to have. I love how I can have every name and e-mail I use on my phone. It allows me to be able to take advantage of the promises that were made to the world by the Bill Gates and Steve Wozniaks of the late 1970s.
The wizards of wonder at Microsoft and Apple told us we’d have a paperless office and that our free time would increase. In some ways they were right and in others, thanks to the law of unintended consequences, they were horribly wrong. Paper use has actually gone up as more people have computers and printers. People are expected to work more as we have greater and more useful tools.
When I was in high school I was ahead of the curve because I knew how to use an IBM two-floppy drive computer. In those days, one drive held the program disk and one held the data. The printer was a dot matrix, form feed, slow as molasses dinosaur. It would take forever to print out a page, and forever and a day for a report.
The slowness of the printer, however, would cause me to check and recheck my work. It was a natural brake on the speed at which I worked, which actually increased the quality because I didn’t want to wait for a reprint.
As laser printers have increased the speed at which we can see a hard copy, it is easier to be sloppy and less accurate, which results in a decrease in productivity. Word processors — they used to be called typists — at one time were required to have high accuracy because typed documents were hard to correct.
In this age of spell checkers and fast printing, accuracy has given way to speed, and concern for quality is less important than quantity. I see it in the documents I receive, the letters that are sent to me and in the horrendous spelling, and improper grammar, that is fast becoming acceptable.
Technology — all technology — whether it’s a knife to cut vegetables, or a Cray supercomputer, is only as good as the operator. I’ve been in kitchens and seen people mangle a carrot, because they don’t care to or know how to chop properly. I’ve seen people make a computer provide information in a virtuoso performance.
That is why the need to teach the basics is so critical. The technology to understand the voice is becoming more accurate, which means that it will soon replace a significant number of word processors. But that means that the writers will have to edit their own pieces more, and if they do not posses the ability to differentiate the right from the wrong, the technology loses its greatest benefit.
I’ve received a letter from another attorney who was trying to convey an alternate meaning. I’m fairly sure he dictated “in other words...” but what was written was ‘another words...’ The problem with this type of error is that I recall the error and not his message.
Technology is a force for good. It allows the office manager of my sleep lab to work poolside with a cellphone and a laptop. It allows me to get a day of skiing in and not miss the big crises in the office. It has resulted in greater productivity for thousands, which translates into better quality of life for millions of people.
It is also a curse that means I feel the pressures of running two companies, all the time. Which affects my quality of life.
We should take advantage of the benefits of technology, in the same way that humans have taken advantage of new technologies from fire, to steel, to printing. But we should also remember that technology is like a good dog, it should serve us, not the other way around. (David Pisarra is a business development attorney with the firm of Pisarra & Grist. He (310) 664- 9969 or by e-mail at
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 7, 2006. Read the original PDF.