Very interesting and funny Financial Times piece on how many of the features of today’s office, including constant technological interruptions and working from a coffee place are not that new. The article then goes to list some things that are novel in the new world of work. My favorite are the idea that you should like your job: “A clerk writing in 1907 referred to his colleagues as ‘miserable little pen drivers – fellows in black coats with inky fingers and shiny seats on their trousers’.”
Month: February 2020
100 years of social media
This article looks at how paper-based communication can be described a early forms of social media. Quite an interesting read:
“A study conducted by Julia Gillen and Nigel Hall from the Lancaster and Manchester Metropolitan Universities concluded that “the low price and efficiency of the Edwardian postcard as an informal written communication technology was not equalled subsequently until the 21st Century.” Postcards writing often lacked punctuation, included abbreviated words and incomplete sentences. Like Twitter which restricts users to 140 characters per ‘tweet,’ postcards writers only had a limited amount of space to pen a message.”
Our invisible co-authors
In my first ever address to the faculty and staff of IÉSEG School of Management, I focused my speech on what I called my invisible co-authors. All of the staff that make research possible in my business school and in universities across the world. Today I came across a beautifully written thread that really resonates with what I said at the time. If you are staff, but especially if you are faculty in higher education, I strongly encourage you to read it here. (Congrats on the thread @readywriting).