Information and the World of Tech
I ended up going home (to Waterloo) this past weekend on a spur-of-the-moment decision. My itinerary email from Travelocity was dated 10:47 AM on Friday, and the plane pushed back from SFO right on time at 3:25 PM the same day. That’s not something I plan to do often, but it was something that I needed right now, if only to provide perspective on my life. I’ve been driving pretty hard for a while, and needed to take a step back in order to evaluate where I am, where I want to go, and whether or not I’m on track to get there.
Working for a major technology company in Silicon Valley means that there’s constant discussion going on about the field, your company, and even your project. There’s a whole meta-industry that’s sprung up around high tech and the Valley, providing commentary that ranges from tabloid quality (Valleywag and the like) all the way up to the largest media outlets in the country.
In some ways, it’s really exciting that there are people out there who are interested enough in the industry to spend time writing about it. Given how fast things move around here, it’s important to have voices providing intelligent critiques and reflection on the stories of the day. When done right, the process serves to sift through the constant flow of information and figure out what’s really relevant in the long run. However, too many of the outlets that cover the technology sector end up doing the opposite: by reporting on every story, no matter how important or how trivial, they tend to obscure the important stories by overwhelming us with minutiae.
And, in the short term, following along can be fun: it’s exciting to read about every rumor and prediction, read people’s reactions, and to weigh in with your own opinion. It’s an order of magnitude more exciting when people are commenting about things that you have involvement with. In the grand scheme of things, however, these stories are not unlike flash computer games or episodes of The Bachelorette: diversions that, while fun at the time, sap our time and our productivity and distract us from our goals. It’s escapism, like any other form of mindless entertainment.
I’m choosing to recommit myself to the continuous process of making sure that the information I take in is worth my time: that it’s intelligent, thought-provoking, and perspective-expanding. A complementary goal is to put my focus on production (ideas, thoughts, software, and so on) rather than consumption. Consumption needs to be a means to an end: something that we do consciously, in an attempt to improve ourselves in some way and ultimately improve what we produce, rather than being an end in itself.
Of course, there will always be times when I’ll just want to escape a little, and that’s fine. But it’s all too easy to take in what others have to say without thinking critically about it and responding in a thoughtful, reasoned way. I intend to make this forum my outlet for those responses. Feel free to join me.
