Saturday, March 10, 2007

Time is on our side. Or not?

originally updated by Livornoqueen, via Gavin Heaton

We are always running out of time, pushed, pressed and squeezed like juiced oranges.
We do fight to keep the qualitative standard of your job as high as possible.
We do struggle to defend our revenue.
Sound insane, isn't it?
Why it seems so dificult to sit down and think about what we do?
I believe that we would probably be scared of our conclusion.

  1. Stephen Denny at Note to CMO published this post about the information overload and its impact on our daytime
  2. Luc at Mindblob had this post on the Production trinity and how going short of time impact on its quality
  3. Valeria at Conversation Agent had this post on how all our stuff lifetime is shorter than it used to be: better replace than fix
Three different approach but the same question:

where has it gone all our time?

8 comments:

Gavin Heaton said...

Great post, G! Yes we are all pushed and squeezed, yet in all this busy-ness we find time for reflection, articulation and connection. This is, perhaps, the gift of blogging ... and why some of us feel the pull of community so strongly.

Stephen Denny said...

Gianandrea -- less time and more information equals headache plus easiest solution: ask someone else what they think and don't do the research yourself. LinkedIn, Amazon, the web in general, etc., ad nauseum, all create a world of (im)perfect information which, in all honestly, isn't what we wanted in the first place. How to make sense out of all the info is what we want -- and the easiest way is still word of mouth.

gianandrea said...

gavin, you are right. blogging time is our conversation place, still we probably need and deserved more of it.

stephen, if we add the chance of bad or misleading information, sure as hell some wom is a great tool. i'm a great supporter of on field interview vs other source of research.

Anonymous said...

Time is just time, a conventional way we found to measure cycles and get on the same page. Time doesn't measure worth: how long does it take to do something? It depends on the quality you want.

Money is another way to get on a standardized plane. Yet, it has become sometimes the only way to measure worth. When people say time = money, they are probably projecting only this one measurement of worth. Yet both time and money are conventions we created. What if we changed the way we looked at both?

gianandrea said...

Valeria, your comment has helped me, as usual, to focus on a much better definition of the problem.
the problem of the contemporary society is accountability: we almost do not know how to judge things from a qualitative point of view.definition such as this product is beautiful or this one is durable have been replaced by the much easier definition of a monetary value. just think about wine: most of the people who buy a bottle of wine makes his choice according to the price. and this is where time get into the story: we do not have time enough to learn things other than the ones related to our job. we remain at the surface of things.

Anonymous said...

Gianandrea,

The only time that matters is not. The past is gone and the future hasn't happened yet. Be happy, don't worry. Time is a fiction anyway. The sun and the moon don't care how we measure it.

gianandrea said...

lewis, the moon and the sun stay there forever. but who wants to live forever?

Luc Debaisieux said...

Gianandrea,

I used to hear people saying : "Time flies when you're having fun". Don't ask me why (probably for the same reason Lewis mentioned), I simultaneously thought "... yep, but time flies anyway, so... have fun and seize the day!"

We run to achieve what we think is important, like work, quality of that work, money. At the end of the day, maybe the most important thing is the quality of your life more than the quality of your work. Enjoy "spending" time. Food for thought...