Josh Keady- Entry thirty-four point two (34.2): The big, huge iPad entry: Part 2 of 3

(If you want to read my thoughts on how technology like the iPad plays a part in adding to the widening gap between the upper and lower classes, go back to the first part.  If you want to read my pre-amble about workflows and how to move beyond "gadgets" in your life, stay right here.  If you just want to know what I think of the freakin' iPad already, move three spaces ahead to part 3.)

My first computer came to me when I was in second grade.  It was a gift from the previous owner -my grandmother- who didn't use it because to her, it was little more than a gadget.  It was an Apple IIc clone (the Laser 128) with a small Apple-branded "green screen" CRT monitor, a box of 5.25" floppies, and a Panasonic dot matrix printer.  I loved "electronics" already at that age, who knows why, but I was as happy as a clam to receive that computer, despite it being several years obsolete by that time.

We have to start right here and ask why my grandmother got no use from that computer.  I mean, she definitely liked to do things that a computer could do, she was a smart lady who could have learned to use AppleWorks (aw, remember AppleWorks on the ][ series?) for writing letters, doing budget-related things, printing greeting cards (Print Shop, anyone?), you name it.  To her, however, the computer had no place in a workflow.  Get used to that word, because it's a staple of my vocabulary and it'll be all over this document.

Workflow workflow workflow.  When you go to work, whatever your job may be, you have a series of tasks that you begin and complete until the larger task is finished.  A hallmark of capitalism (and by extension, capitalists) is that we're always trying to improve the efficiency of all of these smaller tasks such that it's easier to get the larger task at hand completed.  This naturally trickles down in to our personal lives.  For instance, when you visit Facebook, you don't have to initiate a telnet session, login in to a massive database engine, manually extract all of the status updates that your friends have made, insert an entry for your own status update with a unique identifier, and jump through a bunch of other hoops to see what your ex-boyfriend is up to.  TCP and HTTP and Javascript and your computer do all of that nonsense for you.  I mean, it's essentially happening in there somewhere, but you damn-well don't have to know about it.  And thus, it's easy to make Facebook a part of your afternoon workflow.

My afternoon workflow: come home, put laptop on table, open it, log in.  Walk to the kitchen, grab a cup of coffee that's left over from the morning, back to the computer, open Mail and Safari.  Open the RSS feeds that are in my Safari bookmarks bar in new tabs, while those are loading, flip back to Mail, see what new stuff is in my inbox, read anything that catches my eye and respond to things needing my immediate attention, flip back to Safari and start reading the new articles in my RSS feed, opening interesting articles in new tabs and closing the RSS tabs as I progress.  Once I've worked my way through all of the tabs, I'll move on to anything else that I was about to do (six hours of Facebook).  To my grandmother, this would have been the same thing as sitting down with the newspaper for 20 minutes with a cup of coffee.  The goal of this workflow: get the news from the sources that I trust, relax with coffee.

My job workflow: consult my to do list and make notes for what I need to do for the session.  If I'm off campus, I start a VPN connection, if I'm on campus, no need.  I get in to the shortcuts folder that I keep in my ONID directory and open up the appropriate network directories that hold all of my development documents.  I double check the versions to make sure everything is where I left it, and open the files directly from the network.  I carry no physical media.  When I'm working from home, I put code on one monitor, site previews in a browser window on the other monitor, and usually pop open a list of podcasts in iTunes in the background.  By this time my iPod touch usually needs to be charged, so I dock it and open Facebook on it so that I have the necessary amount of distraction to be a good worker.  The goal of this workflow: create a relaxing environment wherein I can focus and make decisions / solve problems without serious interruption.

These are the workflows that I've developed.  Everyone has them.  To improve on them, we need to:

A: Identify the intent of the workflow (including time restraints) and the role of technology in the workflow in its current form.

B: Identify tools that can (or purport to) automate the process that you're completing.

C: Find other people that are using the same process or have a similar workflow, find out how they do it.

D: Invest only in areas that will pay off.

Let's say that my job is taking a newsletter in .docx format, printing 1500 copies, collating and folding the newsletter, addressing, stuffing, and metering postage for an envelope.  And doing it in one work day.  The intent here is to get a newsletter out to 1500 people.  Pretty simple, right?  Should be optimized from the beginning, right?  Probably not.

The only technology that I use: a desktop computer and a mid-level consumer laser printer.

I receive the Word file and proof read it.  Before I print the file, I have to make sure that the margins are correct for my printer, and make sure that I have the correct fonts installed on my system (when Word doesn't have the right fonts, it'll try to sub and that'll screw up your layout).  When the document is set up, I begin printing the newsletter.  

Because the printer isn't really built for heavy duty jobs like this, it doesn't have the ability to separate each four page bundle, nor does it do front and back printing.  To get around this, I have to print one page at a time, flip the output, re-run it for the back side, set aside the stack, and repeat four times.  All of the pages must be stacked in order and hand-stapled after printing.

When the stapling is finished, I have to run the address labels.  I have an Avery label template with all 1500 names in it.  The only problem being, occasionally a name needs to be added or taken off of the list.  This is okay if at the same time you have a name to take off and another to add, but that rarely works out.  Because Word can't repaginate a list of labels, deleting one will leave a gap on a page.  Periodically I must go through the labels (all 38 pages) and manually cut and paste the rows of names so that the blank labels are filled in.  When the labels are in order, I print them and apply them to the envelopes.  Individual newsletters are then folded, stuffed in envelopes, the envelopes are sealed, and the sealed envelopes are metered for postage and head to the mailroom.

What's being used here: a computer running Microsoft Word.  Pretty standard.  That printer is obviously holding us back.  If I got a printer that could do double sided printing and stapling, a significant portion of my time on the task would be cut.  It's also pretty bad for most laser printers to re-run paper in the opposite direction (they tend to collect a lot of excess toner), so we're saving wear and tear on the equipment.  If the printer were also capable of printing on envelopes, we could save on labels, too.

There's more that needs fixing.  I go home and spend an hour on Google searching home office forums and figure out that I can create a simple contact database in Access and print directly to envelopes without worrying about keeping in order the names on those Avery templates.  Also, getting familiar with Microsoft Access is giving me some valuable database skills and sets me to thinking about other processes that can be improved with databases.

I could petition to get a printer that also folds the newsletters and runs postage on the envelopes, but that doesn't seem necessary because I've already more than cut in half the amount of time this process takes, and the time and materials savings will soon pay for the new printer.

The point of that is, you can buy a 1700 dollar printer and if all you're doing is printing flyers for a bulletin board, you've bought a gadget.  Likewise, if you're printing 4000 pages that require binding and mailing, you're going to kill a 300 dollar HP LaserJet quickly and the amount of time that you'll spend babysitting your workflow is tremendous.

The iPad is going to be a tremendous boon to a number of workflows, just as the iPod Touch has been.  True, the iPad isn't a fully-fledged computer, but it's not supposed to be.  It's specialized just enough that it does a number of essential things very well.  I have the smallest MacBook Pro (13.3") available, but sometimes that's still too bulky.  I can almost get away with using my iPod Touch for a day or two without a computer, but the batter life is only a few hours and the screen size is just too limited.  With the iPad, I'll be able to go days without picking up my MBP.  People underestimate how essential it is to have instant access to the net and email or files in the cloud, but I'm telling you, when you have people asking for information while you're sitting in the middle of a park and you can whip up an immediate reply, you come out looking like a hero.  My iPod touch has saved me in this way more than a few times, but if I can be using a small, light device to do document edits and rapidly solving problems in the field (or a field), it's definitely worth it to me.