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Journalism of Courage
I am not a Luddite,I love my technology,but the way I want it.
I continue to have arguments with my daughter,who is now a post-grad student,about how she digests all that she reads while studying. I never see pencil and paper,only a computer. She says that she either just reads it and stores all of it in her mind My reaction? Hogwash. I am your mother and I know the limits of your mind!; or,she makes notes on her computer using a keyboard,even as she reads online My reaction? I know why you complain about having too much work all your time goes into toggling between windows,enslaved by the rules of Microsoft Word.. She tells me that she belongs to the digital generation and her mind is trained differently from dinosaurs like me. I think the jury is still out,because I notice that she produces better work She: According to whom?,with a lot less groaning when she mixes her technologies.
I also believe that PowerPoint promotes very lazy thinking,because it doesnt need you to complete your sentences,and lets you hide behind hanging phrases,and you never have to use connecting words like therefore and because. As my co-instructor tells our students at IIM,Ahmedabad,during a project presentation,I say,dont bring this donkey along to class. It has neither power nor point. I also get deeply distressed with young people who walk into my office,and even before telling me why they are there,start unzipping the computer bag and asking,Where is the plug point?
Wheres the smile,the charm,the thirty seconds of small talk that makes me more receptive to whatever request they may have. And even more importantly,why should I be subjected to death by PowerPoint,because your verbal skills have atrophied? On the other hand,I think SMS and Twitter are very good its like the précis writing that my generation used to be made to do in school. It forces you to deliver your key message in a limited number of words before the other person moves on. Of course,it can also get you into deep trouble if your finger speed is ahead of your brain speed,as I often discover to my chagrin; and the same brevity which is the soul of wit is also the brevity which is the essence of rude terseness.
I am not a Luddite,I love my technology,but the way I want it. I dont want to have conversations with my
domestic appliances or anyone elses domestic appliances,and I think my intelligent refrigerator has no business re-ordering milk from the supermarket without my saying so. I love being able to access an age-old movie on Adi Shankara in Sanskrit with English subtitles on my iPad,or to see a demo of how to achieve smoky,sexy Arabic eyes with my eye make-up,because some kind soul with time to spare has made the effort to put a video on YouTube. I love the blessed release from boring meetings where I can look like I am rapt in attention,but actually be doing my email. And it is always a thrilling moment when I am far from civilisation as I know it,and the phone rings in my handbag.
For years,I resisted establishing a presence on the Web. And one day,a visiting foreign client started the lunch meeting not with,Tell me about yourself and what work you do, but with I love the fact that your office which he hadnt seen is a womans office and has bright colours,and I read your interview in such-and-such magazine that was a 10-year-old one,before I had changed my nature of work and my work ambitions. At first,I thought he was clairvoyant and looked at him with wide-eyed wonder; then I remembered that there was Google.
Thats when it came home to me forcefully that I had lost control of my brand in cyberspace,and that it had spilled over into the physical world. There was no choice but to establish my own official presence on the Web and take control. While I was at it,I booked bijapurkar.com and told my husband and his brother that they had to pay me royalty for using the name. But you married me and took my name, said my husband,appalled. Well,I replied,I now own it in cyberspace,the only place on this earth that really seems to count. And while I was at it,I offered to rent them mail boxes with their name bijapurkar.com. There werent any takers,regrettably,but it is a good feeling to be the sole owner of the extended familys surname!
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