We are going to be talking about software stewardship. And really what that means for the world of productivity, culture and society is remarkably impacted by how software today is developed, there isn't anything that isn't really run by technology, from your water plants, you know, the the treatment plants that are running water and sewage, to your cell phone. And on smartphones in your pocket. Everybody is connected to software in some way, shape, or form, even if we're not using that software directly.
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In this Cast | Productivity Software Stewardship for the World
Ray Sidney-Smith
Augusto Pinaud
Art Gelwicks
Francis Wade
Show Notes | Productivity Software Stewardship for the World
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Google Calendar
LinkedIn Learning - Programming Foundations
Raw Text Transcript | Productivity Software Stewardship for the World
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Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17
And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith.
Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud.
Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade.
Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25
Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of productivity cast. Today, we are going to be talking about software stewardship. And really what that means for the world of productivity, culture and society is remarkably impacted by how software today is developed, there isn't anything that isn't really run by technology, from your water plants, you know, the the treatment plants that are running water and sewage, to your cell phone. And on smartphones in your pocket. Everybody is connected to software in some way, shape, or form, even if we're not using that software directly. And we thought it would be really interesting to look at that through the lens of productivity. And Francis, you brought up this topic to the ProductivityCast. Team. So I wanted to have you kind of preamble us talk to us about what you were thinking as a related to this topic, and then we will get into our discussion.
Francis Wade 1:24
But I was ranting, you know that many productivity folks do when they try to use a piece of software and realize that the developer, or whoever designed the software has totally missed the mark. And what's happened is that someone came up with a very bright idea. And the bright idea seems to be interesting and useful. We either use that using the software, or we try to use it. And we hit upon a block a block, or some kind of stop. And we realize from using the software that the developer had a half of an idea, or a poorly formulated idea before developing the software. And that's why the software doesn't work. So it doesn't fit our needs. It doesn't do what we want it to do, it kind of halfway gets there. But it needs to go away much further. So for example, Google Canada, or outlook Canada, for that matter, those both of those software apps, and all of the Canon most of the counters I've ever seen, a handful of are exceptional, but were designed based on appointment calendars. So they basically copied the appointment calendar that you would see in a doctor's or a dentist office where you put in meetings. And it's meant to track events that take place with other people. And that basic idea. Fast forward to today. And of course, we live in a world in which time blocking is a key element, or timeboxing, or calendar blocking any any time at which you decide to schedule a solo activity into your calendar that does not involve other people, and therefore is quite flexible. So neither calendar, and the two of them are the base calendars of that I think 90% of people use the one of those two, neither of them have Sorry, I should also include Apple calendar. But neither neither of the three, none of the three is geared towards people who do time blocking. And that's a critical activity that we must use in today's world, especially when you're working from home, you have to think very carefully about getting into the flow state. For example, creating time when you can do focus work away from family, kids, pets, distractions, meetings, calls, all the things that would disrupt you from doing your best work. And there's no provision, no real provision in any of these software programs for individual time blocking. And it's a kind of an inside joke among those who do time blocking because we're trying to do we're trying to force the calendar to do something it really wasn't designed to do. The creators of it, never intended for it to be used in this way. And here we are an even worse, there doesn't appear to be any effort by any of these three companies to do any kind of customization for time blocking. It's as if they've kind of said, Okay, this is enough, we moved on to more interesting things. And that's that has its own crazy logic. But again, back to the main point, designers and developers who think and come up with ideas that they think are pretty bright ideas end up causing problems for lots of many of us just because their theory or the idea they have in mind is just not robust enough.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:46
So I'll take your bait, and I'll look at this through the lens of Google and Google Calendar, which is that Google has given those of you who are time blockers The ability to add a calendar event, which is without anyone else, you know, you're not inviting anyone else, you can move it, you know, each calendar event is fungible. And they've even gone the next step of being able to add tasks at specific dates, and times, as well as all day task events in the calendar interface. If you were a developer or a product manager at Google, what would you tell them to do differently?
Francis Wade 5:30
Drag and drop? That's a simple one, simple drag and drop tasks and move them around so that you can manipulate your calendar will without having to go in and edit each individual light. So you can already do that drag and drop. Yeah, I'm gonna try that, right.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:47
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.
Francis Wade 5:49
from day to day, or just
Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:50
yeah, day to day, week to week. Oh,
Francis Wade 5:53
I stand corrected. But still, the interface is just not meant for that purpose. It was invented and created and put into the suites at a time when these were afterthoughts. And they haven't done much develop mental them even since then they've tried. Canada tried to put a Google Calendar tried to put in Google goals. Google Yes, goes right, barring from a scheduling software. But it clearly this wasn't meant for that. And that that particular feature is kind of just dropped off the calendar, I still use it.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:30
You know, the funny part though, is that the the Curiosity is in Google goals, when you set a goal that's useful inside of Google Calendar inside of Google Calendar, the mobile application, but when you take it outside of that, say you put your you add your calendar, to Microsoft Outlook, or to woven or to another tool like that, you it then disappears, it's not a part of the feature set. And the reason for that, in my limited understanding of it is that calendars and what is a calendar infrastructure is ancient technology, we're using this old format. And so for greatest interoperability, where we're basically depending upon the legacy structure of how calendars were developed. And so all of this new technology, kind of like SMS, right, we deal with SMS, which is a terrible infrastructure system. But because it works currently, across all of the various telecommunications carriers, we continue to keep using it. And we know that RCS is the better standard, and we should all get there. But for some reason, we keep using the lowest common denominator. And that's a little different for me than email, which email is the right, interoperable standard, right, everybody uses, it's a part of the internet. And we all know how to make an email function. And what we build on top of that is really where developers start to have more say, hey, which is the new email app, email service from the folks who create Basecamp? You know, they're creating a highly opinionated email software on top of an email service, and it's still email, right? The the infrastructure is solid, the what you put on top of that really makes a difference. And I think here with calendar, just in this specific instance, Francis, I think calendar is I think we just need a better system, like, for example, calendars, that the natural ability to create a feed for your calendar, right,
