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New Digital Technology Can, in Some Circumstances, Make Businesses Less Productive (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

In a poll of 20,000 European workers released Monday, Microsoft, which became one of the world's most profitable companies by marketing office productivity software, acknowledges new digital technology can, in some circumstances, make businesses less productive. From a report: Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft joins a growing number of prominent Silicon Valley companies and entrepreneurs that are starting to question the social benefits of the technology they once championed. Facebook warned in December that its social network might, in some cases, cause psychological harm. Microsoft identifies a number of possible reasons for this negative impact, including: workers who are too distracted by a constant influx of e-mails, Slack messages, Trello notifications, texts, Tweets -- not to mention viral cat videos -- to concentrate for sustained periods; workers who aren't properly trained to use the new technology effectively; tech that isn't adequately supported by the business, forcing workers to lose time because "the computers are down;" and workers who suffer burnout because, with mobile devices and at-home-working, they feel tethered to the job around-the-clock.

73 comments

  1. I don't believe it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    He says, whilst browsing slashdot, with several group DM's open, checking his e-mails every 5 minutes and talking about sports on slack.

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. That was true YEARS ago by davecb · · Score: 3, Informative

    Back when Honeywell made computers as well as thermostats, a study was made of managers who stareted using a new, on-line financial planning application, a kind a strange mainframe-based spreadsheet-thingie. The ones who reported using it heavily had far worse contributions to profitability than everyone else. We figure they were heads-down in the computer when they should havce been doing management (;-))

    --
    davecb@spamcop.net
    1. Re:That was true YEARS ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's the thing, often new tech can NOT be introduced into an existing workplace without introduce new employees who actually know how to use it.

      Look, I'm not that old, but one of my clients hired this 20 year old girl who wanted us to switch to Slack and Asana to do things, from our previous Skype+email system. While I did like slack better than Skype, everything else became harder to manage from Slack, and pretty much nobody paid attention to Asana.

      Which is to say, you can not replace your organizations communication tools if you don't train them on it. When I worked for eBay (before they bought Skype) everyone was using MSN messenger, the minute we had Skype everyone was told to use Skype or else. However the web-browser based customer-facing Email client was slow as ass, and people preferred using the much older email client because it was less buggy and worked better with the macros.

      In another example with AT&T, they replaced AXYS with SIEBEL, and god damn everyone hated that thing.

      Even my dad's office back in 1996 resisted Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Office. It was not what they were used to.

      Every time you change things, you lose productivity if you don't retrain your staff on it. This goes double for software products like Microsoft Office that staff spend a lot of time in front of, but don't use any of the bells and whistles of for fear of losing time asking for help.

      Social media, is harmful, very harmful. Especially in places like Schools and Government offices. While they do offer a good way to interact with customers, customers are often not very thankful for it. But when you interact with students and teachers, and bureaucrats, you will get nothing but hate.

    2. Re:That was true YEARS ago by nnull · · Score: 2

      This is quite true today. I try to minimize computer use for management. Emails and text messaging is the absolute worse. Many people send out messages that requires a lot of deciphering of the persons meaning and customers that email you that want progress reports every damn 5 minutes. If you want your supervisors and managers to be more productive, keep them away from the vast emails and text messaging. I have found people will abuse email and text messaging to hell.

    3. Re:That was true YEARS ago by PPH · · Score: 1

      We figure they were heads-down in the computer when they should have been doing management

      That's not necessarily a bad thing. Some managers are better kept at arms length from the daily workings of the project. Spoon-feeding them status reports through PowerPoint keeps them out of the workers' hair.

      Back when I worked at Boeing, we had a manager who was absolutely mesmerized by presentations with multiple fonts and colors. We just had to budget for a couple of interns to generate artsy pitch charts to keep him busy.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re:That was true YEARS ago by Anon-Admin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wish I had mod points, I would mod you up.

      > Every time you change things, you lose productivity if you don't retrain your staff on it.

      In the last 15 years, I have never seen a company retrain their staff for new technology. They simply throw it out there, send out a memo about how great it is, and move on. They expect everyone to figure it out on their own.

    5. Re:That was true YEARS ago by Streetlight · · Score: 1

      1 - During the time it takes to retrain the staff, productivity is lost as staff are not doing their job.

      2. - Wait until a different 20 year old has the company adopt Microsoft Teams. More training and lost productivity.

      --
      In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    6. Re:That was true YEARS ago by davecb · · Score: 1

      Some managers are better kept at arms length from the daily workings of the project.

      Very much so: I had to "excuse one with thanks" after they ordered extra video cards and ethernet cards for machines that already had good enough ones. We said "model X or better", so he thought X plus something else would qualify as better (;-))

      --
      davecb@spamcop.net
    7. Re:That was true YEARS ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's what's basically happening where I work - new applications with ALL sorts of acronyms/names understood only by those who live-eat-breathe the stuff, expecting everyone to intuitively know everything about it.

      Oh, yeah: and just today they announced that 'yammer' was the new collaboration platform.

    8. Re:That was true YEARS ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or it could have been that younger, less-experienced managers were more likely to embrace technology. It would be natural that younger, less-experienced managers were less productive than their older, more experienced counterparts regardless of their use of software.

    9. Re:That was true YEARS ago by davecb · · Score: 1

      The group were 30 to 50 years of age, white, male and pretty darned homogenous. Twenty-somethings rarely got to the level where they had a budget.

      --
      davecb@spamcop.net
    10. Re:That was true YEARS ago by nasch · · Score: 1

      If you want your supervisors and managers to be more productive, keep them away from the vast emails and text messaging.

      I thought their job was to manage that stuff and keep it away from the workers. If they're not handling communication for the organization, what are they doing, and who is handling it? This is from someone who has never worked for a big company.

  4. Well duh! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    This seem as obvious as the observation that the latest version of software isn't always the best.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  5. Bloatware Producer sees Problems... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    film at 11.

  6. Re:It can be especially troubling by TWX · · Score: 1

    Uh, that is rather suspiciously specific.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  7. Social networks cannot cause psychological harm! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only your parents can do that... Believe me! I know!

  8. Wtf is Trello? by Viol8 · · Score: 1

    Oh, yet another project management/workflow system with a kids playgroup style logo. Just what the world needed. As if the shear Web 2.0 crapfest** that is Asana wasn't enough.

    ** One of many examples: Invisible add and delete attached file buttons until the pointer hovers over a particular location. And they're both cross icons! If this interface was designed to be as unintuitive as possible the coders deserve a gold medal.

    1. Re:Wtf is Trello? by jetkust · · Score: 1

      I've used Trello and Kanbo. They both claim to be business software, but feel more like Fischer-Price.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. How about that Ribbon Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Made my use of Word a whole lot less efficient.
    PITA*10000

    1. Re:How about that Ribbon Microsoft? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The Ribbon made me switch to Open Office. Though these days I use Libre Office because it seems like it's more stable on a Mac.

      The other amazing thing is how MS Office went from much faster than the free alternative to much slower.

      So much slower than the free alternative. And has a more irritating UI. I guess in retrospect you could see we'd reached peak Microsoft.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:How about that Ribbon Microsoft? by ljw1004 · · Score: 1

      The Ribbon made me switch to Open Office.

      Do you know that you can still use your old per-ribbon shortcuts even with the ribbon? Format paragraph remains Alt+O,P. You can be just as productive. The ribbon increased discoverability for people less able than you, reduced it for people like you, but didn't compromise your speed.

    3. Re: How about that Ribbon Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Didn't compromise your speed".

      Hi, welcome, here's your workstation, boy we are excited at having someone with your skills on board, you can publish almost all of our documentation just in Word? We need that. Your PC is the latest and greatest, so go for it!

      Can you explain what the holdup is? The outputs are not what we expected when we set up this contract."

      Ribbon. Took me from Word Advanced to Word Beginner overnight. Fuck you and your patronising arrogant "didn't compromise you".

    4. Re:How about that Ribbon Microsoft? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Libre Office is free and it does what I need and actually works quite fast if you have plenty of Ram and an SSD. There's no way I'm migrating back.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  11. too many vectors of communication by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Related to this, there are too many vectors of communication. I have to juggle e-mail, my desk phone, my cell phone, text messaging to my cell phone, Cisco Jabber messaging, Spark groups, spark personal messaging, Google's personal messaging, Microsoft Teams for both personal and group messaging, and even things like updates in smartsheets, sharepoint, and google drive. And that's before even looking at the official workflow system.

    I've tried to simplify it. Unfortunately every time someone new comes in they chase whatever shiny new repackaging of instant messaging or IRC is out there and we end up adding new vectors, and the only times they've reduced them were finally getting rid of the pagers and those wretched push-to-talk cell phones we had early on that would kill your eardrum if you had an earpiece in when the initial connection came in.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:too many vectors of communication by DogDude · · Score: 1

      It sounds like you work for a badly, badly managed organization. I can't imagine how you get anything done if you have to respond to so many different things.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    2. Re:too many vectors of communication by TWX · · Score: 1

      The problem isn't interruptions so much as missing relevant incoming communications. I occasionally miss ones specifically directed to me, but it's most a problem in group chats.

      I suppose I prefer e-mail best of all of them. It keeps a nice, easy to review record, it's an open platform so anyone can participate, and the alerting works well.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  12. "the computer is down" by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    >> forcing workers to lose time because "the computers are down"

    1990 wants its article back. Half the "work" I do these days seems to be on company IM chat while I'm sitting in the company crapper.

    1. Re: "the computer is down" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There are few things more satisfying than dropping a load while getting paid.

  13. Cat videos by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Funny

    workers who are too distracted by a constant influx of e-mails, Slack messages, Trello notifications, texts, Tweets -- not to mention viral cat videos -- to concentrate for sustained periods

    Almost all the sci fi writers since 1960 imagined small devices that will fit into the palm of a person giving access to the entire collective knowledge of human beings. What they failed to imagine was that, half of the collective wisdom of human beings consists of cat videos.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Cat videos by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      edison hate future

  14. That was quick by tsa · · Score: 1

    Wow, it took them only forty years to find that out! And I bet they will soon release Windows 2100, which doesn't suffer from all the problems modern computers have.

    --

    -- Cheers!

  15. tools by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    UI design has only been a thing since the 70's. Is it really a revelation at this point that a badly designed tool can be counterproductive? One thing I see in the industry is that no tool does the job perfectly, so you end up working with a 'pick your own tool' kind of mentality, which forces cross-project people to work with multiple tools.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  16. Overall by pjv936 · · Score: 1

    I think the computer has increased productivity. But it can also waste time. You have to be self discipline and focus on getting your work done. You can't be browsing the web all day.

    1. Re:Overall by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Somebody didn't read the article.

      "Economists have been puzzled in recent years by the so-called “productivity paradox,” the fact that the digital revolution of the past four decades hasn’t resulted in big gains in output per worker as happened with earlier technological upheaval. Many developed economies have actually seen productivity stagnate or decline."

      "Microsoft identifies a number of possible reasons for this negative impact, including: workers who are too distracted by a constant influx of e-mails, Slack messages, Trello notifications, texts, Tweets – not to mention viral cat videos – to concentrate for sustained periods; workers who aren’t properly trained to use the new technology effectively; tech that isn’t adequately supported by the business, forcing workers to lose time because “the computers are down;” and workers who suffer burnout because, with mobile devices and at-home-working, they feel tethered to the job around-the-clock."

      Did you see web browsing in there? Did you read the part about distracted by constant interruptions or the bit about lack of training. Jackass.

  17. the scourge of our time by nimbius · · Score: 2

    Microsoft: cat videos and tweets are ruining productivity and we should ban them.
    Facebook: social media has impacted productivity negatively and it should be restricted in the office
    Elon Musk: If you think for a minute I'm getting rid of the flamethrowers in this office you can go eat a shit.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  18. No shit. by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    Headline brought to you straight from Captain Obvious' news report.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:No shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.google.ca/search?q=Captain+obvious&rlz=1C1CHBD_enCA730CA730&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=9RiniSn2ObND1M%253A%252Cn_3nG9BDW97yeM%252C_&usg=__irXrCJ4iYpK4U1MFYQlYOWn4ylQ%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZyMfZnI_ZAhVs64MKHUrTDt0Q9QEILTAB#imgrc=9RiniSn2ObND1M:

  19. I keep warning by Sqreater · · Score: 2

    I keep warning that you cannot keep adding complexity to life and systems year after year after year without an inevitable "complexity collapse." Systems, including humans, cannot deal with infinite complexity, but that seems to be the assumption. There needs to be discussion of "sustainable complexity," the levels of complexity that are comfortable for humans and that allows systems to actually work with one another reliably going forward. Deliberate actions must be taken to simplify. No more free-for-all addition of complexity in all things.

    --
    E Proelio Veritas.
    1. Re:I keep warning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What there is eternal lack of is... *drum roll* management.

      You can add as much complexity and whatnot you don't want, just as long as it's managed properly.

      Which of course it isn't, because *latest buzzword* (Agile / SAFe, twisted and tweaked to appease current lack of Leadership).

      And no, proper leadership is OPPOSITE of micromanaging, try ASKING employees instead *acting shocked*!

  20. Spent my career replacing green screens by bigmacx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...and inflicting mouse-driven GUI lunacy on corporations. In all cases, it seemed employees "could do more," but really they "had to do more" because of the new technology. There was the birth of incessant goofing off with solitaire, personal email, social media, ebay, etc. Then companies had to install all kinds of complicated stuff to block, monitor, and mitigate their companies screwing off with their tech. I road the "it must be better because you told me so" $ train for years selling that crap.

    I'm not anti-tech to the point of living in a cabin and abusing postal mail, but I do think for many, many purposes, a terminal-based application running off a dedicated host (or cluster of hosts) provides a company with a far more efficient, both in direct & indirect costs, system to accomplish a business goal than all these multi-purpose general-purpose GUI desktop OS's.

    Example: I have one customer that had a UNIX terminal and hand scanner system to manage a large network of warehouses and light manufacturing at various geographical locations. They (the accounts and executives) decided the yearly maintenance costs of the UNIX application vendor were too high, so they were going to modernize it. They ended up buying a farm of Windows servers and Windows desktops everywhere (with all the obligatory firewalls, AV, employee monitoring stuff they needed to make their employees actually use the stuff for work) and spent enough money (up front, not planned ongoing costs) to fund 10 years worth of the original UNIX application vendor's maintenance fees.

    Worst part: under UNIX terminal system they used hand and forklift scanners with telnet to scan inventory and logistics moves. These cost at most $1000 in the highest complexity scenario; usually about $750 in routine cases. With the new system, every mobile production location needed $6000 Windows hand-held terminals so they could RDP into the fancy smancy Windows terminal farm, all so they could scan 2-D bar codes on supplies and inventory as it moved around the organization. Lunacy.

    We were a happier civilization as Cave Men

    1. Re:Spent my career replacing green screens by nasch · · Score: 1

      I'm not anti-tech to the point of living in a cabin and abusing postal mail, but I do think for many, many purposes, a terminal-based application running off a dedicated host (or cluster of hosts) provides a company with a far more efficient, both in direct & indirect costs, system to accomplish a business goal than all these multi-purpose general-purpose GUI desktop OS's.

      That sounds right on for businesses (or business units) that are more or less doing predictable things that don't change a whole lot, which I assume (despite all the buzzwords) is a lot of businesses. For someone doing a wide variety of tasks, or unpredictable tasks, or tasks that change fairly frequently, a general purpose computer may be beneficial and/or necessary. I know you added the qualifiers - I'm not disagreeing with you, just expanding.

  21. No shit, Sherlock ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because so many of the damned 'new technologies' roll out are utterly pointless social garbage.

    I've now been at two companies who have rolled out some god-awful social media things in which we were all going to chat and collaborate and make the company an awesome and innovative place.

    The problem is they have no useful information, are mostly people who have drank way too much of the corporate kool-aid braying about how innovative this useless platform is, and an endless stream of utterly pointless stuff.

    There is nothing if value to me in doing my job in it, I have no time to waste on it, and I'm admonished for not participating in it because it adds no value to my life but in theory could benefit some guy in some other country I've never met. I'm sorry, but I'm not spending time on a platform which provides no utility to me in doing my job.

    I have no idea who told them this technology would in some way enhance the organization or improve my ability to do my job -- the signal to noise ratio is pretty much approaching zero, so I ignore these things in their entirety. Because I can plainly see this is useless garbage that some VP or whatever decided would leverage the synergies and make all of the sheep flock in the same direction.

    When I leave the office, my company cell stays in my laptop bag. Sorry, you don't pay me for 24 hour connectivity, I'm not on call, and when I walk out of the office you shouldn't expect that I'm obsessively checking my email.

    I'm certainly not interested in anything even resembling social media ... I don't use it in my personal life because it's a waste of time, in my professional life doubly so. Stop acting like a message board type thingy is supposed to make me more productive, because it doesn't, hasn't, and won't.

    1. Re:No shit, Sherlock ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I have no idea who told them this technology would in some way enhance the organization or improve my ability to do my job"

      Management consultants...the big firms sell "digital transformation" package deals where they promise to convert your organization into a full DevOps shop, innovating at web speed.

  22. Not just social aps by XXongo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It's not just social aps that make things less productive: it's troubleshooting all the damn software and figuring out workarounds for problems.

    Software makes me more productive, sure, but I lose all the time I save in troubleshooting. Right now I'm troubleshooting two things: a printer that is giving me an error message "out of paper" even though the paper tray is full, and a database that I have to use at work that requires two-factor authentication (sending me a code to my device that I have to enter to access the database) in which the code sent doesn't show up.

    And changing goddamn passwords. I must spend an hour a week dealing with all the passwords.

    1. Re:Not just social aps by Streetlight · · Score: 1

      ...and the ever "improved" interfaces the latest version of the software one uses. The introduction of the Ribbon in MS Office apps is a great example. Recently I created a new spreadsheet in Exel and, as I hadn't done this for awhile, forgot how to add a New Window to it. It took quite a bit of time to find what I wanted. The same problem shows up in figuring out how to find things in Windows 10 that I routinely was able to do in Win 7.

      --
      In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    2. Re:Not just social aps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you can do your job, security isn't doing theirs.

    3. Re:Not just social aps by fermion · · Score: 1
      I see these as two different issues. The first, the decision to integrate new tech in a business process and training, has to be a calculated risk. If we simply ignore new technology, like the US car companies did with QC and analysis in the 1970s, we are risking long term profitability. If we just jump into every fad without a plan on ROI or training, then we are going to lose productivity with no long term justification.

      That said, most of the time the problem is that of the US car companies. The management is not skilled enough to see benefits of new techniques, the employees don't want to learn, the budget office does not want to pay for training, and the executives are too incompetent to make the case to the share holders. For instance, there were many companies that got screwed with ERP systems, but there are many who did it right and came out the other end in a much better position.

      Then there are technologies, like the telephone, that are double edged swords. On one hand, putting a telephone on every desk means that employees can simply get calls from their lovers, family, children, friends, and waste a lot of time. On the other hand it means that we don't have people wandering the halls to give people simple instructions, and that customers have fast access to staff.

      This is the same thing. The expectation has be set that employees are there to work. Employers also have to understand that an employee not working every second is not necessarily a bad thing. if a new technology double productivity, and the employee only gets a 25% raise, then it seems that there is some wiggle room for the employee to have a big more flexibility in how to use the time.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    4. Re:Not just social aps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If setting up the printer is your job - fix it then. It is not hard. If it is not - complain to IT; optionally complain to boss that IT isn't doing their job. Dealing with passwords? Single sign-on is a thing - don't 'deal with passwords'.

      And can e-mail really reduce productivity? Only for morons who set their PC to go 'beep' whenever more mail arrive. I do work that require concentration - so my PC never interrupts me. I check mail when I want to - usually once a day. No other software issues 'notifications' either. This makes it easy to use the PC for presentations - I'm tired of unprofessional presenters who gets some kind of notification in the middle of showing something. Or to really take the grand price - a forced OS upgrade while presenting :-(

      Set up you computers properly folks, or have IT set it up properly. No excuses for computer problems.

  23. Re:It can be especially troubling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He's just pissed that creimer called his mother from the grave to polish his tiny old knob and drink a quart of his heavy cream.

  24. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  25. Re:It can be especially troubling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just a creimertard. Nothing to see, move along.

  26. Note the use of "digital culture" by ErichTheRed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Speaking as someone who works in a fairly slow-moving industry, producing software and systems that are critical to keep running, I can say we have a low "digital culture" score. When I hear digital culture, the image in my head is of a Silicon Valley web startup, employees clustered around an open-space "developer pod" with constant distractions. Everything is full DevOps, with developers making major changes to the system several times a day. All the while, you have messages coming in from email, Slack, Trello, Microsoft Teams, IMs, text messages, etc. and developers are fine with not having the ability to concentrate on something. If you don't fit that mold, you don't have a digital culture.

    Microsoft has been publishing a lot of "DevOps journey" presentations lately, and the main thrust of them is this -- fire your testers, make the developers responsible for testing, and make the developers the operations team, responsible for anything they check in to production. Oh, and remove the quiet spaces and put your developers in developer pods.

    My opinion of this is that not every company is ready to go full digital culture. Digital culture also implies that you have fiercely loyal developers who all smart, capable and will work insane hours without question, and that are fine with being bombarded by distractions all the time. When you're Microsoft or a web startup, you can afford to pay for these developers, or trick them into working those hours with stock options. You can also trick them into spending their entire lives connected to work by blurring the lines...give them 3 free meals a day to keep them in the office, and all the mobile productivity tools to keep them connected for the few hours they do go home.

    Anyone who says we need to slow down and focus on quality over velocity is shouted down as a heretic these days. For some application types I agree...no one cares if they have to refresh Tinder or reconnect to Netflix, and the only client is a phone or web browser. For more critical stuff, or things that have components that can't be abstracted away too easily, I think the pendulum is going to come back a little bit after the bubble bursts. Right now, companies are deathly afraid of missing out and "digital transformation" consulting engagements are very lucrative. But like anything, I think it'll settle back to the middle...not every company is Facebook or Google.

    1. Re:Note the use of "digital culture" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Employees are also expected to participate in impromptu nerf soccer games (body checking encouraged) in the hallways after 7 pm, while holding a half-consumed bottle of craft beer in one hand.

  27. Trivial! by Pyramid · · Score: 2

    This is trivial compared to the current fad of open plan offices. I used to revile my cubicle...until I got a taste of an open plan environment. Distraction hell.

    --
    ~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
  28. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  29. 3 words: Electronic Medical Records by technosaurus · · Score: 1

    There is no defacto "standard" and the companies writing the EMR related software are clueless on how to create a productive UI, so doctors spend more time documenting than treating, sometimes by a factor of 5 to 1.

  30. Re:It can be especially troubling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your shit posting haven't gone unnoticed over the last six months. Stop being an asshole and grow up.

  31. Re:It can be especially troubling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Your shit posting haven't gone unnoticed "

    Your shit crammar hasn't gone unnoticed either, Chris. I win again. Chris gets rattled, crammar shows up. It's a law of Nature.

    "Stop being an asshole and grow up."

    Stop being a dummy "reinventing" himself as a bigger dummy.

  32. You *think*? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > New Digital Technology Can Make Businesses Less Productive

    No shit. Does Facebook qualify as "digital technology"? I don't see why not. And it's obvious it's a time-sink with no value whatsoever to any business, except for Facebook itself.

    > Facebook warned in December that its social network might, in some cases, cause psychological harm

    Again, no shit. The feeble-minded look to social media for acceptance; when kids and teens commit suicide because of what people say about them on social media (and I don't need to demonstrate it's happened), how can anyone *question* whether there's potential for "psychological harm"? Get rid of that garbage, it's making you sick.

    Here's a general rule: Run away from anything that uses "social" anything to describe itself. It's not the technology around it that sucks, it's the people you interact with, through it, that do. People are much more willing to criticize anything you say or do on Facebook than they would face-to-face.

  33. Not just digital technology... by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 2

    Given a stable, consistent work environment, people develop their own ways of working. If you suddenly change it, move something, or tell them to do it differently, unanticipated things start happening, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    --
    Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
  34. Re: It can be especially troubling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't feed the creimertards.

  35. Re: Rust is a great example of this, I think. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get over it. No one cares about Rust one way or the other.

  36. Re:It can be especially troubling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who modded up this POS comment?

  37. Re: It can be especially troubling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, leave the food for Chris!

  38. Re:It can be especially troubling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously someone who enjoys laughing at you, Chris. Your videos are awful, BTW. How in the hell are you editing the audio? It's full of abrupt cuts and clicks, and you cut off your own words! You're hard enough to understand as it is!
    Not to mention the jarring jumping frame to frame. Are you unable to complete a single sentence in one take?
    And what's with the claustrophobic decor? Are you afraid to let people see the rest of your tiny studio apartment?
    The subject matter... dear lord. We're able to figure out hotels on our own, Chris.

    You sound like Hurricane Boy.

    The whole thing comes off like an 8 year old did it.

  39. Yes by HalAtWork · · Score: 1

    Just like new management ideas, or methods of digesting statistics, or literally any new idea or tool. All must be evaluated and considered, not just thrown into the mix without critique.

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
  40. Survey by Onyxviper · · Score: 1

    I have a meeting about this topic tomorrow and I found the article timely. I read the Bloomburg article and went digging for the survey results to share with my team. They are not linked from the Bloomburg article. There are a good number of other news sites that have now re-posted the article, the BBC being on of them. None of them link back to a released study. Does anyone have a link to the original data?