The Social Life Of Paper

An article by Malcolm Gladwell in THE NEW YORKER, available online here:

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?020325crbo_books

This article is mainly based on an excellent book by Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper, entitled TheMythOfThePaperlessOffice .

I've created a separate page for this article because I've read it and think it's important.

--ApoorvaMuralidhara

In summary, the article clears up the notion about the UseOfPaper? in the Contemporary world being quite different from the UseOfPaper? in the Filing Cabinet age. Paper most useful today is thrown away, not filed, and until thrown away exists best in piles. It fits the ExtremeProgramming use of such things as UserStories, and CrcCards. Paper today has the role of promoting immediate, interactive, ongoing communicative thought. When it has completed that role, it is simply "thrown away". The illustration of the use of the "flight strips" in the Air Traffic Control Centers is also a reminder of the ExtremeProgramming practice of PairProgramming. The article attempts to dispell the notion that a desk in seeming disarray is not significant of a inefficient workplace.

I agree--in fact, CrcCards are a particularly good example of what this article is talking about. The article explains that for the collaborative, iterative processes of "knowledge work," paper has advantages over computers. But this has been difficult to see because paper, being older than computer technology, has come to *symbolize* outmoded ways of doing things.

Paper's advantages stem from its "affordances"--properties that ease certain uses. Paper is tangible, which makes it easy to flip through, with an intuitive interface that doesn't distract from the matter at hand. It's spatially flexible, so you can cheaply use a large amount of display "real estate," by spreading it all over the carpet. It's tailorable (for example, several people can mark it up, and one can distinguish their marks). If you're at a meeting with several people, and they're reading or marking up paper documents, it's easy to tell what they're doing.

Obviously, digital documents also have affordances--they're easy to search and access remotely. This is great for, say, archiving old documents, but it is irrelevant for people doing this sort of intense knowledge work together.

When this article appeared, I sent the NEW YORKER the following letter, but they didn't print it:

Malcolm Gladwell correctly points out that paper is best for a "collaborative, iterative work process" ("The Social Life of Paper," March 25th.) Software engineers are highly sophisticated users of technology. Yet what tool does a new and highly effective methodology for developing software in teams ("Extreme Programming") use for planning? The most flexible one there is--the index card.

--ApoorvaMuralidhara