CULTURE - Attention- Juggling in the High-Tech Office

Attention - Juggling in the High-Tech Office.

New York Times article re-blogged from hatch.org

TECHNOLOGY is having a double-edged impact in the workplace, says Ed Reilly, president and chief executive of the American Management Association. It improves productivity, he says, but it may also be a distraction that prevents high-quality thinking. Here are excerpts from a conversation:

Q. Do all the distractions mean that people don't have time to think deeply about what they're doing?

A.There is no arguing that productivity has been improving at a historically unprecedented rate, particularly in the past five years. Look at the things that are enabled by improved technology. In retailing, look at how Wal-Mart has combined information technology to set their supply chains against other people's supply chains and to allow for outsourcing and offshoring that they've been able to do. The Internet has driven down pricing in lots and lots of industries. From a consumer point of view, eBay is the ultimate in pricing transparency. If you want to sell a watch or an antique piece of jewelry, it used to be very difficult. Now you can put it on eBay and 10 million people look at it.

Read the rest of the article here.

(image borrowed from this modern world)