July 2023
jun0305-demo
Sabbatical begins
I was haunted by a technology
This technology had taken hold of me
It fascinated me, humbled me, challenged me
It repeatedly broke my worldview
I lost sleep thinking of the mere implications
The technology is
none other than...
Pen and Paper
Why does paper haunt me?
In tech, we often talk of
computers as if it’s the evolution of paper
=>
that paper’s “death” to computers was simply the natural evolution of technology...
...Yet paper today can solve certain problems
better than anything else I’ve seen
EXAMPLE:
Here’s a crude drawing of me and my husband Davis at a bar.
Took a couple minutes to draw. Technically speaking, it’s not an amazing drawing.
But when I see it,
🌌 I remember the night in my body 🌌
<- This can
retrieve memory
<- better than this
<- better than this
It’s a magic trick that only works on me,
but who else does it need to work on?
My experiences with pen and paper
led me to 3 beliefs central to my creative work
1) Paper is worth our attention
It is not obsolete
2) I reject the idea that software is “superior”
to paper or to the physical world
I reject the idea that technology evolves linearly
(I say this as someone who worked on Chrome in
the height of the “browser wars”)
3) I reject the idea that dominance is an inherent or worthy goal for any technology to have
I believe there is wisdom in technologies that have served us for millenia and we’re FOOLS to ignore it!
I believe in embracing the best of all technologies, digital and analog, to optimize for human experiences