News
All work and no play
Tim Summers asks whether technology can help us work smarter as well as harder.
Most of us remember Tomorrow’s World. It was the BBC’s weekly TV showcase for new developments in science and technology, running for almost 40 years before being axed in 2003, apparently due to falling ratings. Why this loss of interest? No doubt there are various factors but I would suggest that one is central: we have become technology-cynics. Incredible inventions fill our days and new ones appear each week. Brilliant gizmos are less able to surprise us and, more importantly, we no longer believe they will transform our lives for the better.
A constant theme of Tomorrow’s World was how new technology would save time, increase efficiency and so reduce our burdens both at home and in the workplace. But in reality its effect is often the opposite. When it becomes possible to do more work, more is expected of us and more generally gets done. This happens through a combination of globalised competition (we have to work harder to keep up) and greater individual consumption (we need more money to buy more things).
My own work in the law furnishes an example of how labour-saving technology has multiplied work and cost. An approximate way to measure the amount of work involved in a deal is the length of the contract. There was a time when negotiation was carried out by a series of handwritten amendments in different coloured inks to a “travelling draft”. As this process took time, documents were generally shorter. Today, emails and soft copies mean that 400 page contracts can be discussed all day and then amended all night, being sent out in time for the next 9am meeting.
It is unsurprising that the media abounds in stories of increased working hours and burnout. The technological tools and the freedoms they bring can seem glamorous and life-enhancing, but these may be false friends. In the midst of all the negative statistics, what options remain for those seeking a more relaxed lifestyle in a globally competitive world?
The radical option is to turn away from the whole situation, to follow the advice in Tom Hodgkinson’s book How To Be Free – a manifesto for living with as little contact as possible with big companies and the government. The author relates how he was able to quit London corporate life to live self-sufficiently in North Devon with his family.
A less radical middle path would involve continuing to work within “the system,” but so as to have greater control over our workload. In a world where the values and culture of big companies have become all-pervasive, can we harness the power of the new technology to win back some individual freedom and choice?
Based on developments in my own profession, I believe we can. There have been recent moves, by lateral thinking lawyers in America and now here, to establish practices which are structured to enable more flexibility and choice for their people.
This is the strategy adopted by Axiom Law in America and my own firm, Temple Bright, here in Bristol. Technology is central: our infrastructure and resources are handled by online providers, enabling a low cost “virtual” model without support staff. Most importantly, this use of technology has meant we can operate a non-hierarchical structure in which the lawyers choose their working hours and locations and are rewarded proportionately. So our clients deal with an adviser who is more affordable and is self-motivated – and so, we believe, does a better job.
As a result we are competing successfully against larger, more traditional firms and have doubled in size in our first year. In other words, encouraging more attractive methods of working, we feel, gives us a competitive advantage.
This article appeared in South West Business on 1 August 2011.
