The Deletist

It may seem that the only language babies know is crying, crying, and more crying. But in many cases, crying is a last resort. A way of letting caretakers know the baby is now desperate for food, a clean diaper, sleep, or a snuggle. Rivaling the decibel level of a lawn mower, crying is a powerful survival mechanism for the baby. The loudness ensures somebody hears the baby.

Although it seems that crying is the main language, babies are really masters of non-verbal communication. Noticing the nuanced signs and signals and figuring out what they mean requires one to pay close attention. For example, the broad recognition of newborn hunger cues. There’s general rustling and mouth openings to start. Sometimes there’s “rooting” when the infant will go searching for a nipple. The movements gradually get more pronounced, going through two levels of escalation before the crying, wailing really, starts.

I thought about these things while reading NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman. In the book there’s speculation that many of the technological advances we use, including the many forms of communication, were created by people on the spectrum. Based on my understanding, this may be because people with autism prefer communicating in less direct ways for a number of reasons.

While I appreciate and support the many wonderful ways technology connects us, we lose something vital without in-person time. Small details such as how somebody smells, telltale signs of nervousness or boredom, and the focus of somebody’s eyes, don’t exist with many forms of electronic communication. We’re left to rely on tone, for verbal conversations, and even less with textual conversations. In some cases we may only have cues such as capital letters, sparingly used punctuation marks, and emoji to help us figure out the non-verbal nuances. I also feel that too much electronic communication makes people insensitive towards each other.

Even on-camera conversations miss cues. Sometimes the connection is poor resulting in grainy images or lag times. Other times people are not looking directly at the camera because their attention is on another monitor.

We have a lot to learn from each other by connecting. Even if verbal communication doesn’t feel comfortable for some of us, there are lots of other cues to notice for connecting.

Last week I attended a luncheon about content lifecycle management. Basically, this is a method for organizations to manage their content, digital assets, data, information, records, etc. in a centralized location. The idea behind it is sharing resources. Silos broken down. The end result is more effective sharing, analysis, collaboration, etc.

The image used to showcase this new method was an infinity symbol. Essentially, a never-ending loop that continuously goes around and around. The only problem with this idea is that there’s no way for the lifecycle to end. Lifecycle can mean different things and contain different stages. However, I think most people would agree that at its most basic level a lifecycle contains a beginning (birth or creation) and an ending (death or destruction). The never-ending infinity loop didn’t leave a lot of room for end points. This is one of the most challenging aspects of digital information.

When designing and developing these lifecycle management methods and systems, people seem to forget about that all-important end stage. At a certain point, some of the information, or data, etc. is not valuable anymore. It will only “junk” up the system. It could also slow down performance or impact search results. When content is never deleted out of the system, sometimes this old, outdated content comes up in search results, which can be confusing or annoying.

In my experience, not considering the end stage as an inevitable, and natural, part of the lifecycle at the beginning stages, leads to problems later on. For example, sometimes it can be difficult to find and label content retroactively. Determining criteria for which things to keep and which things to purge can also be more difficult when done at a later stage. I’m not sure how companies can accurately label things as “lifecycle” management when some of the most important stages are missing.

Incidentally, I did ask about the model at the luncheon. I wanted to know where the end of the lifecycle occurred. It seemed an appropriate question from The Deletist. However, the answer wasn’t satisfactory. The presenter explained that one could remove content based on the analysis being generated about it, i.e., low performing. Though this would require some thought about how the removal would actually occur.

Needless to say, I won’t be investing in that vendor’s content “lifecycle” management anytime soon.

I recently started watching the “Lincoln Lawyer” on Netflix. As with most series/movies involving lawyers and law firms, I’m always a bit shocked at the old-fashioned paper documents. It seems that important or incriminating evidence always exists in paper. This even happens when people need to sign documents in the show, or retrieve a file.

What’s odd about this is almost all documents only exist electronically. From the time someone creates a document and uses it, it remains electronic. This is especially true since Covid started. Although e-signatures and digital signatures have been around for over 10 years, the pandemic expedited their usage. Since many businesses had to operate remotely, with employees working from home, acquiring signatures electronically became the norm.

The Netflix “Lincoln Lawyer” series is based on a series of novels by Michael Connelly, first published in 2005. If I consider that, it would make sense reading it that transactions and business would happen with paper. I wouldn’t expect to read anything about smartphones or the pandemic. However, the Netflix series is more modern. The series modifies certain aspects to match the year of creation, 2022. People use smartphones. The lawyers review some discovery documents, such as emails, electronically, even though in one episode they received 80 boxes of physical documents.

However, in the courtroom, the lawyers present evidence in both formats, electronic and physical (paper or other objects). Photos remain digital. Everything else is in a physical format. Witnesses read highlighted sections from pieces of paper, on request. Wouldn’t the new “norm” be to hand someone a tablet to read? Not only is this more accessible because it allows the size to be adjusted, it’s likely the document only existed electronically until it was printed out for a witness to read.

I wonder for the new generation watching these shows, or working in an office for the first time, if these practices already seem outdated. They seem outdated to me and I grew up paper, cassette tapes, and rotary dial. And yet, in a weird kind of way, they also seem perfectly normal.