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Conventional Wisdom II
Week before last I wrote about how I see conventional wisdom around the non-profit sector changing, and I definitely think that is the case. There are still a lot of nuggets of "conventional wisdom" that aren't necessarily that wise. Some exist in the non-profit world alone, but most exist in the for profit world as well.
Trivially, people continue to believe - and teach - that you should put two spaces after a period. There are now adults who have never used a typewriter, because they grew up with computers and word processing software that spaces type appropriately, and yet they were still taught "two spaces" after every period. It is interesting to me that paragraph indents have disappeared on the internet, and people have adjusted quickly to that, but two spaces after a period? Might as well ask people to give up eating desserts for all the trouble it causes.
Throughout history, we have developed technological innovations with limits that have been fixed or improved upon in further iterations only to have the original, limiting implementation remain the standard bearer. The most painfully obvious one is the QWERTY keyboard layout most of us interact with on a near daily basis. Originally, it was developed to slow people down so that the keys didn't stick together. More than 100 years later, and despite better designed keyboards being available, we continue to hunt and peck our way to carpal tunnel syndrome on the older, accepted, inferior design.
One of the corporate catch phrases that has followed me around for years is "above the fold." This made sense back in the days when print was king, and getting something "above the fold" of a newspaper really was important. Monitors don't fold. They have different resolutions, so what is above the fold on one is not necessarily the same on another. A device like the iPhone throws another wrinkle into the mix. How do you place your content or your advertising "above the fold" on a device that is tiny, and varies the resolution of the page you see? And as it turns out, if you want your advertising to be effective, "above the fold" might not be all that it's cracked up to be anyway, but people cling to what they know, even when things change and what they know is irrelevant.
Eventually, conventional wisdom catches up with technology, or vice versa. It adjusts the space after a period so that it doesn't matter if you put on or two spaces there, the result is the same. Indents, a casualty of early html limitations, are poised to make a return. "Above the fold" will fall by the wayside as page rankings, click throughs and other more relevant benchmarks take precedence.
What worked yesterday, what stopped working last week, what will work tomorrow - some, all or none of it will be relevant soon. In an ever changing world, it can be hard to keep up. The most important thing is to not waste time on things that used to work instead of applying new methods to accomplish the same thing better, faster or both.
Trivially, people continue to believe - and teach - that you should put two spaces after a period. There are now adults who have never used a typewriter, because they grew up with computers and word processing software that spaces type appropriately, and yet they were still taught "two spaces" after every period. It is interesting to me that paragraph indents have disappeared on the internet, and people have adjusted quickly to that, but two spaces after a period? Might as well ask people to give up eating desserts for all the trouble it causes.
Throughout history, we have developed technological innovations with limits that have been fixed or improved upon in further iterations only to have the original, limiting implementation remain the standard bearer. The most painfully obvious one is the QWERTY keyboard layout most of us interact with on a near daily basis. Originally, it was developed to slow people down so that the keys didn't stick together. More than 100 years later, and despite better designed keyboards being available, we continue to hunt and peck our way to carpal tunnel syndrome on the older, accepted, inferior design.
One of the corporate catch phrases that has followed me around for years is "above the fold." This made sense back in the days when print was king, and getting something "above the fold" of a newspaper really was important. Monitors don't fold. They have different resolutions, so what is above the fold on one is not necessarily the same on another. A device like the iPhone throws another wrinkle into the mix. How do you place your content or your advertising "above the fold" on a device that is tiny, and varies the resolution of the page you see? And as it turns out, if you want your advertising to be effective, "above the fold" might not be all that it's cracked up to be anyway, but people cling to what they know, even when things change and what they know is irrelevant.
Eventually, conventional wisdom catches up with technology, or vice versa. It adjusts the space after a period so that it doesn't matter if you put on or two spaces there, the result is the same. Indents, a casualty of early html limitations, are poised to make a return. "Above the fold" will fall by the wayside as page rankings, click throughs and other more relevant benchmarks take precedence.
What worked yesterday, what stopped working last week, what will work tomorrow - some, all or none of it will be relevant soon. In an ever changing world, it can be hard to keep up. The most important thing is to not waste time on things that used to work instead of applying new methods to accomplish the same thing better, faster or both.
