Smart production-minded buyers meanwhile should avoid the “user-friendly” software that’s easy to learn but hard to use. One example is the Select, a clunky word processor discussed in Chapter 5 after WordStar. I expressed my loathing with my wallet. Although Select came free with my Kaypro, I junked it. Had I not spent my $250 on WordStar, I would have taken much, much longer to write this book.[[4]]
In Chapter 6, “Three Software Stories,” businessmen tell how they coexisted—or didn’t—with their software. One of them is the New York real estate executive mentioned earlier. He saved his new employer $200,000 a year by boning up on software and using micros rather than expensive time and an outside company’s mainframe. A Maryland construction executive did well, too. He thinks his software knowledge helped him snare a new job as a company president with one-third interest in the firm. Like the New Yorker, he successfully concentrated on micros as they related to his job. Another man, an accountant good at his work but uneasy around computers, offers some observations on the failings of existing software and his difficulties finding the right program.
Graphics will be one of the hotter software topics over the next few years, now that cheap computers can do more visual tricks. And in Chapter 7 and Backup VII, you’ll learn (1) the basics, (2) when charts are worth the trouble, and (3) how to select the best programs in that category. Most existing computer guides are overly technical about graphics, or they just about shun the subject. That’s too bad. Graphics can actually save your company money; computerized charts can help you set priorities and keep your projects on schedule. At times, too, there are other advantages. A little Macintosh won’t replace your art department, but it might enable you to whip up flashy graphs to impress your customers.
Even with the supposedly simple Mac-style machines, however, you may still need a good consultant—one of the topics of Chapter 8, “People.”
He or she can help you select the right software, for instance, or teach you how to use it. But you can’t always trust credentials, and here you’ll read of a young company that wasted $40,000 on the wrong consultants and their bungles. One man was so learned in computers that he had helped design the systems on an aircraft carrier, yet he lacked the exact technical expertise to help the company get its work done.
My old newspaper in the Midwest made another people-type mistake, letting a computer expert befuddle staffers with technical jargon. A white-haired editor suffered especially. Although he knew his town better than did just about any other newsman and had been a fixture in the scruffy city rooms since World War II, the paper exiled him from the copy desk after the training program failed him. His health gave out amid the strain, and he ended up on extended sick leave, done in partly by the course’s scary talk of bits and bytes. You use a calculator without being—as one man put it—“calculator literate.” Why must you be “computer literate”? Be so if you’re an aspiring programmer or if you enjoy computers as a hobby. If, however, you don’t, well, forget it. Instead, simply concentrate on (1) finding the right experts for the grubby technical chores and (2) helping yourself and your employees learn the programs of use on the job.
You can also treat people well by guarding against “The Hal Syndrome.” I’ve named Chapter 9 after the uppity computer in 2001 and 2010.
The best weapons against Hal are good, common-sense ones, like viewable screens and easy-to-use keyboards, which can cut down on headaches and backaches. Forget about the white tiles and bright fluorescents you see in traditional computer rooms. They can torture your eyes. As for keyboards, you’ll learn the wisdom of using the detachable kind, which makes it easier for you to be the right distance from both the keyboard and the screen. Why not buy equipment that can adjust to both your eyes and your back? Foreigners caught on to this issue much more quickly than we did; some European firms even sawed the keyboards off American-made terminals. And now U.S. workers are demanding action. “They affected my stomach quite a bit,” a former insurance company worker says of the machines that caused her to quit her job. “Most days I worked I would throw up in the ladies room.” Whether you use micros or big computers, you’ll get more work out of people—and be able to hire better ones—if the equipment is comfortable to use. Still another precaution against Hal is good job design. See if you can rotate your employees’ computer work with other duties to reduce the stress of being at the keyboard all day.
In the Hal Syndrome chapter, you won’t simply read academic wisdom. Instead, you’ll hear about the true health and safety concerns of people working the computer keyboards—eminently valid worries in many cases.
And you’ll read in an accompanying backup about another hot topic in this era of contact between man and machine. It’s the mouse, the palm-sized gadget that you push along your desktop to guide the cursor (the little blinking line or other marker that shows where you’re typing on the computer screen).