Bundled for efficiency
We remark on a technological tendency that you’ve (no doubt) already noticed.
Our tutoring consultant is our window on the contemporary corporate world, since he works for a large nationwide company. The software he uses for certain necessary tasks is part of a bundle of many different parts. He views the student schedule in a spreadsheet, occasionally sends and receives company emails, makes entries in the student’s notebooks, sets them tests and problem sets to prepare for the SAT; all different programs, but with one log-in. There is more. He has rarely used the virtual meeting feature, though it’s a daily task for higher-ups in the organization (virtual sessions with students are held on a different piece of software). There is a team chat, which he also has only used a few times. The ability for several people to see and annotate a document is routinely used for college entrance essays, something he isn’t involved in. And of course there are features in the bundle that his company doesn’t have a use for, but come with it anyway. The collection of many interacting parts makes for significantly increased efficiency and (in principle) convenience.
No doubt it identifies us as curmudgeons when we murmur, “single point of failure.” All this with one log-in means it’s all vulnerable if something fails. Maybe that idea is behind something we’ve noticed recently: many of our separate log-ins are now requiring a two-step process. Our navigator likens it to adding armor to a ship, instead of building in more watertight compartments. But even if all the users are careful about security, the fact remains that if the main site has a problem, nothing works.
On a lower level, the multitude of options can be annoying. Our tutor’s boss was in the habit of sending out information in the chat feature instead of by email; the tutor never had the chat open. Each log-in he has to run through several steps to turn down options he doesn’t use. Then there’s the knobology. Every bit of the software has its own set of keystrokes or menu options, many of which are far from obvious. To learn them all would take a great deal of time and many YouTube videos. It strikes us that it might be a good thing for a job-seeker to put in one’s resumé “Expert in all aspects of the XXX system,” assuming that’s what the target company uses. At least it might avoid an early rejection. But what if one’s dream job is in a company that uses YYY? Even if one were hired, there would be the task of relearning (something our tutor went through when his company switched systems a few years ago).
Well, no doubt this trend will continue. The bundling of things into feature-filled software systems can actually make some things more efficient. Moreover, the software companies have a strong incentive to keep it up: the greater number of your activities occur on their platform, the more information they have about you; and information is power and income these days. And the lower the risk of you shifting all these things to a rival system. This position can be abused. On several sites we use, after logging in the screen is taken up completely by an ad for something else the company is selling. There is no “dismiss” button, no “I’m not interested,” and the secret method to get around the ad takes time to work out.
Our tutor still does most of his teaching with pen and paper, though.
