Genesis Redux

In the beginning, God created hardware. But the hardware was without form and void. So God said, "Let there be creatures to create the software for the hardware." And there were software developers. And God saw that they were good.

And God said, "Let there be creatures to test and support the software." And God created them, and called them "quality assurance engineers" and "technical support analysts". And the software developers then had the fear of God upon them.
And God said, "Let there be another breed of creatures to sell and manage the software, so that it may reach the far corners of the world." And God created salespeople, and marketers, and business analysts.
Creepy Creatures
And then God said: "It is not good that all these software creatures should be alone; I will create more creatures to use the software." And God created a firmament between the software developers and the normal creatures. And God called the developers "geeks", and the normal creatures, "users".

And God named the first user, User 1.0, and the second user, User 2.0. And they dwelled in the paradise that God created for them. And the Users delighted in using the software, which was perfect, and without flaws or defect or blemish, and required neither training nor documentation.
The Knowledge Application
And God spoke to the Users, saying "You may use any software you desire, but the Knowledge Application you shall not use. For on the day that you do, you will know pain."

Now in the paradise that God created, there was the Salesperson, a creature more crafty than any other beast. The Salesperson said to User 2.0, "Did God actually say, 'Do not run the Knowledge Application?'" And User 2.0 said, "Of all the software we may use, but from the Knowledge Application, God has said, 'You shall not use, for then you will know pain.'"
And the crafty Salesperson said: "You will not know pain. For God knows that on the day you run the Knowledge Application, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing truth and falsehood."

Original Sin
So User 2.0 and User 1.0 ran the Knowledge Application and saw that it was a delight to the mind, and that it made them wise. And the eyes of both of them were opened. And they saw that their software had a defect, so they called tech support.

And God saw that the Users had called tech support and called out, angrily, "Who told you that the software had a defect? Have you used the Knowledge Application which I commanded you not to use?" And User 1.0 said, "The User 2.0 you created gave me the Knowledge Application, and I ran it."

Then the God said to User 2.0, "What is this you have done?" And User 2.0 said, "The Salesperson deceived me, and I ran the Knowledge Application."
Vengeance is Mine

And God said to the Users: "Because you have partaken of the Knowledge Application, you will know pain. You shall be confounded by software and hardware, and you will know of endless bugs, and system crashes, and application instability that will drive you to madness. And you will require extensive training, support, maintenance, upgrades, and documentation so that you will be able to use the software."

God's Finest Creature
And God said, "Let us make one final creature, in our image." And he created the Technical Writer and blasted the knowledge of the software into it.

And God said to the Technical Writer: "Behold, the world will come to know you as the creator and keeper of all practical knowledge. And this is a heavy burden, for you must keep the following commandments:

1. You shall make the meaningless meaningful and the incomprehensible comprehensible.
2. You shall provide truthful and accurate communication to all Users.
3. You shall dedicate yourselves to conciseness, clarity, coherence, completeness, striving to address the needs of those whose products you document.
4. You shall serve the business interests of clients and employers, as long as such loyalty does not violate the public good.
5. You shall contact your clients and employers when you believe material is ambiguous.
6. You shall negotiate realistic, candid agreements on schedules, budgets, and deliverables with clients and employers in the planning stage.
7. You shall seek to promote the public good in your activities.
8. You shall avoid conflicts of interest in the fulfillment of your professional responsibilities and activities.
9. You shall seek candid evaluations of your professional performance from clients and employers, and shall provide candid evaluations of communication products and services.
10. You shall advance the technical communication profession through integrity, high standards, and performance.

A Powerful Promise
And God said: "If you follow these commandments that I have given you, you shall be respected, and prosper, and be as numerous as the stars. But if you stray from these commandments, then you will know my wrath, and the world will despise you and curse you and the user manuals you create, and will never read them.

"So know this - today I set before you a choice between good and evil, between knowledge and ignorance. Choose knowledge, so that you may become wise. And if you do, it shall come to pass that the world will be in awe of you and will seek your wisdom and counsel. And clear and concise information will fill the world as the oceans and the sky. And you will be blessed and called 'a people of the book'. And ignorance and poor documentation will cease to be..."

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Remembering the Future

Time travel is an endlessly fascinating theme in science fiction; there is no shortage of novels, movies and TV shows that explore it. But is time travel only science fiction, or is it really possible?

How Do I Time Travel? Let Me Count the Ways...
In fact, we are all time travelers - we move forward at the rate of one day per day. Of course, the dream is to accelerate this rate, or even better, go backwards. Various scientific theories suggest how this might be possible (I will tell you now that I have tried them all and none of them worked).

• Black holes - Black holes are formed after a large star collapses at the end of its life and is crushed into a small point in space. Black holes have such a powerful gravitational pull that nothing, not even light, can escape from them. Now, if you could travel into a black hole and come out the other end (wherever that is), you could, in theory, come out at a different point in time. There is just one small problem - you would have been crushed into nothing before you even entered the black hole.
  
• Wormholes - Wormholes are better candidates for time travel. Think of wormholes as shortcuts in the universe. To visualize this, spread out the fingers of your hand. Notice the distance from the tip of your forefinger to the tip of your thumb. Now fold your hand inward, so that your forefinger is only a few millimeters from your thumb. Then picture a small tube, like a straw, held between your thumb and forefinger.
  
  Your flat hand represents regular space. Your folded handed represents the idea of "folded" or "warped" space. The tube represents a wormhole - a tunnel that joins these two areas of folded space. If you could travel through this tunnel, you would end up in a different time and place. However, no one even knows whether wormholes exist.
  
• Cosmic Strings - These are defects in the space-time continuum that may have been created many billions of years ago when the universe was formed. They are thinner than atoms and, like black holes, generate an enormous amount of gravitational pull, warping the space-time continuum. But, as with wormholes, no one is even sure they exist.

So there you have it. Of the three possible ways to travel through time, one would turn you into spaghetti and other two may not even exist (and if they do, would probably also turn you into spaghetti or some other pasta). We are going to have to look outside of science if we really want to travel through time.

Travelling through Documentation
One solution may already be under our noses. It is something we work with every day and that millions of people use - documentation. Think about it - what is it that distinguishes technical documentation from literature? It is that literature, like time, is linear. People read novels from the beginning to the end, but they read documentation non-linearly. They usually go directly to the topic they need, read it, and then continue on. Later, they may return to a topic on a previous page, then skip directly to one later in the document. There is little concept of "before" and "after" within a document, except within a specific topic, which should be read from start to finish.

This method of "traveling" through a document is even more apparent with online documentation, which contains hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are the wormholes in a document, or in any website. I can think of no other technology that allows you to so easily move from one location to another than a hyperlinked document or website. Imagining trying to describe this technology to people 50 years ago - they would have no idea what you were talking about.

Time Travel on the Digital Express
We live in a digital age. It is quite easy to take photos and videos of your life, dump them onto a computer and then browse through them with complete disregard for chronological order. Technology has enabled us to become virtual time travelers.

At this point you may be thinking, "this is all well and good, but I still want to actually travel through time." This raises the obvious question: why are we so fascinated with the idea of time travel, especially with traveling back?

Back to the Future
I think it is because deep down, many people wish they could go back in time and change some of the decisions they made. Maybe they would have chosen another profession, another place to live, another partner - the possibilities are endless. Our lives are the sum totals of the choices we have made. We try hard to make the right decisions, but it is only natural to regret some of them. We think "if only" - if only I had done this, if only I had not done that. If, if, if - as they say: "if" is the middle word in "life".

We may think that if we could go back in time, we could easily repair our lives. The problem is that every decision may trigger a new series of events, and new sets of decisions. Even the smallest change can have huge and unpredictable consequences. This theory is known as "The Butterfly Effect", so named because of the idea that even the flapping of a butterfly's wings can create a ripple effect which can ultimately change the weather. So before you go traveling back in time, be aware of the consequences.

Paradoxes and Other Puzzles
Another problem with traveling back in time is all the messy paradoxes it creates. If you go back in time and kill your parents (or, for the less violent among you, simply prevent them from meeting), how could you have been born in the first place? One solution to this problem is alternate universes, the idea that our universe is only one of an infinite series of universes, each containing a different history with different events. In such a scenario, you could prevent your parents from meeting and still be born. The universe would "split" into two - one in which you existed; the other in which you did not.

Keeping all of this in mind, I will demonstrate that in fact, you can go back in time and change the choices you make. If you recall in an earlier column, I demonstrated that our perceptions ultimately determine what exists. That is, our perceptions are reality. So try perceiving this:

Time Travel - The User Guide
Close your eyes (not now, because then you will not be able to read the rest of this column) and imagine moving forward in time. You are drifting ahead through the years… 2010…2020…2030…You are now 85 years old. You are sitting alone peacefully in a comfortable chair in your home. You are looking back on your life and thinking, "if I could do it all again, what would I have done differently? What choices should I have made?" You close your eyes and actually begin moving back in time. 2040…2030…2020…2010…2006. You have been miraculously transported back to 2006.

You have now been given a second chance. What will you do with it?

Don't Forget to Remember
It is easy to remember the past - it has already happened and you cannot change it. We can, however, change the future and the present. In fact, we are living in the days of future past - something we call "the present". We must remember that we have a future, and our decisions affect it. Do not forget your past, be aware of the present, but remember the future.

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The Puzzle of Autism

Imagine you have been kidnapped, taken to a strange land and dumped into a society you know nothing about. The culture and society are vastly different than your own, and their social graces and mannerisms are nothing like yours. No one speaks English.

Imagine trying to communicate with these strangers. Not speaking the language, you quickly become exasperated, frustrated and angry. You don't understand why they don't understand you.
Now imagine how you appear to them. You are completely different, you don't speak their language, and you don't know their ways. You appear to them to be very disturbed, perhaps even insane.

Autism - Defining the Undefinable
This picture is but a small taste of autism. Autism is difficult to define and explain, however, if you have a child with autism, as I do, you work long and hard to learn as much about it as possible.

Autism is part of a spectrum of development disorders that affects communication, learning and social skills. It is, in essence, a complex developmental disability of the mind. There is no known cause or cure, but certain treatments and therapies can help. As many as 1 in 166 people may be autistic, and the rate appears to be growing, although this may be a result of more accurate diagnoses.

Individuals diagnosed with autism often exhibit obsessive behaviours, resistance to change, and strong adherence to routines.

An Autistic Characteristic

Other characteristics of autism include:

• a short attention span
• impulsivity
• self-injurious behaviours
• odd responses to sensory input
• mood swings
• uneven skill development
• problems eating, drinking or sleeping
• unusual fears or anxieties

In some cases, autistics have special abilities. Some are exceptionally gifted at art, music, design or software. Some have extraordinary memories or mathematical abilities, as depicted in the film Rain Man.

Simple Genius
Autistics with special abilities (autistic savants) are much like expert systems, computer programs that simulate intelligence. By answering a specific series of questions, these programs solve specific problems. The problem with these systems is that they are extremely limited in their knowledge. A medical expert system, for example, could be used to diagnose a medical condition. However, if you were ask this system, what is a patient? or what is medically ethical? it would not be able to respond. Like the autistic savant, an expert system is highly intelligent, but unable to see the big picture.

An Intriguing Comparison
Let's look again at the characteristics of autism:

• ability to focus intensely on a narrow range of topics
• obsessive attention to detail
• strong desire for consistency
• interest in complex matters

Now let's look at some characteristics of good information developers:

• ability to focus intensely on a short range of topics (such as information development)
• obsessive attention to detail (such as grammar, spelling and formatting)
• strong desire for consistency (as described in a style guide)
• interest in complex matters (such as software and computers)

The Beauty of Autism
There's obviously a pattern here. In fact, I would say that many people working in software development (myself included) have certain autistic characteristics. We are not autistic per se, but display mildly autistic attributes. This is not a bad thing, however, because there are many things that probably could never have been invented nor maintained without somewhat autistic people working on them. It has been speculated that such brilliant individuals as Einstein, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, and Andy Warhol were on the autistic spectrum. Even Bill Gates is rumoured to have a milder form of autism called Asperger's syndrome, so I like to think we are in good company.

So, if you find yourself displaying autistic traits such as being unusually focused on the content and details of the documents you work on, don't worry. You are simply in the profession for which your mind has been genetically engineered.

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The Power of Words

There's nothing like an election to illustrate how powerful words are. Politicians, pundits, and the media use words to advance their cause or mercilessly attack opponents. Certain words or phrases are loaded but also vague because they have never been clearly defined.

Word Magic
Notice how these words can influence your beliefs:

• Used cars are junk; pre-owned vehicles are reliable.
• I am not fat; I am overweight.
• I hate problems and troubles; I welcome challenges and opportunities.
• He is not a garbage man; he is a sanitation engineer.
• He is not out of work, he's jobless, unemployed, or better still, between jobs.
• I don't care about jungles, but we should save the rain forests.
• A factory oppresses its workers and belches smoke; a manufacturing facility is clean, safe, modern and treats its workers fairly.
• Natural disasters are terrifying; unnatural events are not.
• Being low income is bad. Being poor or homeless is worse. Being a bum is worst of all.
• Ghettos are dangerous; economically disadvantaged areas are not.
• Don't say a child is from a broken home; they are born into a dysfunctional family.
• Guilty people are imprisoned or incarcerated; innocent people are thrown in jail; less innocent people are held in custody.
• Illegal aliens are unwelcome; undocumented immigrants are welcome.
• In war, innocent civilian deaths are tragic, but collateral damage is to be expected.
• Military spending is bad; defense spending is good.
• A military occupation is bad; a peacekeeping force is not.
• Resisters, soldiers, and militants are fighting a legitimate cause. Enemy combatants, terrorists and suicide bombers are not.

And finally:

• Wealthy people are eccentric or mentally ill. Poor people are nuts or crazy. Crazy people live in a sanitarium or nuthouse. The mentally ill live in a mental facility.

A Taxing Thought
Nowhere is political terminology more loaded than in the use of the word tax. It overtaxes my mind how many different words describe this concept, including: fee, duty, charge, surcharge, tariff, toll, levy, cost, and premium. People don't mind paying fees as much as taxes and surcharges.

Phrases containing the word tax are even more controversial. Tax cuts are for the rich; tax relief helps the little guy. A head tax is despicable, but an immigrant landing fee is reasonable. Then there's the estate tax or inheritance tax, the tax on a deceased person's assets. The Republican pollster Frank Luntz recommended that the party use the term death tax when referring to the estate tax, in order to swing public opinion against it. An estate conjures up images of a millionaire family who deserve to be taxed to the hilt. But a death tax? A tax on someone who has just died, and whose family is grieving?! For shame!

English 2.0 - Welcome to the Nightmare
In the terrifying future of George Orwell's "1984", a totalitarian society seeks to eliminate free thought by changing the meaning of words, and even reducing the number of words used. A language called "Newspeak" is developed to that end. Although the novel is satirical, there is much truth in it. Words change thought.

As information developers, we obviously need to be aware of the power of words. Although we usually do not have to deal with such controversial ideas as those previously described, our job is still to define words and use them consistently.

Software - Soft Words
Software is a particularly challenging area in which to choose the right words, because software itself does not "exist" in the regular sense of the word, but represents pure data and form. As a result, many different words can (and unfortunately are) used to describe the same thing, for example:

• open / view
• edit / change / update / modify / revise
• click / select / choose / pick
• window / screen / page / frame / dialog
• undelete / restore
• object / item / element / record / instance

There is no "best" word. However, whatever words you choose must be clear and consistent.

Documenting the Documentalists
Finally, even the words that we use describe our profession are varied and include:

• technical writer
• information developer
• technical communicator

Which of these best describes you? Our job titles are derived from a very small set of words. They are critical, though, because they define who we are, what we do, and ultimately, where we want to go.

Choose your words carefully - they can change everything.

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