How Do We Measure "Better?"

There are those who think software updates are there to provide an increase in revenues back to the Mother Ship. There are those who think they fix bugs, enhance features and streamline the workflow. After buying a new wide-screen computer and several boxes of wide-screen software, we should be productive all out of proportion to our former selves, right? Well, maybe.

As with most things businessy, you would reasonably expect to be able to measure an increase in something vaguely defined as productivity. The net effect of a lot of small increases is a mighty force on the economic landscape. In the middle-late 1990s productivity gains outstripped inflation, briefly. This allowed employers to raise wages without having to raise prices. Think about that and let it sink in for a moment. Wages could go up, but prices didn't have to, in order to cover the increase. Wages and profits rose, but prices didn't follow.

So what does this mean to us? Maybe we replace our computers on a two-year or three-year cycle, or longer. We probably update our software about the same time. Eventually, we get a configuration that is some multiple faster than the one it replaces. Instead of Dreamweaver opening in twenty-three seconds, it now only takes twelve. What do we do with our new-found almost-a-dozen seconds? I wish I could say in these troubled times that I use that moment to spell-check my page or that I start a new one or even that I use that fraction of a moment to familiarize myself with my daily calendar and try to orient the rest of the week in my mind. I probably take a sip of coffee, though.

But even if I charge right into the day, is there really some benefit from being done twelve seconds earlier? Probably not, but the cumulative effect of twelve seconds a day, two hundred and sixty days per year, adds up to fifty-two minutes. Nearly an hour "extra" and even though the individual gains of one minute every week may not yield much, they do yield something, even if it's only the ability to sit in on one more meeting for free, every year.

I had a boss once who wanted to count-up the number of lines of code and markup on a page every Monday, and assign that humble number to me as what I had accomplished. This led, of course, to my splitting up lines of markup or code that could easily have stayed on one line, to adding plenty of <!-- HTML comments --> documenting the work, and so on. It also led to bizarre situations where I would use less efficient means of accomplishing the same task, entirely because it would give me more lines of "work" every week. Even if I could replace a dozen lines of markup with a one-line function, the old work would stay so it looked like I was accomplishing more, at least to him.

But there was no accounting for the three or four false-starts, beginning a project and abandoning a logical path when I suddenly realized we might need to account for a negative number, here, or need more than twelve places for the final answer or whatever. How do you function in such a Dilbert-esque environment? You give 'em what they want. And if all they care about is lines, give 'em lines. I did wonder what his reaction might be though, if I suddenly optimized a page and reduced its line count by a hundred lines or more.

But real productivity gains are attainable. It really is easier to build Web pages today, using Dreamweaver CS4, than it was using older versions of the same program. And it's easier using Dreamweaver than using any of the other programs I've tried. And the more you learn about what you are doing, the faster and "more productive" you become.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, as the saying goes. I am a firm believer in even Baby Steps getting you to some eventual goal. It's all progress. While you're saving-up for that new computer or the new software it craves, learn One More Thing about the program you use the most, every day. Adobe Dreamweaver? Lotus Notes? Microsoft Word? If you can find a way to save even a few seconds every day, the net effect adds up.