TURN IT OFF   Interview: Gil Gordon Gil Gordon http://www.gilgordon.com/ E-mail, voice mail, mobile phones....Advancing technology, while expanding the boundary of virtual offices, can be a heavy constraint on people's life. How can we find a balance between work life and private life in this technological modern world? Gil Gordon talks about it referring to his recently published book Turn It Off. He is a forerunner and expert in the field of teleworking. ECIFFO: Could you start with the background leading up to this book? Gil Gordon: It all goes back to 7 years ago, when I started up my own Web site and my work and life began to change a lot. At that time I was always checking my voice mail even when I took my family out to Disneyland or some National Park. My family resented it, saying that interrupted the vacation. And it wasn't really good for my clients either, because I had to say, "Well, I'm sorry I'm on vacation. Could you wait until I come back?" This sort of thing made me think about how we should relate to the virtual office, which allows us to work wherever we are. ECIFFO: Compared to those times, our society now is more digitized and virtualized. Gil Gordon: Yes. We can access the Internet from the top of a mountain in a ski resort. If we keep checking e-mail while we are on vacation, the purpose of having a vacation is lost. Fatigue accumulates over a long period. I did some research about the history of paid vacations in the U.S. and found out that it's a fairly new concept. Around the middle of the 19th century, employers realized too many workers were dying and they started to give workers paid time off. At that time workers were working 6 or 7 days a week. This book, Turn It Off, sends a message to workers today that what happened to workers in old times is happening to them. ECIFFO: You talked about vacations. What about our daily family life? Gil Gordon: Here is an interesting paradox. Some people think mobile phones and e-mail allow them to have better family life. They say, "If it were not for that, I would have to stay in office until later." I don't think so. Certainly you are physically at home, but doing office work at home. Does that help family life? You temporarily become a father or mother and then go back to the role of an office worker. Use "Three-zone Model" Effectively to Find a Balance between Work Life and Private Life ECIFFO: In this book, you propose a checklist to find how much work you accomplish outside the office and the "three-zone model" by which to divide a week into on duty, mid duty and off duty and draw a graph. Gil Gordon: I would like people to use them as a tool. If you want free time, you have to have a concrete plan. Even if you want to get more exercise, you really can't achieve it unless you make a plan to say "I'm gonna walk for 15 minutes." The three-zone model" makes you more aware of how to use 168 hours we all have each week. ECIFFO: If people use the checklist, they realize that they spend more time on work than they expected. Gil Gordon: Yes, but if you are a knowledge worker, your profit doesn't grow in relation to the hours you work. If you're a factory worker and work an hour longer, you get that much more output. The knowledge worker doesn't work that way. People often say something like this. "I have to keep my mobile phone on 24 hours a day, because I have to be able to answer it when my client calls me to find out about the delivery of a certain order." But if the company installs a system whereby the client can access the supplier's shipping system, that person doesn't have to answer the call in the first place. And this will simplify work processes. ECIFFO: What companies support what you say? Gil Gordon: Companies like Hewlett Packard and Deloitte & Touche do. Ernst & Young also pays a lot of attention to shortening employees' working hours. Suppose they receive a call from one of their clients saying they need 6 people in San Francisco tomorrow. The normal response would be to say yes. But they try to solve the problem without flying their workers to San Francisco, if possible, by video conferencing for example. ECIFFO: You are saying new technology can facilitate work or it can constrain workers. Gil Gordon: In the face of new technology, it is important for people to make a conscious effort to choose. There are people who send and receive 100 e-mail messages a day. But my style is this. When somebody sends me a message, I ignore it. When that person send the same message again, I take a little notice and ignore it. (laughter) When it is sent the third time, I think it is something I should pay attention and answer it. We Need a New Protocol for New Technology ECIFFO: What problem would high technology cause in areas other than working hours? Gil Gordon: People often tend to think technology is always something necessary and more important than anything else. A good example is instant communication such as mobile phone conversation. When our cell phone rings, we think it is an emergency call, although it isn't. We saw the same thing happen about 25 years ago when Federal Express first began to be popular. Federal Express was used only for urgent things, so that whenever a Federal Express package arrived, people had to stop everything and open it. The same was true of the fax machine when it first appeared. The document is not that important simply because it is sent in 20 seconds. However, when it comes to mobile phones, we don't know how to control them. ECIFFO: One of my colleagues told me that he and his wife were having dinner and talking about cell phones, she looked at her phone and said, "Oops, a message." She stopped eating and started answering. So my colleague said, "Hey, it's just a message. You don't have to answer it now." Gil Gordon: That's right. People tend to think electronic communication is more important than real life. Sometimes it is. But if you come to think it is always so, it is a very dangerous sign. Now many technologies are changing social norms and the way we communicate. We must learn to be smarter users of technology. ECIFFO: Yes, but changes are happening too abruptly. New technologies are being developed one after another. Gil Gordon: Exactly. That's an important point. Because changes are occurring in such a short span of time, we do not have enough time to develop protocols for those technologies and tools. When the telephone first came about, there was a lot of discussion about protocols, about what to say when you answered the phone. The idea of saying "hello" came very late. ECIFFO: What were the first ones? Gil Gordon: People thought they should identify themselves first and say, "This is Gil Gordon." or say something cordial such as "Good morning." The protocol developed after a lot of trials and errors. The same is true of the protocol for virtual offices. For example, if you go out with your friends to dinner and your cell phone rings frequently at a dinner table and each time it rings, you excuse yourself from the table to answer it, your friends would stop inviting you to go with for dinner. We must find a way to work while keeping a harmony with our family, friends and people around us. Of course I don't want to interrupt a person who chooses to check e-mail at 11:00 in the evening or on vacation. If they want to do that, that's all right for them. But if there is a person who feels resentful or skeptical about it, it is that person I try to speak to. ECIFFO: It seems to me that you created through this book an opportunity for people to think, "Oh, it's not just me." Gil Gordon: Yes, that's one of the things I try to do in this book. When I give a talk, I always ask the audience, "How many of you checked e-mail or voice mail at least once a day while you were on vacation last time?" Then almost a half of the hands go up. What is important is that they raise their hands as if they were feeling ashamed. And then they look around and realize they are not alone and feel relieved. Changes Will Keep Occurring, but It Is the Next Generation Who Really Changes our Society. ECIFFO: What do you think will happen to our future, our next generation, for example? Gil Gordon: It all depends on what kind of technology will be developed and how smart we will be about using that technology. Basically I am optimistic. In terms of work, companies will pay more attention to workers' life and free time. Otherwise, they can't capture good workers. In terms of technology, on the other hand, technology will become more and more wireless. We will have chips to be implanted under the skin. With respect to how to cope with technology, our generation is right at the edge. Younger people have grown up with technology. Their children will take technology for granted, because it is there before they are born. I assume real changes will take place only in 10 or 15 years from now when young people are grown up and when old type managers who are accustomed to old organizational structures are gone. (an excerpt from ECIFFO 39 October 15, 2001)