As we begin trying to define the focus and scope of our exploration, we’re in our own lives with our eyes and ears open, immersing ourselves in the space. We’re capturing sources for secondary research, speaking to each other about what we’re reading, and as we always do in in a project, bringing mindfulness and reflection to the topic as we experience it ourselves.

Last week we found ourselves reminiscing with wonder about our work environments from the 90s, where we were expected to perform as we do now, but without (among many tools) a way to schedule meetings with each other. If I recall, I never had a calendar (before a shared calendar across an office network appeared) of any kind. Other than an informal “Hey, let’s meet tomorrow at 10 about this…” we just didn’t formalize our schedules with the granularity that is common now. “How did we collaborate without a calendar program?” was my head-scratching takeway. Even though I was there and did it, it is beyond my power to comprehend now.

A few hours later (hooray for serial noticing) I see this post on Alissa Walker‘s Facebook page:

Aha. This is a thing. How did we do X before Y?

So what’s yours? (Yes, we’re crowdsourcing!) For you, what’s the thing you marvel at, where you savor the value of Y to help you do X and can’t imagine (even if you’ve experienced it) how it was possible?

Note that we’re looking for real examples from your own life. We’ll collect ‘em and put together another post with the results.

If you’re seeing this post on our you can comment here. If you’re seeing it on Facebook, you can comment there as well. Or tweet it, using hashtag #XbeforeY. Or drop us an email with your thoughts!

Tags: adapt, omni, technology, the omni project, xbeforey

3 Responses to “Give us your examples: How did we do X before Y?”

How did we meet someone for lunch at a specific time and place? (cellphones have taken care of a lot of last-minute details of “I’m running late” or “I’m on my way” or “I’m on the other side of the street”)

How did we figure out where food trucks were going to be?
(Twitter has started to fix this, quite nicely)

How did we find out about music we’d like?
(I suppose at a music store, at the radio, or mix tapes… now it’s friends sending YouTube links, or Pandora)

Comment by Lora 09.12.11 @ 11:54 am





Lora – a three-fer! I love it. Seems like the food trucks thing could still be improved – or maybe I dunno how to use lists properly? Funny that food trucks seem to have risen in an interesting way along with enabling technologies like Twitter. Maybe that’s putting the food card before the horse, though.

Comment by Steve Portigal 09.12.11 @ 1:03 pm





Another one – How did we figure out who was talking to us on the phone before Caller ID? I remember there used to be a polite way of inquiring who was talking, or informing the person on the other end who you were (I’ve forgotten how this exchange goes now). Now we either a) avoid unknown numbers or b) listen to a semi-familiar voice immediately start talking, assuming that we’ll eventually figure out who it is based on what they’re talking about.

Comment by Lora 09.13.11 @ 3:31 pm