Embrace Change (Premium)

This old dog is regularly learning new tricks, even though I find change as difficult as just anyone, I bet.

Part of it is the job: I feel like I can’t legitimately claim that “x is better than y” if I don’t keep checking in on “y” to make sure things haven’t changed. So one of the thing I do regularly is to continually reevaluate, well, just about everything. The hardware platforms I use. The apps. The services. My work flow and daily work habits. Whatever. I’ve literally been doing this for over 20 years.

But part of it just a personal defect: Whether I’m never happy or comfortable or whatever, I just like noodling around. I like to poke a stick in the wheel and see what happens. It usually ends badly. But that’s how you learn.

Writing about this is a little difficult, but even casual readers of this site will notice the side-effects. There are small changes like switching music services or testing whether online services can replace cable TV. Bigger changes like switching from Microsoft Word to a plain text Markdown editor. And life changes like moving to a new house in a new state, even though we had no plans to do so until just a few months prior.

This habit of constantly testing and reevaluating would go mostly unnoticed if I didn’t mention it, because it happens largely outside of the normal content I write for the site. But based on some of the comments my articles receive, it’s clear that some people don’t understand me at all. Some believe me to be “biased” either to or away from Microsoft, or Google, or whatever company is the subject at the time. As if bias was a bad word, or as if they were using the term correctly in the first place.

Folks, we’re all biased. Bias is just the natural effect of experience.

One obvious example. Earlier this year, I spent weeks trying to adapt to Windows 10 S and, more recently, I’ve been using this system regularly in updating Windows 10 Field Guide for the Fall Creators Update. (I updated two chapters over the weekend.) Then, as I now, I’ve found that a Google Chromebook makes a lot more sense than a PC running Windows 10 S. In general. For most people.

That should be alarming to Microsoft. It should not be alarming to readers. And yet. For some, it is incredibly alarming.

But these things did not, and do not, happen in isolation. I also spent much of 2017 evaluating the 10.5-inch iPad Pro with iOS 11, and I’ve have found that experience to be quite lacking from a productivity standpoint. Meaning, I’m not “biased” against Windows 10 S. I’m “biased” to things that actually work well.

And, to be clear, I’ve been using Chromebooks for years. I’ve probably owned at least seven of them, if not more. In fact, I owned the original Google CR-48, the very first Chromebook. I kind of feel like I go back as far as one can with Chromebook. That’s not bias. It’s experience. (And, on that note, I’ve also owned many, many iPads. Almost every single version ever made.)

But you know, whatever. I’m a Windows guy. I’m not qualified to opine on these other platforms, apparently. People don’t like it when you get outside your little box. Even though I’ve been literally doing this for my entire career. Testing Linux when that looked like it might matter on the desktop, starting in the mid-1990s. Testing systems—like BeOS, OpenStep, or webOS—that failed and most people have long forgotten. I have never taken the insular viewpoint, have never been a platform or corporate cheerleader. I have only used what works best, and what I can recommend to others.

But it’s 2017. I’ve written a lot over the years about the decline of Windows and PCs, and that more mobile and modern platforms—iOS and Android, of course, but now Chrome OS/Chromebook as well—already play a much bigger role in determining what personal computing is today. And that they will only play a bigger role as we move forward.

And so I will keep testing.

And it’s not just testing a specific platform—some version of iOS or whatever—but also rethinking how one might do things. Like all of you, I have my own work flow, my own … traditions. I have become efficient over the years, in part from familiarity with my tools and methods, but also from really looking at how I might change and then adapt myself when it made sense to do so.

Look, I’m not suggesting that everyone reading this takes the time to test everything they use, plus all of the competition. That’s a role that I and many others can play, a service we can offer. You trust me or you don’t. Some of you are apparently keeping a tally of how often I’ve been “right” or “wrong” about whatever, and that is amusing because there’s no such thing. This is a continuum, and things change all the time. Yesterday’s hero is tomorrow’s goat. And vice versa.

But do think about change. Do think about those high-value areas where the risk and effort of change could be outweighed by the benefits. Much of what I write and speak about involves such things, at a high level. And, at times, it means recommending a non-Microsoft thing, a Google Photos service, perhaps, or an iPhone. This isn’t a betrayal, it’s me doing right by myself, and by you. It’s what I should be doing. It’s healthy.

As for Windows 10 S specifically, I will keep trying. Because things change. And I can and will embrace that change when and if it makes sense to do so. You should expect nothing less from me. And you should do the same yourself.