Soft(ware) Selling

Three days ago, I had a quintessential digital experience. I bought my father, 93, living in Los Angeles and suffering from what was once called “failing legs”, a gift for Father’s Day, specifically two books from Amazon.  The whole experience took a total of three minutes.  To explain, I perused a review of a book in the New York Times edition that I receive via email. I then logged into my Amazon account, wrote in the author’s name, clicked “add to cart”. I magically saw a related book that I knew my father would like and added it to the cart.  I then placed my order within 30 seconds as the site remembered my address and credit card number. Instantly, I received an email from Amazon that my order had been placed. All this is 180 seconds. For some people, it is the epitome of the modern age, instant pleasure.

However, I cannot say that it was a pleasure. I am not alone in thinking so either. Strange as it may seem to some people, I would have preferred driving my father to the bookstore, finding parking, wheeling him around the store, glancing at books, both relevant and irrelevant, waiting to pay at the cashier, and driving him back home. I say so not only because I live in Israel, rather far from him physically, but also because I enjoy the book buying experience.  The books that are purchased are only the icing on the cake.  It is touching the books, seeing books that I may (but probably won’t) buy in the future, and soaking in the environment.  Two years ago, I was in a beautiful, huge bookstore in Dublin.  Due to weight limitations for my valise, I was limited a few paperbacks but I felt that I could have bought half the store.  I became outright euphoric. 

Alas, I cannot say that about my Amazon experience.  I can describe the latter as time-efficient, convenient and even hassle free. I am sure that the books will arrive on time and that my father will like the books.  Yet, somehow, my virtual shopping was so emotionally sterile. Sterility is very desirable in operating theatres but fundamentally less so in the act of purchasing. I am truly looking forward to going to that bookstore on my next trip to LA.

Executive order

Words can sound good or bad not just in the sense of their auditory quality but also in their associational impact. By the latter I mean the emotional feeling created by that word, or at least one meaning of the word.  Of course, most words are neutral in themselves but life experiences shade the word. For example, a book is stack of papers bound together but a person’s experience may make render the association either positive, a wonderful tranquil experience, or negative, the objects that made my life at school miserable.  In some cases, even without first experience, the mere picturing of the word creates negative impressions. For instance, almost none of us have witnessed an amputation but the image of saw and lots of blood makes the process rather scary and unpleasant.

An interesting example of the associational complexity is the word execute.  For the average person, this word brings up the image of person standing against the wall or sitting in an electric chair, reinforced by repeated images in movies and TV documentaries (Woody Allen’s Love and Death and The Green Mile immediately come to mind). Even the most unsophisticated understand that execution is a once in a lifetime experience of a particularly bad type. Thus, execution has gotten itself a bad name.

Law has reinforced this attitude, at least for some people.  To execute a judgment means to carry it out, as in placing a lien on a bank account or repossessing a car or house.  For the recipient, it is clearly a traumatic experience even if not entirely unexpected at the time. Combined with the word’s first context, execution of a court order sounds like a death sentence.  For that reason, in England and the United States but not France, it is called enforcement. As Hannah Arendt explained in With Eichmann in Jerusalem, it was psychologically much easier to carry out the final settlement than murder.

Curiously, if the context is clear enough and other words are added, execution becomes much more palatable: Sports teams must execute the coach’s plan to succeed; it is the job of the President to execute the law; all persons are entitled to execute their right of attorney.  Most people do not grimace when hearing such phrases since death is far from their thoughts when hearing them.

So, alas, a rose is not always a rose; sometimes it is a thorn bush either due to a bee sting or possibly an allergy to roses. The why of our emotional associations to words is complex but nobody can deny their existence.

Teaching then and now

Computers have changed all aspects of life, including in Israel.  It is hard to imagine how people coped without instant, mobile and powerful computing devices.  After finishing a lesson a few days ago, I thought remembered how I used to prepare and teach a lesson when I began my career, some 30 years ago. The comparison with today really brought that message home.

I recall how careful I had to be organizing the materials in those days (for high school).  Photocopying had to be organized a few days in advance.  My teacher's briefcase was very wide and filled with numerous nylon bags, each with its handout, my "kit" if things went wrong as well as for that day's lesson. In a sandwich bag, I kept my chalk, which had almost been replaced by markers but not yet. At the start of the lesson, I checked role and confirmed that each student had brought his/her book or pamphlet (without which they could not participate in the lesson). Any change in the lesson required me to write on the board, preferably legibly, quite a challenge for me since I have the great ability to write illegibly in three alphabets, Latin, Hebrew and Russian. Of course, teaching was always in the framework of the book chosen by the staff. In other words, the material was not always relevant or up-to-date nor were the exercises exactly what I wanted. Bringing auto-visual materials to class was such an administrative hassle that I never did. At the end of the lesson, students handed in their homework handwritten on paper, adding to the paper load In other words, lessons were heavy, teacher centered and very structured.

My lesson this week was quite different. I walked in some five minutes early with a very thin portfolio bag, almost empty, basically containing attendance lists, pens and my glasses (the last change is not positive).  I downloaded the word texts from the Moodle site and turned on the overhead project and setup the YouTube video I wanted to show. I began the lesson by showing the students (college this time) a video on public speaking technique. After a short discussion, I had the students discuss in groups the organization of an article, which they downloaded from that same Moodle site, followed by the writing in pairs of a summary based on that discussion in class, of course in Word. I reminded them to use spell-check before sending it to my email and told them that I would return their graded summary by email with all editing clearly marked in track changes. One of the students had a question about sentence syntax. I opened up a blank Word document and wrote several versions to help explain my point.  My feeling was that we, or at least I, had had a stressless lesson.

It should be noted that the changes are truly fine and dandy as long as the computer and Internet work properly. If not, we are back to good old days, without the chalk of course. Still, to paraphrase, teaching sure ain't what it used to be.