future of work

this isn't exactly about metaphor but it's related, and it uses related case studies about skeumorphisms in early iPhones, and how long it took to bust old assumptions

early cars were "horseless carriages" but still had the driver sitting high enough to see over a horse, now for no particular reason (though maybe actually still necessary while there were other peoples' horses to see over, idk)

coins a useful term valley of mismatch, when old metaphors are being applied to new technology or behaviors, making the new thing look worse than the old thing because it's still functioning in the old's terms

> I know, remote workers have been just around the corner for 20 years. And they are on the rise, but we’re still crossing the valley of mismatch, trying to apply the logic of the old paradigm to the new one. For now, remote work still means “just like colocated work, only with worse image and sound.” And as VCs like to repeat, it takes a 10x improvement for a new solution to replace the status quo. We need to find the workflows native to remote before it can replace colocation. You’ll know we’re there when we replace “Slack isn’t working for this — let’s meet in person?” by “in person isn’t working — let’s meet in VR?”

> That’s one of California’s hidden advantages: the mild climate means there’s lots of marginal space. In cold places that margin gets trimmed off. There’s a sharper line between outside and inside, and only projects that are officially sanctioned — by organizations, or parents, or wives, or at least by oneself — get proper indoor space. That raises the activation energy for new ideas. You can’t just tinker. You have to justify.

> Software is making us all Californians: it’s like a giant heat light, turning the world into a marginal space where experimentation needs no justification.