There is something symbolic about it: organising an IT conference in the Central Hall in London. Right next to the Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, The Open Group’s Architecture Practitioners Conference takes place in one of the landmark buildings of the protestant Methodist church. Established in the 18th century by John Wesley, the Methodist movement consists of people that aim to live a devout, serious life. Not some noncommittal philosophising about the heavenly glory and all that, but practicing faith every dag again, through dedicated, hard work. It’s only when you share your meal in the soup kitchen with the underprivileged of this world, that you start to experience the real essence of faith, so the Methodists believe.

Interesting thinking and at the very least, it gives an extra dimension to the panel discussion on the podium. The topic today is that eternal tension that we know all too well in the world of information technology: the tension between the long term and the short term. In the panel team we find IT architects, strategists and a market analyst (no, not exactly the underprivileged). The hypothesis discussed is that the shallowness and ad-hoc focus of today’s economic climate asks for a more sensible and architected approach. That way, the requirements of the business can be better understood and more successfully aligned with technology solutions. Also, it will be easier to achieve – and demonstrate – the value of technology. It’s all matter of reserving the right time to create a ‘platform for change’.

A politically correct argument that nobody can really oppose to. And at first sight, a clear plea indeed for a more careful approach to information technology, or Slow IT.

But one of the panel members, the CIO of Transport for London, is in no mood to be politically correct. “Yes, architecture and strategy” he pronounces these words with just the subtlest hint of disdain “all of that is absolutely crucial, but if the buses don’t run tomorrow because of a computer error nothing else matters much anymore; let’s make sure we master the basics first”. Being a battle-hardened manager of quite some IT departments, he is proud to tell the audience that he brought back the size of his architects team to just one fifth. “Anybody who doesn’t truly understand what happens in the everyday operations or fails to bring direct value to it, is of no use to me”.

Now that warms up the audience. John Wesley would be proud of it: how spiritual and high our ambitions may be, we can only truly live up to them through the sobering experience of daily practice. Dreaming about Business/IT fusion, perpetual innovation and Web 2.0? Fine. Just make sure my workstation functions every morning first.

And the one does not exclude the other. Having an extraordinary good grip on infrastructure and the basic applications motivates: it generates exactly the positive energy that is needed to explore new ways over and over again. The foundation of change therefore is in repetition, routine and control. Actually, I consider that a typical slow thing and I am sure that many seasoned ’slow cooks’ would agree.

Wax On, Wax Off, as another spiritual leader would say. Change yourself, but always with both feet firmly on the ground. For that, you don’t need to be a Methodist to say hallelujah.

By most reckonings weeds and animal pests are a nuisance. Modern agriculture’s response generally involves spraying. Despite the polluting and impoverishing effects of agrochemicals on the landscape, their use is hardly like to stop. Besides, liquid combat (or GM crops with the same toxic effects as pesticides) is the only efficient way of removing nature’s unwanted stubble and incomers. At least, that is what we are bamboozled into believing.

Philip Trevelyan, former London film maker - now farmer, musician and entrepreneur is not so convinced. Tired of city life, he opted for life with a slower tempo. In 1997, he set up the Lazy Dog Tool Company, to make hand tools for farmers and growers. What he created, though, turned out to be far more than a slow-tech reaction to weed control through spraying.

In grassland and crop-growing areas, and especially in conservation areas, manual digging and pulling may be a better bet than agro-chemicals; and, at the same time, one that helps retain ecosystem robustness. The problem, though, is that this is not just hard work; it is too costly and inefficient too. Or is it?

Not if you have the right tools, Philip believes. Lazy Dog refers to the first tool produced by his company; a fork for lifting and removing tap-roots such as spear-thistle roots, ragwort and nettles. Unlike most conventional tools, Lazy tools are ergonomically designed. The operator works without needing to bend and can continue for extended periods, with much less physical effort than using conventional hand tools.

So Trevelyan’s slow technology goes beyond re-inventing what old-fashioned tillers of the land already had at hand long ago. It may not be hands-free, but it is an agro-chemical-free method of weed control and eradication.

Far from inefficient, backward technology, lazy tools allow contract
operators, or ‘gangs’, to work for prolonged periods with minimal fatigue, in most weathers. Use of agricultural sprays, in contrast, can only be used in restricted conditions, adding inefficiency to operations - a matter, conveniently brushed aside in most performance evaluations. If it is blowing a gale, for example, neighbours may not appreciate a free dose of herbicide or pesticide falling out on their land, or in their garden.

But what about efficiency of lazy weeding; can this approach really be a viable alternative to advanced farming technologies now so widely available? In a nutshell, it depends how we measure efficiency, but the bottom line is that it can.

Besides, lazy offensives result in the complete removal of a weed, virtually preventing re-growth the following year and further increasing this slow-tech’s efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Spraying with herbicides, in contrast, unless you use something really deadly (and completely unselective), like the innocuous- sounding 2,4-D or 2,4, 5-T, generally needs to be done more frequently; that is something else conveniently overlooked in efficiency assessments for agro-chemicals.

Not only that, UK water companies have to remove pesticides from our drinking water, at a cost of around £120 million year. But the real irony is the fact that water-board tenants in major water catchment areas actually spray docks and thistles routinely.

There’s certainly a knack to learning how to slow down successfully, without compromising on other areas of life.

One of the motivations for slowing down is often an improved work/life balance. But the elusive balance is something that’s much easier to chase than it is to achieve.

As my job search continues, there have been increasing moments of wondering whether it is possible to achieve the career I once had, working in a way that I enjoy, easily paying the bills, yet maintaining a slower approach to things. There is also an impatience to get back to work that is beginning to tempt me to compromise on these principles more than one should.

As most successful people would agree, patience doesn’t come easily. So despite the econonomic downturn and everybody telling me that there just aren’t many jobs out there, I’ve been determined to find one quickly and prove everybody wrong. There’s no great urgency on my part, my redundancy money isn’t dwindling too fast, but the workaholic tendencies are pushing me to hurry up and get employed.

Despite rarely getting responses to earlier applications, suddenly some roles were available, and companies were wanting to meet with me quickly. In one case, the role sounded like it was far too big a job for me - even if I was happy to go back to a big workload and the related pressure, it seemed like a very stressful environment, with lots of responsibility and lots of staff to manage and oversee. A lot of responsibility, but for a great salary. And a prestigious role to have on my CV. Hmmmm… tempting.

I hadn’t even wanted to apply initially, due to the office location outside of London. A one hour commute each way might not seem too bad, but the work/life balance suddenly shifts towards the work side, with no time for hobbies or after work catchups with friends. I envisaged long days, commuting under dreary grey skies, to a woeful anonymous business park, working long hours to make a good impression and ending up working/sleeping/eating and little else on a weekly basis. Yet I went ahead and applied for the job.

While the first interview went well, I was surprised to hear that they wanted to see me back again - as I had rightly assessed, this role was much bigger than anything I’d ever done before. Then I learnt it was down to just me and one other applicant. I disregarded all of my rightful doubts about it, and resisted the urge to withdraw from the race. Practical me over-ruled my emotions and stuck with it.

Even the trip to the second interview proved stressful. Running and rushing to connect with infrequent trains, arguing with ticket machines, leaping through closing train doors - my blood pressure rising throughout.

While I questioned what I was doing, going through all of this for a job that I didn’t think I’d get and indeed, didn’t even want, there were still positives. The fact that I could even feel myself getting so stressed reminded me that I wasn’t that stressed out workaholic anymore, and that awareness is something it’s important to retain. Six months ago, I wouldn’t have even noticed because I was almost constantly in a stressed out state, running from meeting to meeting, juggling demands, without any time to process the fact that this might not be healthy or sustainable.

It came as little surprise when late last week, I learnt that I didn’t get the job. And I wasn’t disappointed, not even slightly. I was, and remain, relieved. Because the choice didn’t rest with me anymore. I didn’t have to confront the notion that I might have had to turn it down if it had been offered to me. It seems irresponsible in these economic times to even entertain the thought of choosing lifestyle over a job. To contemplate waiting until something that suits me, and the balance I’m trying to achieve, comes along. Because despite all of my best intentions, I don’t think that I could look the gift horse in the mouth and say ‘no thanks’

Perhaps it helped that the moment the interview was over, everyone frantically checked their Blackberries. Or that I learnt in the course of the interview that there weren’t 20+ staff to oversee, but 70+. Or that the train ride there and back was long and arduous. All I know is that someone else will start in that job, probably today. And I wish him luck, genuinely.

I just wish that I was brave enough to have made the choice, rather than needing to have it made for me. Maybe next time.

Note to self: only apply for jobs that you actually want, care about getting and that will allow for a life outside of work.

Slow reading is about reading at a reflective pace.

There are many different kinds of reading, both fast and slow. Fast reading is greatly facilitated by digital technology. For a time, we thought that digital technology would replace books altogether. We were wrong about that. Print and books are more prevalent than ever. We are in the middle of a cultural shift that is still learning the proper place of digital technology. Fast information is terrific when we need a quick, rough answer, but like fast food it often leaves one hungering for something more substantial. Digital technology is terrific for finding information and reading short snippets, but print and books lend themselves to slow reading, a form of reading that is more pleasant and often is the only way to really understand a concept.

Many types of reading are improved by reading slowly: literature with rich dimensions that might be missed if read too quickly; local stories that engage our personal memories; and research materials that require sustained thought for understanding. Slow readers might only read a page or two at a time, reading and re-reading until they apprehend the experience or meaning represented in the text.

Slow readers often enjoy a sensual relationship with their information — noticing the well-selected binding, paper, illustrations and type; sub-vocalizing or reading the text aloud to hear it. Slow readers prefer books over screens, for the superior readability of paper, but also for the fixity of print. Print captures ideas and gives them a stillness that allows the reader to open deeply to them. The binding of a book captures an experience or idea at a particular space and time. When the reading is complete, you place it with satisfaction on your bookshelf.

Slow reading is an art form, a third way of reading not just for information or entertainment. The reader calls upon creative faculties and is changed in the process of reading. It has both the serious purpose of reading non-fiction to better understand things, and the playful imagination of reading fiction to see things in new ways. There is no artifact of this art form; no book, no painting, no sculpture; but like all good art, the act of slow reading exercises our imagination to develop interiority, our psychological framework.

Slow reading is a community event, restoring connections between ideas and people. The continuity of relationships through reading is experienced when we borrow books from friends; when we read long stories to our kids till they fall asleep; when we take turns reading a play aloud with our teenagers; when we share what we are reading with family and friends over dinner.

Slow reading is closely associated with the larger Slow movement and its theme of locality. Not only do we change our relationship with time, but with space too. Slow readers seek out local content, local readings and encourage micro-publishing. These acts not only provide an audience for local writers, but nurture diversity that replenishes global media when its formulaic content runs dry.

Slow readers support local libraries as a public space in the overwhelming presence of commercial space. Libraries are a shelter and turning point for those with few resources; a place for entrepreneurs to get started; a hall for public discourse among citizens interested in social change.

Slow reading is a form of resistance, challenging a hectic culture that requires speed reading of volumes of information fragments. Slow reading is therapeutic as it restores a sense of well-being. It enriches our private lives and better equips us for the world. Slow reading is recognition of the intrinsically worthy act of reading. It is good for our minds, our emotional health, our communities and planet.

Reprinted by the author, John Miedema. Originally printed at his blog. Litwin Books has just published John’s book, Slow Reading.

Since early childhood I have been gripped by the sea. Being a marine biologist - a reasonable career, I felt - was also a good excuse to be on the water or under it.

By the early 1980s, another obsession was developing: what helps ensure smooth running in nature, in what we do and in what we create? That is robustness simply put.  One simple ingredient is spending more time, not less, as efficiency fanatics would have us do.

In 1981, virtually becalmed for 55 days in the Indian Ocean, I certainly had time to think about robustness. I began to have serious doubts about modernity’s obsession with efficiency and high-tech, and reluctance to keep sufficient in reserve.

We were on a slow boat to China: ‘Sindbad voyagers’ on a replica of a 9th-century Arab sailing ship. In the damp and salty conditions, one by one Sohar’s few electronic gadgets failed.  The aids were partly to verify the ancient navigational methods being tested.

Out on the ocean, high-tech is not necessarily best.  Equally, slow-tech can be no bad thing.

A century or more back, pilot cutters ventured from sheltered waters for the open Atlantic.  Their purpose: to escort incoming shipping through the hazardous shallow waters to the safety of port, winter or summer.  Pilot cutters were seaworthy, reliable and fast … if it was blowing hard.

But it is not just their stout construction, or kindly sea-motion, that makes pilot cutters so safe, appealing … and robust.  More subtle forces, paradoxically, also come to bear.  Because of their old-fashioned features - straight stem, long keel etc. - these boats can actually steer themselves, unassisted.  Without anyone stood at the helm, or an auto-pilot, they just keep sailing.  These boats manage to hold their course, simply with the helm lashed; surely a worthwhile boat trait?

Modern yachts are indisputably faster and more responsive.  But because of their lighter construction and flighty behaviour, they will not so easily stay on course unless, of course, steered manually or by an auto-pilot.

But that’s not all.  Perhaps nothing illustrates more forcefully the remarkable ability of a vessel - especially traditional sailing craft - to chill out when confronting the stormy seas.  It is a slow-tech, safety measure called ‘heaving to’, and it amounts to sailing-but-stalled.

Once in that state, with the helm lashed, a boat can be left more or less left to its own devices.  (It involves having the sails on opposite sides, instead of on the same side, and with the boat lying about fifty degrees from the wind.)  In one story, skipper and crew simply went below deck in their Bristol Channel pilot cutter… to play Scrabble and bide time until the weather abated.

What’s more, heaving to also has a calming effect on the sea, not just on the crew.  By drifting ever so slowly, the keel actually creates its own smooth slick of water, on which the boat safely perches and bobs. Yet metres beyond, the seas boil in anger.  According to US yachtsmen and writer Larry Pardy, heaving to may be the ultimate survival strategy for impending hurricane-force winds

The final twist to this tale of chilling out is that slowing down by heaving to can also allow the storm to pass by.

Twitter, a now quickly expanding number of people consider it a gift from heaven. Face it: sooner or later you are fed up with blogging. Having to read and write 10 sentences over and over again, it just starts to get at you doesn’t it? If you are gifted with the attention span of a Flibbertigibbet, having to concentrate that much is a physical hurt. Twitter then, is the solution. For those few, other-worldly hermits that still are not initiated: we are dealing with a massively popular system on the Internet in which you use a maximum of 140 characters to tell something to the outside world. You can also use SMS or your smartphone. Others can subscribe – as followers - to these ‘tweets’ and vice versa.

At its best , Twitter is a magnificent tool for the corporate, collaborative worker of today to effectively stay in touch with a true ecosystem of people, knowledge, insights and events. While tweeting (possibly through a company-restricted variant like Yammer) you find just as easy lightning-fast answers to focused questions as links to new, interesting sources of information. And by carefully calibrating the list of people that you follow, the social network around you becomes more and more valuable.

At its worst however, Twitter happily deteriorates into a universe of randomly chattering, megalomaniac ADHD professionals. Shallowness, straight from the goblet of Total Nothing. Purely for professional reasons, I decided to indulge myself for a few days without any restrictions and filtering in this world of virtual chit-chat. Eventually, I ended up staring agitatedly at the screen, my hollow eyes waiting for the next tweet to arrive. And it never was further away than a few seconds. Another 140 characters to read, another discussion to follow, another subject to have an opinion about, another link to click on. Sometimes, an interesting topic would rush by. More often, it would be of a lamenting irrelevance. Somebody opens up a can of beer. Another tells me every three minutes what song he is playing. A third apparently throws every new thought on Twitter, probably to secure it for eternity. A fourth feels no shame at all in sharing private conversations, lunch dates and the most intimate coaching sessions.

At last, I was able to liberate myself from this maelstrom of tweets. After having some supplementary feeding and a long night of sleep, I could carefully try to read the complete front page of a paper without interruption. Outside, the sun finally announced spring. Then I heard a blackbird sing.

It was the most beautiful sound in the world.

The core focus of this site and Slow movements generally is about slowing down, taking time to do things well and to savour things. But it takes some courage to admit that the fast pace of life today doesn’t suit you, that you don’t necessarily want everything faster, bigger, better, now if not yesterday.

When you’re moving fast, through life in general or just in the day to day, slowness is your enemy. Think of all the huffing and puffing commuters rushing through your Underground station today, pushing and shoving… the heaving mass of movement that is impossible to move slowly in, without feeling innate pressure to just move - you must move or become some a sort of speed bump. Sometimes the same applies to the rest of life too.

There is a pressure to conform to an implicitly agreed pace of things and the workplace is no exception. Despite having read In Praise of Slow and wholeheartedly agreed to change my Blackberry addicted ways many years ago, I found myself caught up in the fast-paced rat race yet again. It’s commonly known as working in the City of London.

Whether it’s said out loud or no, the expectation is that most City workers are almost constantly working, all day, much of the night and certainly reading and responding to emails from door to door. My ability to walk whilst emailing became exceptional, although there was that one nasty incident with the near miss and the big red bus, but that became a running joke amongst my colleagues - ’she died doing what she loved’ would’ve been the cry.

Most of my former colleagues are still living life at that frenetic pace. Even more so now that the threat of redundancy and never ending rounds of job losses becomes more real. There is a sense of being seen to be busy, move quickly and don’t let ‘them’ catch you, lest you are next for the chop.

I count myself as one of the lucky ones, getting out just before the big waves of redundancy that have since shaken the City. There is a certain pleasure in having chosen to leave, rather than being told to leave, but that feeling only lasts for so long, and it’s certainly no use when it comes to paying the bills. Eventually, inevitably, I will have to go back to reality and get a real job.

Having worked in the online industry for most of my career, I am used to being expected to move at break-neck speed. Because the internet is such an immediate medium, there is an expectation (albeit an unrealistic one) that things can change and move almost instantaneously. That expectation, coupled with the City work ethic and increasingly fewer resources made for incredibly long days, working most weekends and stretching myself as much as possible to meet all the demands of my time.

The challenge now stands to find a job within that environment, meeting those expectations, without reverting back to the bad old ways. Is it actually possible to maintain a Slow attitude within an industry that expects everything to move quickly? Is there a certain frenetic activity that’s required in order to keep up appearances, regardless of whether it’s actually contributing anything to the end goal?

And how does one go about finding a job that might allow for the Slow approach? Can you filter jobs out that require constant Blackberrying? Can one refuse a Blackberry on day one at a new job? Only time can tell.

The whole approach to finding a job has changed and continues to move quickly. While networking over a leisurely coffee or two is still a viable option, the number of ways to find roles seems to have increased exponentially, even in the last few months. Job searches have been conducted primarily online for some time now, but even this is changing and moving quickly. If you’re not on Linkedin or Twitter, you will be missing out on job opportunities that are only being referenced there. And how long is too long to wait to apply. I am disregarding any jobs older than a day or two. God help any Luddites looking for a job - they’re probably still hand-writing letters.

So wish me luck. And patience. For while the world is moving ever faster, the approach of recruitment agencies seems to have remained unchanged - don’t call us, we’ll call you.

The other day I gave a talk at Microsoft headquarters in Seattle. It was a bit like entering the belly of the beast. Technology companies worship at the altar of speed and their products are designed to help us do everything faster.

They also condition us to expect everything to happen at the click of a mouse.

A couple of hours before the talk, I was watching TV in my hotel room when a Microsoft ad came on. It featured animated drawings dancing on the screen while an ambitious CEO talked about how Microsoft software was a godsend for his company. I can’t remember the exact wording, but towards the end of the ad he said something like “…in business you have to do everything at the speed of light.”

Not a very Slow sentiment.

So did I get scalped and lynched during my lunchtime lecture at Microsoft HQ? Far from it. The Slow message seemed to strike a chord with the employees who came to hear me speak. The crowd hung around asking questions and sharing their own reflections even after the 90-minute session was over. This morning one of the organizers emailed to say that my visit has sparked a lot of discussion within the company.

I’m not surprised. Increasingly, it’s people inside the technology companies that are realizing there is too much speed in the system - and they’re looking for ways to slow down a little. Microsoft is no exception.

After my event, I spent some time hanging out with some of the company’s researchers. One of them was Eric Horvitz, who specializes in the interplay between technology and culture – how we use our gadgets and why, and how that use affects us.

Eric is overseeing some new research into what happens when people use laptops while attending public lectures. This particular brand of multitasking is now commonplace. At conferences, you see loads of people listening to speeches with their laptops open, reading and typing away in the eerie glow. Some are taking notes on the talk, but many are handling email, surfing the Web on unrelated topics or updating their Facebook pages. Or they’re tweeting.

Is there anything wrong with this? I think so. For a start, it’s just plain rude. When you attend a talk, the least you can do is give the speaker your full attention. Or at least give the impression that you are listening. Just think how irritating it is to share a dinner table with someone who constantly turns away to deal with incoming emails on a Blackberry. Or how important it is to look a person in the eye when you talk to them.

A public talk is different from a social gathering, of course, but don’t the basic rules of courtesy still apply?

You could argue that the world is changing and that people no longer expect to receive anyone’s full attention. But even if that is true – and I hope it’s not – then we should be worried about how that change affects our understanding of what is being said to us.

Back to that study at Microsoft HQ. Researchers are filming audiences during public talks and then asking them questions about the content. By plotting a time-line, they hope to work out how comprehension waxes and wanes during a speech and how those peaks and troughs correspond to laptop-users looking up and down from their screens.

My guess is that people absorb less when their attention turns to the computer - and that their general comprehension of the talk also suffers. I suppose that as a public speaker I would say that. Like anyone else who stands up on stage, I want to feel like I have the full and undivided attention of everyone in the room. But there is more at work here than my fragile ego.

What brain scan research is teaching us about multitasking is that it doesn’t work: that the human brain cannot process two streams of information at the same time, and that attempting to do so is a recipe for confusion, inefficiency and errors.

Of course, we don’t live in an ideal world where everyone can devote their full attention to everything they do. Some Microsoft employees argue that their workload makes it impossible to unplug for 90 minutes during the day. So they choose to multitask through the lunchtime lectures: giving speakers some of their attention rather than staying away and giving them none at all. Maybe they have a point. Maybe some Slow is better than none.

Either way, I’m looking forward to hearing the results of the Microsoft research and will report back here on the findings in due course.

In the meantime, if you’re reading this blog entry while attending a public talk, you might want to consider…