At the start of the year I undertook a review of my tech stack, i.e. the tools, platforms and services I use in my professional practice. My aim was twofold: first up, I wanted to make sure I am not paying for services or subscriptions I don’t actually make good use of, and secondly I want to make sure that the technology I do use is, wherever possible, aligned to my values including my commitment to openness in education and technology. I blogged my progress as I went along and you can look back at the previous posts in this series if you’d like more detail:
Having completed the majority of what I intended to do, and as things have developed since, I am revisiting a few of my objectives and adding some new ones as I develop my work in the coming months and years:
Dead ends
One of my key objectives was to move from Zoom to another tool, and despite finding and trying several alternatives I have not made the move away from Zoom. Sigh! Unfortunately none of the alternatives worked within my workflow and didn’t quite meet the needs of my clients either. So for the time being at least I am going to continue using Zoom.
I also continue to move away from Meta social media platforms and reviewing my social tech stack felt timely given how much everyone has and is moving away from networks and into DM groups, newsletters and offline life. That said, I feel reluctant to move away from Instagram for the time being and there is a sense for me at least that the continued fragmentation of my online interactions requires more thoughtfulness, energy and resources than I have at times. Hopefully federated social web elements become more integrated in the coming year. Here’s hoping.
AI choices
In most of the platforms and services I use AI powered options are becoming the norm, and for my practice I don’t feel I need to use them (and save some energy along the way). This is a space in which I want to make thoughtful choices and I am trying to opt out of offered upgrades if they are not important to me and my work.
There is one service in particular, Canva, that despite its utility, feels like it is becoming less helpful to me by the day (in its efforts to appear more and more helpful). So my sense is that over the coming year I will learn to use other tools instead and move away from it.
Tools for the job
One of the things I reflected on as I was reviewing the technology I use is whether I have the right tools for the job, and some of the things I didn’t really write about are all the analogue technologies and tools I make use of. It’s all about finding the right range of tools for the job, and there is a bit of a gap in my set up when it comes to translating my ideas from pen and paper to the digital realm and printing. Hmmmmm . Definitely more thought needed.
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