Q: How will leading edge technology change our habits...

A: A man who cooks is my kind of guy…

I have many bad habits – 1. I presume I know where I am going & 2. My ongoing wonderment at how low the petrol indicator can go after empty… I’ll come back to those.

The 1950s saw the introduction of white goods (appliances) in a huge way. They were meant to move women from a situation of domestic slavery to domestic hostess (there weren’t many options for women). These white stella sparking things were going to liberate women from the kitchen, we saw the advent of the ‘hostess apron’ one that was never meant to get dirty! The major problem was though that domestic standards rose, no longer were almost white sheets good enough, and as a result women’s work increased exponentially.

Digital technology has had a huge impact on the screen and creative industries. five years ago a half hour edit might take a month of crunching depending on the product, now it might take a week but the cost remains the same, media is more affordable now than it has ever been. Sending files has become easier and the ongoing work of web pioneers has created a plethora of freeware and shareware to make our work lives easier, to help us get stuff done faster. That should give us the time to become hostesses again – shouldn’t it?

That bad habit I mentioned was solved with technology (the ‘where am i going?’ question is always solved with a phone call back to the office – thanks to mobile technology), the other habit I’m still working on. My point is that we don’t change because of technology, we change and mould technology, it is our demands for better, faster; more that has created the convergence of media. we multifunction online – we bank, we learn, we engage, we measure, we talk, we confer, we watch, we share, we arrange our days, our nights, our work meetings, and books clubs, we tell stories and decide the venue for the all important drinks with the girls! Women are great communicators; we need to be presenting online to shape technology to what we need. Technology is not the endpoint, WE are, and technology is simply a conduit.

Louise Otto was a self-supporting author in the 1800s who wrote on women’s suffrage, she said: ‘The history of all times, and of today especially teaches that… women will be forgotten if they forget to think about themselves.’ and some other woman said ‘A clean house is the sign of a wasted life!’ Take time for yourself.