Stories by Lew McCreary

The User Whisperer

In the company where I work we have a "user whisperer" in the IS group. His name is Michael, and when I first experienced his gentle, patient ministrations, I was in a righteous lather over some typically baffling instance of misbehaving technology. Michael sized me up and saw the obvious danger. Acting quickly, he summoned the "calm voice of sanity" that one reserves for use on the incipiently psychotic. At first I was resentful-someone was wrongly depriving me of the necessary resistance that is the fuel for a good fit of anger. Instead of tensing, Michael relaxed. Instead of ordering me to chill out, he assumed the demeanor of an "understander," of someone prepared to feel my pain. (He may even have said, "Gosh, Lew, that must be frustrating," though I can't be sure.)

Information Wants to Be Free

Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet, helped to liberate information from the white rooms of centralised computing. Wait til you hear what he's planning to revolutionise nexr.