The ‘cultural omnivore’ in a new light: hybridizing digital and paper forms of organisation

At the start of this year, I observed a colleague at another school, it was then that I began my mission to go completely digital. Unlike me, the colleague kept all of his organisation online: his marking, lesson planning, details of meetings. His lesson inspired me to stop lugging my heavy bag, filled with three different paper diaries and my current reading book, around everywhere I went.  I set off on my challenge: I saved meetings and important dates in my Google calendar, I used an online tool for lesson planning and all of my lesson resources were saved on Google Drive. I had gone completely digital and I was loving how light my bag felt. I felt like I was the protagonist in an Apple or Google advert for cloud computing with capitalism on my side. However, this feeling did not last. After a couple of weeks I started to miss my home crafted diary where I could decide the exact colour, format and style of my calendar. The shininess of my digital devices faded to reveal a dulled cold metal. Although the use of the internet is now rife in society, knowing that everything I needed was online became unsettling; the lack of physicality of my objects and the instability of the online world drove me back to my analogue forms of organisation. One can only look at the stories about the NHS Malware last week to begin to see the risks associated with cloud computing. As such, I abandoned my efforts of cloud computing in favour of my old paper based diaries and USB for the feeling of control.

So now as I write this, tempted towards cloud computing again, my life is scattered across both digital and analogue forms of organisation. I have un-touched to do lists on my Google Keep from February. I have documents, spreadsheets and PowerPoints on both One Drive and Google Drive accounts. I have half started and missing weeks within my paper diaries. Only now am I beginning to pick up the pieces of my double life. I cannot say that now I will favour one method over the other. The use of Google Keep for generic to-do lists together with paper post-it notes with my shopping lists gives me the best of both worlds. My new approach is the use of my Google accounts for scheduling but paper based forms of lesson planning. As I try to make sense of my new organisational set up, I can only identify this feeling with what I have read about the cultural omnivore. Although, this sociological concept involves consuming a mixture of capital from highbrow to low brow, I identify with this on an organisational level. I am mixing my methods of media – on one side is the traditional analogue forms and the other is the new, trendy, cloud computing. Switching between my Google Drive and physical post it note shopping lists, I am embracing both sides of the spectrum. 

It is not just my organisation in which the preference between digital and analogue becomes blurred. During my time at University I took a module about popular culture which detailed how the digital era has been changing the way people consume culture. I will always remember Dave Beer, the lecturer, asking us - if we are turning into a digital society with eBooks, kindles, why do most people continue to buy physical books? This question has been on my mind ever since the lecture. The Guardian (2017) suggested on 13th May that the sale of books has risen to the highest in four years whilst eBooks has declined. When I heard of this news this got me thinking about Beer’s question again. When reflecting upon this, I can see the benefits of both digital and analogue forms of media. Both forms fix the other’s downfalls: I love the portability and greenness of digital whilst also the freedom of scribbling on a piece of paper. It would be interesting to see how my organisation changes again in the next few months and to see what experiences, like the observation, shape these decisions. 

Reference:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/13/printed-book-sales-ebooks-decline