Secretaries. The corporation of the mid-20th Century was run by an army of secretaries. They allowed for an important kind of flexibility. They've been replaced by software, which is more rigid, and which does harm because of its lack of flexibility.
Software engineers tend to over-estimate the productivity gains that come from software, while underestimating how much we lose to the rigidness of software (which is often the reflection of the underlying data schema). It costs money to change software. By contrast, older systems of organization depended on armies of secretaries, who knew when to bend the rules. The flexibility of having a human enforce rules, but also be able to bend them as needed, allowed an important kind of productivity benefit. We've lost that benefit as we have mostly purged secretaries out of corporations and replaced them with software.
On the theme of "software sucks," if you don't mind a comical, personal story, I shared this event from last month, when my mom was in the hospital (my conclusion is that the rigidity of software systems in hospitals is making hospitals worse):
Chief of Staff, Founder's Office seem to be just a new name for secretaries at tech companies. Not sure how this gets solved for businesses that are losing out to automation (such as the hospitals example).
I think your story is off topic, but really touching nonetheless (plenty of people are working on hospital software, even if it's largely pretty bad)
Glad that the worst that happened to your mom is that a nurse was confused about her food, rather than amputating the wrong leg or something (I wonder if faulty software has ever been the cause of this)
I wonder if the situation with hospital software will ever improve
Not a software change but one reason you get asked a dozen times "Are you having your the nails on your left big toe clipped" (joke procedure in a hospital of course) is to help avoid exactly these errors.
Is the patient who you think it is.
Does the patient agree with what your procedure says to do.
Often the area to be worked on (like the left big toe in my joke) is marked and the patient agreed with that marking.
There are a number of other such safeguards, similar to pre-flight checklists in aviation.
Institution these processes have greatly reduced treatment errors.
That both are older is either a sign that we are yet to recognize present harm or that things have improved. Check back in 20 years for clarity on that issue I guess.
Software engineers tend to over-estimate the productivity gains that come from software, while underestimating how much we lose to the rigidness of software (which is often the reflection of the underlying data schema). It costs money to change software. By contrast, older systems of organization depended on armies of secretaries, who knew when to bend the rules. The flexibility of having a human enforce rules, but also be able to bend them as needed, allowed an important kind of productivity benefit. We've lost that benefit as we have mostly purged secretaries out of corporations and replaced them with software.
On the theme of "software sucks," if you don't mind a comical, personal story, I shared this event from last month, when my mom was in the hospital (my conclusion is that the rigidity of software systems in hospitals is making hospitals worse):
http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/software-is-making-ho...