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The world of computers and information technology has become as complex as the world of medicine.  There are now so many areas to specialize in and very few people with thoughts and philosophies for the every day Joe to use no matter what they are doing. After over a decade of  working in Tech but preferring conversation, teaching, learning and connecting with people, here are the principles of technology I share and live by. These are all pulled from  my work at the Digital Liquidity Project that will help you think of your digital lifestyle in terms of  simple pursuits.

The principles are Independence, simplicity, speed, mobility and control. Each of these has its own world of immediate, practical as well as broad implications.  All of these overlap and connect with each other and we’ll dabble a little bit in all of them. The goal here, is to increase your awareness with how you control or are controlled by your digital lifestyle. Use these as your standards for your digital lifestyle. If you bare these in mind before you purchase or use them to evaluate your own lifestyle and get technology working for you again instead of you for it.

Independence

Nobody wants to be stuck relying on or reporting to anyone to go about their day to day groove.  In the digital world, this means we want to pursue platform independence (meaning we can pick up our files and data and carry them from PC to Mac to iPhone with minimal effort and without asking permission or spending a fortune.  More importantly, we all want to  avoid being dependent on and therefor want to avoid defining ourselves by our operating systems.

Think of all the poor souls who were stuck with Windows ME or Vista when it first came out and they were stuck waiting over a year for an update. Their business and lifestyle relied on one brand to take care of them. In fact they probably cannot define computing without mentioning the specific operating system.

The psychological effect of defining your business or identity by your operating system is very limiting. Don’t give in to marketing tactics and free yourself from those chains. Your digital persona doesn’t have a platform. It is the collection of all the data, photos, documents and ways of interacting that you love about your computing experience. Don’t give it a logo. Reclaim your independence.

Simply by being aware that you need to seek Platform Independence, you’ll avoid or think twice before committing to Windows or Mac only solutions and might find yourself playing nice with other platforms and find the freedom to try new things. Having an exciting life or successful business involves taking risks and that requires an open mind and imagination.

Mobility

You can’t be independent without being able to move around.Who wants to stay in a house with a leaky roof or drive a model T when they are giving away Feraris? You want to be able to pick up and move. Mobility is vital to our digital lifestyle. You don’t want to know how many billions of dollars consumers spend on trying to mobilize their personal and professional digital lifestyles.

Consider the cost of the applications and technical staff used to transfer information from your main computer to your mobile phone, laptop and having them all play nice together.  Most of these costs all came after the initial purchase point. If you value mobility before you buy that shiny new camera or laptop, you’ll make smarter choices every time.

Our thoughts come with us everywhere (save for the bar, bedroom, bong and some times ballot box). Computers are tools that store and communicate our thoughts, therefore it is only natural to wish these experiences to come with us and be shared with whatever we interact with and this is very obvious with our gadgets.

Fear can be immobilizing, so in order for us to be truly mobile we must be connected, synchronized redundantly and sharing with others where appropriate. This allows us to  move confidently without fear, knowing that if one aspect fails, it exists elsewhere and can be easily retrieved.

Speed and Simplicity

Our minds can get in the way of our goals. Our perceptions, the ways we digest information and process visual environments, consume our most precious resource; time. The training required for  basic interaction is an important factor to consider. The longer the time- trade off, the more likely we are to become conditioned to use that one system.  Pursuing fast routes and simple intuitive representations allows us to move closer to our goals without losing time or our sanity.

Control

Control = security+ownership+options

Control requires us to preserve ownership over our digital lifestyle and to do that we must also keep it secure.  If our habits are not secure,  they can be easily stolen, copied and made irrelevant. Ownership of  our data, accounts, experience, processes, thoughts and methods are all part of  the Personal formula, including the filters and favorites that make up our digital DNA.

Also, one must seek to expand and preserve options so that no one element of the computing experience can dominate our lives. It is true that we eliminate options the moment we make a decision but some decisions can cripple and restrain, while others can bring you to new horizons.

Tips

1. Don’t define digital persona by operating system. You have a right to demand more from your experience with your data, music, photos, files and business.

2. Use solutions that can cross platforms-  think Mac/PC/Linux/Web. Solutions that allow you to take your experience anywhere you wish whether permanently to a new operating system, with you on a road trip on your mobile device or on the web being accessed remotely.

3. Use universal standards for hardware and avoid committing yourself to one brand when possible. If it requires a special player that has to be purchased, or is in a format that one company owns (cough Sony memory stick), whether hardware or software then look for alternatives.

4. Use USB, SD, SDHC, cd, dvd and safe bet storage methods that every computer regardless of the particulars can read.

5. Avoid what annoys you and encourage that which you find intuitive and simple. This is true for all gadgets gizmos and interfaces. If there are options, check them out. Don’t believe for one moment that you must learn that particular way of doing things if you haven’t explored the options.

6. Read more about Digital Liquidity here.