THREAD: There has been nothing worse than the implementation of control gimmicks like Teams, Slack, Trello etc as a result of a shift to work from home.

I call them control gimmicks because I'm yet to personally see how the time spent implementing and monitoring micromanagement software has actually improved returns. I've worked from home for seven of the past ten years.

If all this technology made a significant impact, businesses would see something on the bottom line. What I think these platforms are designed for, is the itchy bum middle manager who things that a days work is watching what others do rather than doing work themselves.

Maybe I'm being harsh, but I started my life self employed and i've always kept the boundaries between my work and others at a degree of controlled seperation. The last thing I need, is people adding adminstritative burdens on me because they have too much of a look in.

Also, I started in film and television... these industries are truly fast paced and time pressured. Not like the rubbish "we're faced paced" (which generally means disorganised) but genuine - we need to pull together a 10 man crew for a shoot abroad and turn it around in 5 days.

The fastest project turnaround I did was all over email and phone call. A 24 hour cycle from Enquiry to shooting abroad and then getting back home to edit. An 18 hour day for a project that started the day before.

With these time pressues, there are well defined roles and scope. There is immense trust in the individual to "tend to their garden" and as a result you have organised chaos. But that's what works in conditions of pressure; the pencil pushers don't make movies.

Productivity is not the same as monitoring productivity. Just because you can measure, doesn't mean you can influence. And a pair of eyes over shoulders will at best slow down good workers as they constantly have to "check in" with a list and at worse stress them out even more.

So, let's move away from stupid apps to project work. Technology is a problem maker, not solver in most cases. Time is better spent on definition and scope. Where roles and responsibilites are strictly defined and then, set deadlines and let people be on their merry way.