From Manila Folders to Magical Data
Reflections of a Xennial on Technology and the Nineties
I recently read “The Nineties” by Chuck Klosterman, and it really got me thinking about how that decade has impacted my relationship with technology and data. I belong to a specific sub-generation that includes the very youngest of Generation X and the very oldest Millennials (sometimes called Xennials); my entire coming-of-age took place in the 90s (I started high school in 1993 and graduated college in 2000). Prior to starting college, I had never sent an email or owned a cell phone — but I was at the forefront of the many technological advances of the 90s.
As a freshman, I learned FORTRAN and C++ and coded up a personal webpage. I was among the first users of Amazon (because back then, it was a great place to buy used textbooks). An architectural engineering major, my class was the only one at my university that was required to learn both traditional architectural drafting (by hand, on paper, using T-squares and protractors) and AutoCAD (computer-aided design software). All of the calculations I did for my engineering classes were required to be by hand, using only a graphing calculator (although as a senior I broke this tradition when I learned how to use Excel). People my age have had the unique experience of a fully-realized life before computers and the Internet, but also leading the adoption of technology to bring us to where we are today. We grew up as individuals side-by-side with the technology industry itself.
To give one comparison from Klosterman’s book, for my parents’ generation the experience of buying music was almost exactly the same as in the 90s as it was 25 years before: you walked into a record store and bought an album. Only the format changed, from records and 8-tracks to cassette tapes and CDs. Even the price of an album was about the same when adjusted for inflation.
But for my generation, the experience of buying music today is completely different than it was 25 years ago in just about every way. I was an avid consumer of music back then and I still am now — and I think maybe I love exploring my music streaming services today because I vividly remember how I loved exploring Tower Records as a teenager (not to mention painstakingly ripping my entire CD collection to upload to iTunes as a young adult).
In my professional life, what I love the most is data (I actually called data “sparkly and magical” in a meeting yesterday — and I meant it 😂). I think it’s because I remember what life was like before technology enabled data to transform every facet of our lives. I spent my first summer internship at age 17 doing data management, but that’s not what it was called back then. What we called it back then was filing — as in punching holes in pieces of paper and putting them into manila folders, making labels for them on a typewriter, then putting them in the correct location in a huge bank of filing cabinets that slid around on tracks. The only thing I used a computer for was to make a list of where the files were stored. To someone born in this century, this set-up probably sounds medieval. But I was perfectly happy creating a system that would allow a building full of people to find the information they would need to do their work in the future.
Today I am responsible for all of the data in my organization, across its entire lifecycle, and nothing makes me happier than using data in combination with technology and design to achieve something meaningful. I think I find all of the data practices and tools available today to be truly magical because I remember all those manila folders. My appreciation for what technology enables us to do now is grounded in and deepened by my appreciation of what came before.
