Bit Literacy is here

Using a computer is something most of us, our parents, our spouses, have figured out how to do: The mouse, the windows, the menus, dragging and dropping.

But how to handle the constant barrage of emails, SMS messages, files, and photos that keep coming our way, is a different matter. It’s easy to get stressed, to feel like you’re constantly behind, to feel like life is just about making things be not bold (credit to Jeff Veen).

While sending bits is essentially free to the sender, there’s real cost in time and consideration to the recipient. It is this asymmetry that causes so many problems.

Thankfully, the help has arrived.

The inimitable Mark Hurst of Creative Good, Good Experience, and GEL fame, has written a book, Bit Literacy, about exactly this: How to handle the bits in your work and your life in the internet age. (Full disclosure: Mark is my friend and mentor.)

It’s not aimed at IT and Internet professionals like myself, but rather at everyone else. Our mothers, spouses, friends, bankers, and plumbers.

You can read more about it, read the first chapter, and then order it directly from Mark (FREE shipping in the US and bulk discounts on orders of 3 or more).

(You can also get a copy of the book by attending the Good Experience Live conference in New York city in just two and a half weeks. But hurry, it’s almost sold out.)