Category: Planning / Topics: Government • Management • Science & Technology
by Stu Johnson
Posted: November 309, 2015
A personal experience leads to thoughts about unintended consequences (part 1 looks at making matters worse)
Improving Flathead Lake kills native fish |
Very tall smokestacks and widespread acid rain |
Because of the length of this blog, it is broken into two parts. In Part 1 we look at a personal example of unintended consequences that got me thinking about the topic and a list of numerous examples of consequences that represent new problems. In Part 2 we look at some examples of unexpected benefits, definitions and causes of unintended consequences, and some hints on preventing or dealing with them.
It’s been more than a month since my last blog. Blame it on unintended consequences.
“Turning lemons to lemonade”
Back in the summer one of my client websites was having problems in its content management system (CMS—used by site administrators to manage site content). It was frustrating because the affected features worked fine on my local computer, but not on the live site. Fortunately, it did not affect the site itself and could be managed, though that required time-consuming workarounds. Similar problems had occurred in the past and I pointed out solutions that worked earlier to the technicians at the web host. This time, “no joy.”
In the process of trying to resolve the problem, a technician admitted (perhaps unintentionally or out of his own frustration) that they had experienced problems with their implementation of the current version of the web application software. I had been considering upgrading to the newest version, feeling it would take some time to prepare for the transition, but now it seemed the only solution. The immediate problems were fixed, but there were unintended consequences. The functionality was back, but the layout of some pages and a few specific features were messed up.
Addressing the new issues became a matter of “turning lemons to lemonade.” Going beyond the immediate fixes needed over thousands of lines of code, it presented an opportunity to update and standardize features that had been introduced over nearly a decade, going back through several generations of the web application software.
This whole experience led me to think about “unintended consequences”—whether they are unexpected problems resulting from solving another problem, sometimes making the original situation worse; or situations that produce unexpected benefits. Let’s look at some examples.
Making matters worse
Part 2, continues with some samples of unexpected benefits, a look at the causes of unexpected consequences and some hints on how to avoid or anticipate them – Notes for both parts appear at the end of Part 2.
For more information...
This post also appears as an article on SeniorLifestyle.org
Search all articles by Stu Johnson
Stu Johnson is owner of Stuart Johnson & Associates, a communications consultancy in Wheaton, Illinois focused on "making information make sense."
• E-mail the author (moc.setaicossajs@uts*)* For web-based email, you may need to copy and paste the address yourself.
Posted: November 309, 2015 Accessed 3,616 times
Go to the list of most recent InfoMatters Blogs
Search InfoMatters (You can expand the search to the entire site)
Category: Planning / Topics: Government • Management • Science & Technology
by Stu Johnson
Posted: November 309, 2015
A personal experience leads to thoughts about unintended consequences (part 1 looks at making matters worse)
Improving Flathead Lake kills native fish |
Very tall smokestacks and widespread acid rain |
Because of the length of this blog, it is broken into two parts. In Part 1 we look at a personal example of unintended consequences that got me thinking about the topic and a list of numerous examples of consequences that represent new problems. In Part 2 we look at some examples of unexpected benefits, definitions and causes of unintended consequences, and some hints on preventing or dealing with them.
It’s been more than a month since my last blog. Blame it on unintended consequences.
“Turning lemons to lemonade”
Back in the summer one of my client websites was having problems in its content management system (CMS—used by site administrators to manage site content). It was frustrating because the affected features worked fine on my local computer, but not on the live site. Fortunately, it did not affect the site itself and could be managed, though that required time-consuming workarounds. Similar problems had occurred in the past and I pointed out solutions that worked earlier to the technicians at the web host. This time, “no joy.”
In the process of trying to resolve the problem, a technician admitted (perhaps unintentionally or out of his own frustration) that they had experienced problems with their implementation of the current version of the web application software. I had been considering upgrading to the newest version, feeling it would take some time to prepare for the transition, but now it seemed the only solution. The immediate problems were fixed, but there were unintended consequences. The functionality was back, but the layout of some pages and a few specific features were messed up.
Addressing the new issues became a matter of “turning lemons to lemonade.” Going beyond the immediate fixes needed over thousands of lines of code, it presented an opportunity to update and standardize features that had been introduced over nearly a decade, going back through several generations of the web application software.
This whole experience led me to think about “unintended consequences”—whether they are unexpected problems resulting from solving another problem, sometimes making the original situation worse; or situations that produce unexpected benefits. Let’s look at some examples.
Making matters worse
Part 2, continues with some samples of unexpected benefits, a look at the causes of unexpected consequences and some hints on how to avoid or anticipate them – Notes for both parts appear at the end of Part 2.
For more information...
This post also appears as an article on SeniorLifestyle.org
Search all articles by Stu Johnson
Stu Johnson is owner of Stuart Johnson & Associates, a communications consultancy in Wheaton, Illinois focused on "making information make sense."
• E-mail the author (moc.setaicossajs@uts*)* For web-based email, you may need to copy and paste the address yourself.
Posted: November 309, 2015 Accessed 3,617 times
Go to the list of most recent InfoMatters Blogs
Search InfoMatters (You can expand the search to the entire site)
Category: Planning / Topics: Government • Management • Science & Technology
by Stu Johnson
Posted: November 309, 2015
A personal experience leads to thoughts about unintended consequences (part 1 looks at making matters worse)
Improving Flathead Lake kills native fish |
Very tall smokestacks and widespread acid rain |
Because of the length of this blog, it is broken into two parts. In Part 1 we look at a personal example of unintended consequences that got me thinking about the topic and a list of numerous examples of consequences that represent new problems. In Part 2 we look at some examples of unexpected benefits, definitions and causes of unintended consequences, and some hints on preventing or dealing with them.
It’s been more than a month since my last blog. Blame it on unintended consequences.
“Turning lemons to lemonade”
Back in the summer one of my client websites was having problems in its content management system (CMS—used by site administrators to manage site content). It was frustrating because the affected features worked fine on my local computer, but not on the live site. Fortunately, it did not affect the site itself and could be managed, though that required time-consuming workarounds. Similar problems had occurred in the past and I pointed out solutions that worked earlier to the technicians at the web host. This time, “no joy.”
In the process of trying to resolve the problem, a technician admitted (perhaps unintentionally or out of his own frustration) that they had experienced problems with their implementation of the current version of the web application software. I had been considering upgrading to the newest version, feeling it would take some time to prepare for the transition, but now it seemed the only solution. The immediate problems were fixed, but there were unintended consequences. The functionality was back, but the layout of some pages and a few specific features were messed up.
Addressing the new issues became a matter of “turning lemons to lemonade.” Going beyond the immediate fixes needed over thousands of lines of code, it presented an opportunity to update and standardize features that had been introduced over nearly a decade, going back through several generations of the web application software.
This whole experience led me to think about “unintended consequences”—whether they are unexpected problems resulting from solving another problem, sometimes making the original situation worse; or situations that produce unexpected benefits. Let’s look at some examples.
Making matters worse
Part 2, continues with some samples of unexpected benefits, a look at the causes of unexpected consequences and some hints on how to avoid or anticipate them – Notes for both parts appear at the end of Part 2.
For more information...
This post also appears as an article on SeniorLifestyle.org
Search all articles by Stu Johnson
Stu Johnson is owner of Stuart Johnson & Associates, a communications consultancy in Wheaton, Illinois focused on "making information make sense."
• E-mail the author (moc.setaicossajs@uts*)* For web-based email, you may need to copy and paste the address yourself.
Posted: November 309, 2015 Accessed 3,618 times
Go to the list of most recent InfoMatters Blogs
Search InfoMatters (You can expand the search to the entire site)