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Bartleby -- Of remote work and the writing
巴托比專欄——關于遠程工作與寫作
The written word will flourish in the post-pandemic workplace
書面文字將在疫情后的職場蓬勃發展
The pandemic has given a big shove to all forms of digital communication.
疫情極大地推動了各種形式的數字通信。
Video-conferencing platforms have become verbs.
視頻會議平臺已成為動詞。
Venture capitalists make their bets after watching virtual pitches.
風投資本家在觀看虛擬推介后押下賭注。
Products like Loom and mmhmm help workers send pre-recorded video messages to their colleagues.
像Loom和mmhmm這樣的產品可以幫助員工將預先錄制的視頻信息發送給同事。
More than a third of Slack users each week are now "huddling" -- using the product's new audio feature to talk to each other.
現在，每周都有超過三分之一的Slack用戶“聚在一起”——通過該產品的新音頻功能互相交談。
And all this is before the metaverse turns everyone into an avatar.
而這一切都發生在元宇宙將每個人都變成頭像圖標之前。
A workplace dominated by time on screens may seem bound to favour newer, faster and more visual ways of transmitting information.
一個由屏幕上的時間支配的工作場合似乎注定會青睞更新、更快、更直觀的信息傳遞方式。
But an old form of communication -- writing -- is also flourishing.
但一種古老的交流方式——寫作——也在蓬勃發展。
And not just dashed-off emails and entries on virtual whiteboards, but slow, time-intensive writing.
而且不僅僅是匆忙寫成的電子郵件和虛擬白板上的事項記錄，還有緩慢、耗時的寫作。
The strengths of the written word have not been diminished by the pandemic era.
疫情時代并沒有削弱書面文字的力量。
In some ways they are ideally suited to it.
在某些方面，寫作完美適配疫情時代。
The value of writing is a staple in management thinking.
寫作的價值是管理思維的重要組成部分。
"The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen," reckoned Lee Iacocca, a quotable titan of the American car industry.
“把事情寫下來是實現它的第一步，”美國汽車行業的值得人們學習的巨頭李·艾柯卡說。
Jeff Bezos banned slide decks from meetings of senior Amazon executives back in 2004, in favour of well-structured memos.
早在2004年，杰夫·貝索斯就禁止亞馬遜高管在會議上使用幻燈片，而是贊成使用結構性良好的備忘錄。
"PowerPoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas," he wrote.
他寫道：“幻燈片形式的演示在某種程度上允許人們掩飾自己的想法。”
Some executives write for themselves.
一些高管會自己寫點東西。
Andrew Bosworth, a bigwig at Meta (formerly Facebook), has a blog in which he muses interestingly on many topics, including on writing itself: "In my experience, discussion expands the space of possibilities while writing reduces it to its most essential components."
Meta(前身為Facebook)的大人物安德魯·博斯沃思有一個博客，他在播客中對許多話題進行了有趣的思考，包括寫作本身：“根據我的經驗，討論擴大了可能性的空間，而寫作則將其縮減至最重要的那些部分。”
Others do so to reach an audience.
還有人用寫作來吸引關注。
Shareholder letters from Larry Fink and Warren Buffett are the corporate equivalent of a blockbuster book launch.
拉里·芬克和沃倫·巴菲特寫給股東的信相當于一場轟動的新書發布。
But the move to remote working has enhanced the value of writing to the entire organisation, not just the corner office.
但是，轉向遠程工作提高了寫作對整個組織的價值，而不僅僅是對于那些位于公司角落的辦公室（指公司高管所在的地方）。
When tasks are being handed off to colleagues in other locations, or people are working on a project "asynchronously", meaning at a time of their choosing, comprehensive documentation is crucial.
當任務被移交給在其他地點辦公的同事，或者人們在“異步”處理一個項目時，這意味著在他們選定的時間準備好一份詳實的文檔是至關重要的。
When new employees start work on something, they want the back story.
當新接手的員工開始做某項工作時，他們需要知道之前的進展。
When veterans depart an organisation, they should leave knowledge behind.
當老員工離開組織時，他們應該將自己所了解的信息留下。
Writing everything down sounds like an almighty pain.
把所有的東西都寫下來聽起來像是一種巨大的痛苦。
But so is turning up to a meeting and not having the foggiest what was decided last time out.
但在對上次會議作出的決定一無所知的情況下出席會議時也同樣痛苦。
Software developers have already worked out the value of the written word.
軟件開發人員已經弄清楚了書面文字的價值。
A research programme from Google into the ingredients of successful technology projects found that teams with high-quality documentation deliver software faster and more reliably.
谷歌對成功技術項目要素的研究發現，擁有高質量文檔的團隊能夠更快、更可靠地交付軟件。
Gitlab, a code-hosting platform whose workforce is wholly remote, frames the secret of successful asynchronous working thus: "How would I deliver this message, present this work, or move this project forward right now if no one else on my team (or in my company) were awake?"
Gitlab是一個代碼托管平臺，它的工作人員完全是遠程的，它提供了成功地進行異步工作的秘訣：“如果我的團隊(或公司)中沒有其他人醒著，我該如何傳遞信息、展示工作，或者就在此刻推進這個項目？”
Gitlab's answer is "textual communication".
Gitlab給出的答案是“文本交流”。
Its gospel is a handbook that is publicly available, stretches to more than 3,000 pages and lays out all of its internal processes.
它的“福音書”是一本3000多頁的手冊，其中列出了公司的所有內部流程，供公開使用。
The deliberation and discipline required by writing is helpful in other contexts, too.
寫作所需要的審慎和自律在其他場景中也很有幫助。
"Brainwriting" is a brainstorming technique, used by Slack among others, in which participants are given time to put down their ideas before discussion begins.
“頭腦書寫”是一種Slack等公司都在使用的頭腦風暴技巧。在討論開始前，參與者被給予一些時間來把自己的想法寫下來。
Lists of corporate values can make greeting cards seem hard-hitting.
企業價值觀清單可能會讓歡迎新員工的文檔看起來十分尖刻。
But thoughtful codification of a firm's culture makes more sense in hybrid and remote workplaces, where new joiners have less chance to meet and observe colleagues.
但在混合型和遠程的工作環境中，縝密周到的企業文化文檔更有意義，因為新入職者很少有機會能見到和了解同事。
Purists will sniff that none of this counts as writing.
純粹主義者會嗤之以鼻地表示，這些都算不上寫作。
But good prose and useful prose share the same essential qualities: brevity, structure, a clear theme.
但是優秀的散文和有用的文章都具有相同的基本特征：語言簡潔、結構完整、主題清晰。
Cormac McCarthy, a prize-winning novelist, copy-edits scientific papers for fun.
獲獎小說家科馬克·麥卡錫以編輯科學論文為樂。
Ted Chiang says that his science-fiction short stories and his technical writing both draw on a desire to explain an idea clearly.
姜峰楠說，他的科幻短篇小說和他的技術性寫作都有同一種渴求，那就是清楚地闡明一個想法。
Writing is not always the best way to communicate in the workplace.
寫作并不總是職場溝通的最佳方式。
Video is more memorable; a phone call is quicker; even PowerPoint has its place.
視頻更加令人印象深刻；打電話更快捷；就連幻燈片也有它的一席之地。
But for the structured thought it demands, and the ease with which it can be shared and edited, the written word is made for remote work.
但就職場需要的結構化思維，以及分享和編輯的便捷性而言，書面文字就是為遠程工作而生。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
