The play's the thing

The best way to teach an old dog new tricks, as most educationalists will tell you, is to make learning enjoyable. Faced with a new challenge, everyone will have a go if you dress it up as fun and games. They'll play around and they'll learn. Later, they'll do the learning without the tasks being sugar-coated.

That's game theory in a nutshell, and it's something that Microsoft seems to understand. I should know. Because I was blown to smithereens a thousand times because of Microsoft, and all for the sake of a mouse.

Yes, I became a Minesweeper addict, one of thousands around the world, many of them humble employees in large organisations and businesses. I wasted precious hours glued to those 16x30 grey tables with the little yellow face that smiles when you click start and frowns when you blow yourself apart. I learned to right-click on squares where bombs might lurk and left-click on the safe squares.

Many times I miscalculated and got 'keboomed'. But also I got to be an expert, clearing a 100-device minefield in minutes. After a few months, I could do it in my sleep. But eventually I could learn no more new rules to do it any faster, and all the thrill went out of it.

Once, I asked a Microsoft marketing person how the company could possibly justify including games like Minesweeper and FreeCell with its Windows operating system? Surely, companies that moved over to Windows would lose a great deal of productivity as employees whittled away the hours? Why didn't IT managers insist that Microsoft remove those frivolous pieces of nonsense?

'Those games are there to help people who have never used a mouse before to develop their skills,' she replied crisply. 'If we had put a software utility inside Windows labelled "Learn to use your mouse" then I guarantee nobody would have used it. We don't see them as games, we see them as ways of overcoming people's fears of using new technology.'

It was a convincing argument - who am I to question the findings of Microsoft's Usability Labs? And it sprang to mind when I read about a company offering software that allows network administrators to prevent employees from accessing 'forbidden sites' on the Internet.

So what kind of URLs will head these 'forbidden lists'? Obviously, the kind of sites that most people who get given their first connection to the Internet immediately search out: sites for Penthouse or Playgirl, football teams or telly shows.

I fail to see how the petty-minded censorious attitudes fostered by such software can help to create a good relaxed culture in an organisation.

And I'm certain that any IT department that chooses such software won't be doing itself any good in the eyes of other employees.

It's not just that I loathe small minds and bean counters making false cost savings. It's simply that I'd have thought that any employee worth his or her salt would naturally want to explore the new medium. To play around with it, get the hang of it. And do their job better as a result.

OK, monitor usage so that you can find out who is heavily abusing their access to the Internet. If an organisation's management is half-way decent, they'll have fostered an environment where someone who's mucking about all day will soon be identified. Surely, making allowances for natural curiosity is a better policy for an IT department than becoming seen as Censors for the Board or nasty little Mr Plods.

When I go to work in a large organisation, I don't expect the staff in reception to take my newspaper off me and confiscate the comic section so that I won't waste time at my desk. That would rightly lead to ridicule for that company. Why should it be any different when it comes to Web access?