Summary of Geisler's "When Mangement Becomes Personal"

Cheryl Geisler applies Activity Theory, the idea that human mental processes materialize through tools and the development of tools, to the vogue of personal digital assistants (PDAs), focusing on Palm Technology. After giving an overview of the cultural history of the Palm, Geisler reviews how the Palm has affected her own professional and personal life, describing how she has transferred regular pen-and-paper writing tasks into her PDA. Overall, Geisler finds that the Palm, instead of mediating work from personal life, invades her private space.

Her analysis of the cultural history suggests the Palm came from needs and desires directed by American business culture. The broad trend of professionalization compelled people of the “managerial class” to manage their time effectively and condense the planners and notebooks that they carried into fewer tools. Geisler points to “technologies of the body” responding to the time-crunch culture and shaping how these technologies are produced—the Palm PDA actually fits into the palm. This new technology replaces the business technologies, like the rolodex, of the past with something intended to be more efficient.

Geisler presents a personal analysis of how the Palm affected her task-management and digital writing. Her complex analysis, in short, suggests that her personal writing / plans were showing up at work. This creates problems, as the line between work and personal life is blurred. With the current ubiquity of PDAs, social networking sites, and demanding, hybrid jobs that cross between recreation and professionalization time and space, it would seem that Geisler’s analysis presaged our digitally saturated personal and professional lives.