We may not be able to get rid of the constant interruptions in our day, but we can manage them better

As Web services automate the work performed by millions of workers, where will these folks go next? Not to worry. People are the exception handlers in all automated workflows, and intelligence and judgment won"t be automated anytime soon. What does worry me, though, is how we"ll connect people and services. Managing that scarcest of resources, our attention, is a huge challenge.

At a recent meeting with my son"s teachers and guidance counselor, timely notification of missing homework was the issue. Messages were sent but not received because the channel of communication -- papers sent home in the kid"s backpack -- did not guarantee reliable delivery. I"d rather the teachers" records were accessible to me on a secure Web site -- with an RSS feed, of course -- but our school district isn"t there yet.

Could I be notified by e-mail if assignments weren"t done? "Yes," I was told, "if you e-mail us a request for information, we"ll respond." Couldn"t they just ping me in case of exceptions? "No."

So I wrote a Python script to send a message to each teacher ("Subject: All OK this week?") and scheduled it to run every Thursday. Crazy? Yes and no. Clearly my solution isn"t what they had in mind, and I"d like to think that in their shoes I"d initiate as needed. But I"m not responsible for 90 students and I"m as interrupt-driven as anyone else.