This handy shelf is the Backpack from Twelve South, a gadget that attaches to the stand of your Mac and holds your hard drive in well-ventilated elegance. You can get a six-pack of these and kit out your whole office — you can actually put two on each machine, at different heights, so you might need a couple of six-packs.

You can set things that don’t actually need frequent access (like that hard drive) into a space that isn’t used much, and have your desk top for the things you really need to get your hands on — or leave the desk in Zen-like emptiness. Either way, you might find that you experience less stress and get more done if you add this little shelf to your desk.

Is this going to change your life? Probably not. But it’s an example of how a simple design decision can make a difference in your work. This is what we do every day at Clevertech. Our designs end up in your computer, not out where people can see them and be impressed, but they can revolutionize your office and your workflow –and improve your bottom line.

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It’s true: sometimes people resist new technologies. But even those who embrace them sometimes have problems making best use of them.

In the 1700s, guns were fairly inaccurate. It was possible for soldiers to line up across from one another, fire all together, and miss most of the people on the other side.

By the time of the American Civil War, guns had become much more accurate. On some level, people knew this. They hunted with more modern guns, after all, so they knew that they could aim and shoot pretty well. And yet quite a few field commanders lined their soldiers up across from each other and fired. They must have been astonished to see how many men were lost in this way.

Fairly quickly, the soldiers caught on and began to use the tactics of guerilla warfare — not unheard of during the American Revolution, but quickly to become the norm during the Civil War.

Without the stress of approaching death, many people fail to adjust to new technologies. You may know people who routinely print out emails, or print and file copies of electronic invoices. You may know people who call to ask whether an email has been received. You may even know people who keep track of data with multiple unintegrated programs or paper ledgers or Post-It notes for that matter, recording the same data many times, in many places, for many people.

Chances are you — or your staff — are doing some things by hand that your software will do. Chances are you’re repeating some actions when there’s no need or benefit for doing so.

And chances are, it isn’t a matter of life and death, as the failure of soldiers to grasp the changes in weaponry can be. But it may well be a matter of ROI, productivity, or job satisfaction.

Look around your office and see if there are places where your office culture is lagging behind your available technology. If you have trouble finding them, Clevertech can help. If in fact your technology lags behind your culture, we can help with that, too.

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We love technology. Just in principle. Technology offers the promise of a better life. True, sometimes it only delivers a better life in the sense of having a truly cool new gadget, but this is one version of a better life.

Here are our recommendations for TV shows for those who love technology as much as we do. Sometimes the tech stuff in these shows saves people’s lives. Sometimes they’re just enviably cool and possibly imaginary gadgets. No matter.

• Leverage is a stylish show about a bunch of thieves who get together to deliver justice to bad guys, always with sleek devices. Our favorite is Hardison, who often proclaims that it’s “The Age of the Geek, baby. We rule the world.”
• Burn Notice is an updated MacGyvor with spies, violence, and somewhat crazed women. The characters on this show, enjoying Miami in their rayon shirts, take ordinary objects and make them into lethal weapons and surprisingly effective spy gear.
• How Stuff Works on the Discovery Channel is a nonfiction contender which mixes history and technology in a heady concoction. Admit it, you want to know how iron works, and even if you already know how beer is made, you’ll admire the camera work.
• Mythbusters gives viewers a chance to share in the innocent pleasure of real, highly competent technophiles who get a chance to confirm or disconfirm urban myths.  Their glee when they blow things up (which they do at every opportunity) is contagious.
• Timewarp slows ordinary things down to the point at which they become an entirely new experience, and MIT’s Jeff Lieberman is there to interpret everything for our complete viewing pleasure.
• Numbers has mathematicians explaining basic things to one another in a way that would, in real life, be offensive.  Apart from that, it’s a smart crime show with unusual depth of character and relationships.
• The Big Bang Theory is at the other end of the spectrum, being a situation comedy based on popular stereotypes of physicists and engineers, but we have to admit that we find it funny. Don’t watch it in mixed company– shoo the liberal arts majors out before it comes on.
• Modern Marvels shows you the coolest stuff out there. From the skinny on James Bond gadgets to the newest sports gear, engineering disasters to weaponry, Modern Marvels bring you maximum detail.
• Popular Science’s Future Of is an in-depth examination of the future of security, sex, superhumans, and all kinds of other stuff with Baratunde Thurston. Mini-documentaries with interviews show all the wires and buttons and everything.

One of our IT guys responded to this topic with, “My People don’t watch TV.” He admitted that he watches these programs on his computer. We think maybe he’s too literal-minded.

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