Tue, Mar 27, 2007
More on the Price of Openness #
I'm a very private person. On the surface, that may be hard to believe, coming from someone who blogs regularly, who has a public Flickr stream, and who interacts regularly with tons of people, most of whom I like. But it's not news to anyone who knows me. When it comes to my work, I'm very transparent. Again, this blog is a testament to that. When it comes to me personally and the people I care about, I can be as tight as a clam. (M1Y)
Over the years, I've gotten better at walking the boundary, maintaining my privacy without completely walling myself off from others. I've lowered the outer walls a bit, and my life is much richer for it. But the walls are still there. It's my own personal IntimacyGradient. Frankly, those boundaries are what allow me to live a somewhat public life and stay sane. It's reminiscent of WonkoTheSane in DouglasAdams's So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish. The world really can be an asylum, and it's important to have a sanctuary from that. (M1Z)
I don't self-identify as a blogger. When bloggers express outrage about something, I don't say to myself, "Ah yes, those are my people." I have many friends and colleagues who blog, several prominently, but I don't think of them as bloggers either. I think of them as people I respect and care about. Sometimes, these friends become the center of online idiocy, and in those times, I try to remind them to remember the people and the things that are really important to them. What happens outside of that circle doesn't matter as much, and it helps to be reminded of that. (M20)
I don't know KathySierra personally, but I feel bad about what happened to her, and I wish her the best. It won't be the last time that something ridiculous like this happens, and next time, it very well may happen to someone I do know, maybe even me. Incidents like these really force you to stop and think. (M21)
In response to this fiasco, RossMayfield made a profound observation: (M22)
Being open on the web matters. Transparency is good. Society values it more every day and it is the underlying force field of the blogosphere. But it is rare to hear horror stories of being too closed, and frequent for being open. Maybe being too closed makes you unheard to begin with. Maybe it means isolation which is our greatest fear. Maybe it also means corruption when conspired. (M23)
Last year, I wrote of a far less serious case where people were paying the price of openness. And I concluded that the cost was always worth it in the end, because authenticity will always win. It means a very different thing in this context, but it still applies. (M24)
Still, openness does not mean without boundaries. When we think of collaboration and collaborative spaces, we must not forget the importance of IntimacyGradients. This is a good personal lesson as well. (M25)
/collaboration | Posted at 1:37am
CastingWords Transcription Service #
I've interviewed hundreds of people over the past 20 years, so I'm intimately familiar with the technology and the trials and tribulations of transcription. Not surprisingly, the advances in recording technology have been phenomenal. I have hundreds of dollars of high quality recording equipment, all of which would have cost thousands of dollars even five years ago. Sadly, the advances in transcription technology have not kept up. Until recently, your best bet was to find a good stenographer, which would have cost you more than a pretty penny. (M1P)
I recently heard about CastingWords from a post BethKanter made to the riders-talk mailing list, and I was immediately intrigued. CastingWords uses Amazon.com's MechanicalTurk to farm out transcriptions to people all over the world. It's a classic case of applying rudimentary technology in a clever, useful way. It's also incredibly cheap. The basic transcription cost is $0.75 a minute of recording time. Many transcriptionists charge per minute of transcription time, which is usually at least four times the length of the transcription. (M1Q)
As it so happens, I'm doing some work right now that requires transcriptions, so I decided to give it a shot. Usability is a breeze, from upload to payment to picking up the transcriptions. Turnaround time for all of my interviews (all less than an hour long) was less than 24 hours. And the quality of the transcriptions were top-notch. Quite simply, CastingWords is an amazing service. (M1R)
/tech | Posted at 12:26am
Mon, Mar 26, 2007
Nexus For Change Observations #
I'm about to comment on a conference that I reluctantly didn't attend: Nexus For Change. Sure, I've read rumblings from the conference site as well as the blogosphere and Flickr, and I'm sure there's more to come as folks recover from what was undoubtedly a mind-blowing two days. I'll also happily use my absence as an excuse to touch base with friends and colleagues who did attend. (M1G)
Despite my lack of complete information, what's compelling me to comment is this picture that NancyWhite took: (M1H)
I love the elephants that were identified. But the thing that really jumped out at me was the elephant on the upper right: "No youth present." Disappointing, but not surprising. And frankly, probably a good thing... this year. This convening was already a coup, and it takes baby steps to make big changes in the world. But it will be a horrible thing if it becomes a trend. (M1J)
About a month ago, there was a thread in ChrisMessina's Flickr stream about the need for a book on unconferences. I commented: (M1K)
There's already an excellent book like this. It's called The Change Handbook, and it documents a ton of great thinking and experience on group process and catalyzing transformation. (M1L)
The BarCamp phenomenon adds something new and vibrant to all of this, and is not represented in the book (AFAIK -- I haven't seen the second edition yet). So there's still a need for that knowledge to be integrated into the larger body of practice. (M1M)
This is a classic case of two communities with similar values and different demographics not talking to each other and certainly not collaborating. How do you get these communities to collaborate? You either wait for it to happen on its own, or you catalyze it. (M1N)
At the BlueOxenAssociates 4th anniversary party last December, I said that I'd have some exciting things to announce this year. I was being dramatic then, and I'll probably be dramatic again in a few months when I announce some new initiatives. In short, I'll be describing a concrete plan for catalyzing collaboration between these communities. I've been preparing for months now, and I've still got a few more to go, but I'm already giddy. This has been the vision behind BlueOxenAssociates from day one. When I started the company, I had a five year plan for achieving this vision. It's a good thing, too, because I've needed each and every one of the past four years to reach a point where I felt like I could make a significant difference. I've still got a ton to learn, but I also feel incredibly empowered, and I can't wait to share and apply what I know with the rest of the world. (M1O)
/collaboration | Posted at 1:51am
Hold Your Horses! #
GavinClabaugh tells a wonderful story about the origins of the saying, "Hold your horses," and cites a number of every day examples of our inability to adapt to change: (M10)
Confronted by today's rapid pace of technological change, organizations hold a lot of horses; the faster the change, the more horses. We all do it. We treat web sites like magazines, databases like report producers, voicemail like a "while you were out" pad, and email like it was direct mail.... (M11)
Non profits are not immune -- in fact they're probably worse. Working with nonprofits as a consultant, I've often walked into what felt like an imaginary stable, horses being held steady to the left and right; a regular day at the races. To quote again Dr. [EltingMorison], "The tendency is apparently involuntary and immediate to protect oneself against the shock of change by continuing in the presence of altered situations the familiar habits, however incongruous, of the past." (M12)
... (M13)
Language too, can show you where the horses are stabled: it's slow to keep up. When things are in flux, language usually reflects the associated angst. That's why you still here the phrase "in the can" when a news crew finishes a video shoot -- it refers to the act of putting the film into a sealed container or "can." Film is gone, and so is the can, but the language has failed to adapt. The examples are everywhere: "b-roll," "post-modern," "post-industrial," "login," and "boot," or for that matter, "reboot." Our brains hold horses and we don't even notice. I shudder, for example, when I hear voicemail with a message like: "Can you call me back. I need to ask you a question." We're thinking pink "While you were out" pads. Sadly, I am not immune. (M14)
There are several good stories like, "Hold your horses." PaulGraham relates a great one from PrimoLevi on varnish recipe that called for one raw onion. And I've heard several people tell the story about the family recipe for roast that called for slicing off the end of a perfectly good hunk of meat. (The grandmother originally did this because her oven was too small to hold the entire roast.) And if you like similar stories about the origins of our language, check out BillBryson's, Made In America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States. (M15)
I don't mind the fact that language doesn't adapt with the times. But I definitely mind when people and organizations fail to adapt. Not that it's easy. Gavin's conclusion is especially important: (M16)
Organizations too, fight back against change, eliminating all but the slimmest possibility of "change from within." In the same study, Morison concludes that "[T]he deadlock between those who sought change and those who sought to retain things as they were was only broken by an appeal to a superior force, a force removed from, and unidentified with, the mores, conventions, and devices of the society." The argument, the great generalization, here is that no institution can reform itself. Truly, it's a rare institution that can. That reform requires rare bravery, rare vision and even rarer leadership. And, it is why, the view from without is so valuable sometimes. I could see the bridles in the hands of the cabin attendants. They could not. (M17)
/forbenefit | Posted at 12:33am
Mon, Mar 19, 2007
Beer Is Good #
This Thursday's PARC Forum in PaloAlto features CharlieBamforth, chair of the Department of Food Science & Technology at UC Davis. (M0R)
His talk? "Beer: The Best Beverage in the World." (M0S)
Ah, academia, how I love thee. (M0T)
/talks | Posted at 10:52pm
Under-Definite Articulation #
SamuelKlein recently complained about people who refer to Wikipedia with "over-definite articulation." In other words, "the Wikipedia" rather than just "Wikipedia." SJ pleads, "Please fight for justice in nomenclature, and save us all from grammatical confusion and disorder." (M0P)
Hear, hear, SJ. I have to deal with a similar problem here in the BayArea: Silly Northern Californians who refer to the local freeways with under-definite articulation. People, it's the 101. Get it right. (M0Q)
/personal | Posted at 10:44pm
The Jeopardy Dilemma #
Speaking of the BananaHoardingProblem and other real-life variants of the PrisonersDilemma, something very interesting happened on the game show, Jeopardy, last Friday. For the first time in its 23 year history, the show ended in a tie. (M0C)
What was really interesting was how it all happened. ScottWeiss, the defending champion, was in first place with $13,400. The other two contestants were tied with $8,000. Scott was assured the win if he answered the question right. All he had to do was bet $2,601, which would have given him $16,001 and which would have made it statistically impossible for his competition to catch up. (M0D)
But Scott didn't bet $2,601. He bet $2,600. (M0E)
Had Scott won, he would have walked away with $16,000 and returned to play another day. His competition would have gone home with $2,000 in their pockets. With the tie, all three won $16,000, and they all returned to play again. (M0F)
Why did Scott go for the tie rather than the win? His friend, FrancisHeaney, had this to say: (M0G)
Our first thought was "Why did he do that?" but it didn't take us very long at all to figure out, well, he must have just thought, "Hey! Wouldn't it be nice if we all won $16,000?" At a cost to himself of one dollar, he got to give two other people an extra $14,000. (I'm assuming the other guys would have both received $2,000 if they'd tied for the second-place prize.) Yay for altruism! Everybody wins! Now all of America knows what everyone who's met Scott knows: he is one of the nicest people alive. (M0H)
This wasn't quite the PrisonersDilemma. There weren't strong disincentives to tie. He was still the defending champion, and he still won the money (minus a dollar). He could have actually won quite a bit more money if he was more of a risk-taker, but in reality, that was probably the correct bet (minus a dollar). (M0I)
Plus, the incentives were pretty compelling. He turned an ordinary moment into a special one and shared it with two other people, perhaps sparking a friendship that might not otherwise have happened. (M0J)
All that said, it was an extraordinary move on Scott's part. He could not have planned it in advance, and the pressure of the moment must have been high. To have done something like that more or less spontaneously was very, very cool. (M0K)
/collaboration | Posted at 10:30pm
Banana Hoarding Update #
Several people contributed some excellent solutions to the BananaHoardingProblem I mentioned earlier this month. The question was how to prevent people from hoarding bananas at works. Solutions included: (M03)
- Andrew wrote in with his latest idea: Spray all the bananas with Aqua Velva as soon as they come in. T (M04)
- LeeBryant of Headshift gave the UK take on this important problem. Check out the brilliant comment at the end of his post with this gem: The Banana Guard T (M05)
- From GailTaylor: "TANSTAAFL ... keep the tarantulas with the bananas." T (M06)
- JeffreyOsborne is seizing the business opportunity presented by this problem, and has implemented a banana intelligence initiative. T (M07)
MarielleBinken? wrote in last week with these excellent suggestions: (M08)
In addition to the idea to tag the banana's with an RFID, I suggest the banana's start to whistle if they're opened one day after the last banana delivered disappeared. (M09)
The now publicly-known whistling illegal banana-owners have to make paper out of the banana-slice and make an art-work on the recycled banana-paper with e.g. the subject, "Why monkeys eat bananas and people collect them." Each month the favourite art-work will be sold on eBay (unique collectors item), and the money raised with it will be given to some foundations... like the one related to the guy who proposed in Davos to develop long-term holding bananas without cooling needs. :-) (M0A)
What did I tell you? WisdomOfCrowds. (M0B)
/collaboration | Posted at 9:38pm
Pintification #
JonStahl reports that the Plone community has invented a new SpeedGeeking derivative: (LZZ)
pintification: The act of conveying your idea before the judge finishes his drink. An interactive variant on lightning talks. (M00)
Congratulations, Gunner. You know you've made it when something you've created becomes a drinking game. Now where do I sign up? (M01)
/collaboration | Posted at 9:25pm
Sat, Mar 10, 2007
FLOSS Usability Sprint Quick Impressions #
Coming to you live, quick impressions from our fourth FLOSS Usability Sprint: (LZC)
- Each of our sprints have had a distinct personality. One thing that strikes me about our participants this time is how well all of them understand and buy into usability. One big reason for that is our projects -- we have three repeat projects plus Firefox. It also reflects nicely on a growing shared understanding on what OpenSource and usability are, and how we can marry the two together. (LZD)
- After having gone through three and a half of these sprints, I find that I have inadvertently become a knowledge repository for a ton of great learning about both usability and OpenSource. While I love the learning, I can't help but think that there's someone in the community with a greater individual stake than I -- a usability practitioner or an OpenSource developer -- who's missing out on a great personal opportunity to serve that same role and really become a champion and leader of the cause. (LZE)
- Great space + great people + great process = GroupGenius. It never fails. (LZF)
- People who have never participated in this type of event before don't realize how exhausting it is. This is not BarCamp. Yeah, we're connecting, we're knowledge-sharing, and we're having fun. But we're also working. And it's really fun watching these folks -- after an exhausting week of regular week -- crank away on these projects. If work were always this fun, the world would truly be an interesting place. It feels even better knowing that we're working on tools that will make an impact on the world at large. (LZG)
- Google's very own LeslieHawthorn is awesome. I know, I know, I've gushed about her before. But it needs to be said again and again and again. (LZH)
/events | Posted at 11:09am
Thu, Mar 08, 2007
Chicks and Frogs: Hip Baby Attire #
EugeneChan and his wife, Vonnie, have just launched Chicks and Frogs, a web site that sells hip baby-wear. For an added bonus, their adorable daughter, Ruby, is the model. (LZB)
/personal | Posted at 10:39pm
Wed, Mar 07, 2007
Terrell Russell on STODID #
Last week, I wrote glowingly of TerrellRussell's work on ContextualAuthorityTagging. You can hear the man himself talk more about it on AldoCastaneda's latest STODID podcast (The Story of Digital Identity). (LYY)
At first, I was a bit surprised that they didn't talk much about ClaimID, which is Terrell's other cool project related to DigitalIdentity. I then realized that Aldo had already interviewed FredStutzman about ClaimID last year. On this week's podcast, Terrell alluded to his various projects converging. Poking around ClaimID today, I could see where ContextualAuthorityTagging could possibly rear its head. Exciting stuff. (LYZ)
/collaboration/idcommons | Posted at 12:36pm
March Conferences #
This weekend, we're having our fourth FLOSS Usability Sprint, once again sponsored by the good folks at Google. Participating projects will include Mozilla, WiserEarth, SocialSourceCommons, and Drupal! It should be a fantastic event, and we still have some slots for usability folks, so if you'd like to participate, please apply by the end of the day today. (LYO)
Tonight is another installment of WikiWednesday at SocialText's offices in PaloAlto. BryanPendleton of Xerox PARC will be discussing his research on conflict resolution and coordination on Wikipedia. I had a chance to talk briefly with him about his work last month, and his talk should be absolutely fascinating. (LYP)
Finally, there's going to be an unprecedented gathering of folks in the facilitation, OrganizationalDesign, and collaboration community on March 21-23 called Nexus for Change. It will be held at Bowling Green State University in BowlingGreen?, Ohio (near [Detroit]?). If you're interested in catalyzing transformation in your organization and in society via collaboration, this is the place to be. I am tremendously bummed that I'm going to have to miss it. I did everything I could to rearrange my schedule, and it just wasn't to be. Many of my colleagues and friends will be there, as well as some of the deepest thinkers and practitioners in the business. I highly recommend it to everyone, but I'd like to make a special pitch to those of you in the CollaborativeTools business to attend. Should be a tremendous event. (LYQ)
/events | Posted at 12:20pm
Mon, Mar 05, 2007
Talking Technology, Take Two #
The important thing is that everyone is capable of understanding technology. Don't let those supposedly in the know bully you away from being confident in what you understand and what you don't understand. T (LYE)
JasonZanon at DemocracyInAction said the same thing much more eloquently: (LYF)
It turns out that taking a dogged approach to technical problems -- acting like one has no programmer to fall back on and starting with one's own expertise, whatever it is, googling to enhance it, experimentally replicating bugs and testing possible solutions -- can actually get one pretty far down the road, quite often all the way down the road, and build one's own knowledge into the bargain. (LYG)
And I'll let you in on a secret: a fair portion of the time that the geeks get ahold of a problem, that's exactly what they're doing. They just strike that authoritative pose when they deliver the response to keep the normals in awe. (LYH)
It's an amazingly empowering experience that largely hinges on mindset. For better or worse, it's also the sort of thing to make accidental techies if you're the one person in an office willing to figure out troublesome printer networking or unpack HTML. (LYI)
/tech | Posted at 10:33pm
Sun, Mar 04, 2007
The Banana Hoarding Problem #
I spent a good portion of this weekend listening to (and laughing at) my friends, Andrew and Elene, who are having a little problem at work. They both work at a large SiliconValley company that has fresh fruit delivered each week -- apples, oranges, and green bananas. Each week, the bananas disappear right away. Why? Because people hoard a week's worth of bananas at their cubicles, rather than taking only what they're going to eat right away. (LXI)
What should my friends do? Here were some answers I and others came up with: (LXJ)
- They should hoard bananas for themselves. (LXK)
- They should take bananas from one of the hoarders. (LXL)
- They should bring their own bananas. (LXM)
- The company should order more bananas. (LXN)
- The company should appoint a banana distribution manager. (LXO)
- They should hoard all the bananas themselves, and become the de facto banana distribution managers. (LXP)
- The company should hire an old person to stand in the kitchen at all times, a la Wal-Mart. This will shame people from hoarding. (LXQ)
- They should poison one bunch of bananas, then put up a sign saying that one bunch is poisoned without indicating which one. (LXR)
What would you do? Blog (and link here) or tell me your answers. (LXS)
Not only was it incredibly funny to see how dismayed my friends were (what can I say, I'm a sadist?), but it was actually interesting to think through the problem. It's a real-life instance of the PrisonersDilemma, a classic cooperation (but not necessarily collaboration) problem. (LXT)
At the StLouisCollaboratory workshop last October, we spent the day working on the IteratedPrisonersDilemma, appropriate since the workshop was held in a former police station. It was fascinating to watch people work through the problem. I've been sitting on a pile of notes about it for months now, and this latest real-world dilemma may motivate me to sort through them and blog about it. (LXU)
Update (LY4)
Clearly, the BananaHoardingProblem is more widespread than I originally thought, as the empathy and some possible solutions are already starting to come in. Once again, we see the WisdomOfCrowds at work (or not). (LY5)
- Andrew wrote in with his latest idea: Spray all the bananas with Aqua Velva as soon as they come in. (LY6)
- LeeBryant of Headshift gave the UK take on this important problem. Check out the brilliant comment at the end of his post with this gem: The Banana Guard (LY7)
- From GailTaylor: "TANSTAAFL ... keep the tarantulas with the bananas." (LYN)
- JeffreyOsborne is seizing the business opportunity presented by this problem, and has implemented a banana intelligence initiative. (LZ3)
Keep your answers coming! (LY8)
/collaboration | Posted at 7:55pm
Thu, Mar 01, 2007
Talking Technology #
ToddJohnston posted an outstanding summary of our informal session this past Saturday. He mentioned our first exercise, which was to have Todd, GailTaylor, and TiffanyVonEmmel explain how email worked to MatthewOConnor and myself, who had had sudden bouts of amnesia. Todd wrote, "This exercise, as you may imagine, did a lot to uncover assumptions, vantage points and metaphors we use to shape our understanding." (LX9)
The point of the exercise was two-fold. First, we wanted the group to have a better understanding of how the Internet worked. Second, rather than tell them how it worked, we wanted them to figure it out by thinking through the problem. Most of us have the mental tools to understand technology; we just choose not to use them. We wanted to get them to use them. (LXA)
What was interesting about the exercise was that they did an excellent job of drawing a basic conceptual picture. However, when Matthew and I started asking probing questions to help fill in the gaps, they abandoned their mental models and started reverting to buzzwords. They mentioned things like packets and algorithms and server farms, all of which demonstrated knowledge of Internet lingo, but none of which was necessary to explain how email worked. (LXB)
Matthew pointed out that techies often do the same thing. When confronted with basic questions about technology, they often start throwing around concepts and language that aren't critical to the core question. In these cases, they do this because they're unaware of the other party's mental models and are feeling around for context. (LXC)
Why would non-techies do the same thing? In this particular case, it was for the exact same reason. Even though Matthew and I were playing dumb, they knew that we knew the answers. When we started asking questions, they abandoned their model and started feeling around for the answers we might be looking for, hence the lingo. (LXD)
When one person has knowledge that the other person doesn't have, that often results in a power relationship, and power relationships affect how people behave. What makes this relationship dangerous is when people assume that this knowledge is somehow sacred and unattainable. Many non-technical people are guilty of this. It's evident when people preface their statements, "I'm not a techie," as if that makes them incapable of understanding technology. It's an attitude problem that stems from fear. (LXE)
The important thing is that everyone is capable of understanding technology. Don't let those supposedly in the know bully you away from being confident in what you understand and what you don't understand. (LXF)
On a separate note, Todd also describes FindingYourHey, an exercise that the band, Phish often performs. Todd first told me this story two years ago, and I dutifully blogged about it, but I didn't know what it was called, and I didn't know the exact quote. It's a wonderful story. (LXG)
/tech | Posted at 11:50pm
Relay Racing Synergy #
The informal gathering this past Saturday was the result of conversations that GailTaylor and I have been having for some time about the synergies between process and digital technology. (The "digital" distinction is important. "Process," in our world, is just another "technology.") (LX6)
Gail recently posted her vision of what we're trying to do. I especially liked this story: (LX7)
As a relay racer in a much earlier life, I studied the passing of the baton. When we were "magic" we neither passed or received as separate events. Rather, something more happened... a synergy that I cannot describe. (LX8)
/collaboration | Posted at 11:24pm
