Category: Uncategorized

Simple as Pen and Paper

I sat down for a job interview back in June 2006 with Robbie Cape, CEO of the then-unlaunched Cozi, housed in the Smith Tower in downtown Seattle.  The interview was for a software development position, and thus I was grilled by a couple of members of the Cozi team on writing software code (I don’t recall doing particularly well on this).  What I remember most, though, was talking with Robbie, who described his product thusly: putting down the pen he was taking notes with, he fluttered the top page of his notebook a bit and said that he wanted his product to be as transparent as pen and paper.  Lofty goals, to be sure, but for some reason, that very image has stuck with me, and it’s haunted me quite a bit lately.  Part of the reason for this are the titles of IMT 510 and IMT 540 this year: Human Aspects of Information Systems and Design Methods for Interaction and Systems, respectively.

As I’ve read a lot of the readings that have been assigned, particularly for 540, the idea of user-centered design – that the software should be written to suit the user’s purposes, rather than the user adapting to the software’s purposes – has been at the forefront.  There are various different approaches to this, of course, but the central idea is that users should not be forced to accept whatever decisions the developers have made for them without any input into the process.  Ease of use, it is said, cannot be achieved without involving people who are somehow affected by the software – to coin phrases from Value Sensitive Design and Hosmer, the direct and indirect stakeholders.   This makes me think quite a bit about the pen and paper metaphor.  The fact is that pen and paper is only easy to use because we, as a society, make it so; for the longest time, it was quill and paper.  The next advancement in technology could very well make it stylus and “ePaper”, some sort of electronic device that is as thin as paper but that remembers everything we write on it by storing it within a very large internal memory.  But I digress – the point of design is to ensure transparency.

Can the simplicity of pen and paper ever truly be matched by a computer program or an information system?  An open question, since many are attempting to do this.  In reality, it likely is only what it is – a metaphor.  But what if it were doable?  What kind of world would we have then?

MSIM Cohort Nationalities

A breakdown of the different nationalities for my cohort of the MSIM program was announced at orientation and at the last all-iSchool meeting. The breakdown is as follows across 32 incoming students for the third Day MSIM cohort:

  • China (4)
  • India (6)
  • Taiwan (5)
  • Korea (2)
  • Phillipines (1)
  • New Zealand (1)
  • Washington State (10)
  • Texas (1)
  • California (1)
  • Ohio (1)

And a gratuitous graph that adds nothing to the conversation:

MSIM 2009 Cohort by Nationality

LinkedIn “Invitation Flocks”

I’ve observed an interesting phenomena the last week or so with my LinkedIn account: I receive invites from one person in a single company, rapidly followed by two or three people from that same company. This morning it was people from Blum Shapiro (which, to my knowledge, I’ve never heard of and know nobody there). Before that, it was Creative Financial Staffing. Now, just as a matter of personal preference, I take a “closed networking” approach where I only connect with people I actually know or have had contact with – that wasn’t always true, but has been for quite a while. This happens occasionally with different companies, which seems like an odd pattern to me. I’m assuming this is good (word is getting out about me), but given that the invitations are generic and come out of thin air, it’s hard to know what to think.

Update (5:25PM): I sent this post along to the LinkedIn Bloggers Yahoo! Group only to find that a number of them had also received the same invitations from both companies.  That’s prompted me to mark the three invitations from Blum Shapiro as “I don’t know this person”, which, if that’s done enough times by a certain number of people, can lead to very bad things happening to your LinkedIn account.  I regard such tactics as connection farming, or to put it not so nicely and squarely in the bin of rubbish where it belongs, spam.  I normally just archive such invitations and move on, but I feel very strongly about people who indiscriminately attempt to connect to large groups of other people with absolutely no basis for that connection.

That said, connecting with individuals because you feel you can gain something from the relationship is not bad at all – some of my connections via LinkedIn happened for exactly that reason.  But have a reason – don’t just send me a generic invitation in the hopes that I’ll blindly hit “Accept” just to get you out of my hair.

More Strange E-Mails from Evergreen State

Since I still have an active staff account, I still get e-mails sent to staff and faculty members, hence why I’m able to post them. If they didn’t want me to do so, they should’ve killed my account when they had the chance!

Subject: Ham cooking in the longhouse kitchen oven
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:16:43 -0700
To: "All Staff & Faculty" <xxxxxxxxxx@evergreen.edu>

Hello. A student with the designated key to the Longhouse kitchen came
in to set up for the Common Bread meeting and he found hams cooking at
325 in both of the ovens. Are you missing a ham or two?

I turned OFF the ovens because he didn't think it was anyone else from
the group since he's the only one with the key.

Another mystery of the longhouse---spontaneous ham baking...

Unfortunate E-Mail Subjects

Subject: added performance for Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:13:44 -0700
To: "All Staff & Faculty" <xxxxxxxx@evergreen.edu>

Would you guess that Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps is the name of an upcoming play for Evergreen’s Performing Arts program?

Class Time Investment

Mike Crandall, head of the MSIM program, says we should be investing 3-5 hours of outside work per hour spent in class. Well, the UW schedules its blocks a bit weirdly to allow 10 minutes for class switches, so if I round up, there’s 13 hours of in class time, which includes an optional lab for IMT501 that’s about an hour and a half.

13 * 3 = 39
13 * 5 = 65

So I should be spending anywhere between 39 and 65 hours/week on classwork this quarter (note that this only counts IMT501, 510, and 540, not IMT500, which has already ended). I somehow doubt I’ve been approaching that total at this point.

(An aside – I’m working 10 hours a week this quarter, which means between 49 and 75 hours/week on work related to the iSchool with only 168 hours in a week, 112 if you sleep 8 hours/day.  So somewhere between 44% and 67% of my time should be iSchool-related work.  Ouch.)

Microsoft SharePoint Certifications

Microsoft makes the following SharePoint certifications available:

Followup: Friedman Sets Off Stink Bomb

I got the following response from Toyota fairly quickly:

We want to thank you for taking the time to write us here at Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc.

We are sorry you heard of the inaccurate assertion that we are actively lobbying against increased fuel economy standards, and we want you to be aware of our company’s position supporting increased fuel economy.

There are various bills before Congress that would mandate a new target of 35 mpg by 2020 and require both cars and trucks to meet that standard. Our engineers tell us the requirements specified by these proposed measures are beyond what is possible. Toyota spends $23 million every day on research and development but, at this point, the technology to meet such stringent standards by 2020 does not exist.

Toyota has long supported an increase in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards. Moreover, Toyota has always exceeded federal fuel economy requirements. We are continuously striving to improve our fuel economy, regardless of federal mandates.

Toyota currently supports a proposal known as the Hill-Terry bill, HR 2927, that would set a new standard of up to 35 mpg by 2022 (up to a 40% increase) and maintain separate categories for cars and light trucks. Although this won’t be easy, we believe it is achievable.

To learn more, please visit our blog "A Call to Action-Let’s Move Forward on Fuel Economy" at: http://blog.toyota.com.

You may also want to review the testimony given on March 14th, before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Energy and Commerce Committee by Jim Press, President of Toyota Motor North America, regarding Toyota’s plans and goals regarding increased fuel efficiency and lower vehicle emissions.

Toyota remains committed to the environment and the goal of sustainable mobility and we appreciate you taking the time to contact us.

Toyota Customer Experience

So where does Friedman get his information? There is no disclosure of sources in the article. Further, responding directly to this e-mail, how do Toyota engineers deem that "the requirements specified by these proposed measures are beyond what is possible" when they have cars and technologies that do this already, with vast improvements rumored for the next generation of their Hybrid Synergy Drive technology? I’ve been told by Toyota salespeople personally — not that I ever trust salespeople farther than I can throw them — that Toyota intended to hybridize its fleet by 2010. If the technology exists, despite that this assertion is an all-out lie, why not?

Why is Toyota so reluctant to step up to the plate? They disprove themselves when they state that it’s impossible. If what they mean is that the demand for vehicles with hybrid drives outstrips the supply of parts to manufacture those drives, why not say that rather than sidestepping the issue?

I decided to reply to the message Toyota sent in an effort to perhaps get some clarification:

I find your argument that the technology doesn’t exist to be highly vexing, and, quite frankly, misleading. I drive a Toyota car – the Prius – that proves that technology does exist to support higher vehicle mileage. The Hybrid Synergy Drive system was built for the purpose of increasing mileage on vehicles, and is in active use on several Toyota models. Does Toyota mean to say that the demand for hybrid drives outstrips Toyota’s ability to manufacture such drives in large enough quantities to support the market? If that’s the case, then come out and say it. Hiding behind such blatantly wrong statements to the effect of “the technology doesn’t exist” doesn’t make sense. Of course it exists – Toyota invented it!

Friedman Sets Off Stink Bomb

Thomas Friedman in the New York Times today set off a stink bomb when he claimed that Toyota has been backing American automakers in resisting higher fuel economy standards. The Union of Concerned Scientists responded with a campaign almost immediately – below is the text of my submission for that campaign. The first and third paragraphs are the automatically generated default drivel used by the system, the second is my own:

President, Toyota North America Shigeru Hayakawa

Dear Mr. Hayakawa,

I am writing to express my deep concern that your company has decided to actively oppose the Senate-passed increase to U.S. fuel economy standards. Toyota already complies with Japanese fuel economy standards aimed at reaching approximately 46 miles per gallon (U.S.) by 2010. Why are you denying American consumers the access to fuel efficient choices that both hybrid and conventional technologies can deliver in all vehicle classes?

As a current Prius owner, I am deeply disturbed by Toyota’s reluctance to set the standard. While I laud Toyota’s work on establishing one of the highest MPG automotive fleets anywhere, I am distressed that Toyota feels the need to continue the status quo, which, as you should well know by now, only damages the very environment Toyota claims to care about. Put your mouth where your money is, sir, and push for higher fuel economy standards in the United States.

I ask that you reverse your current course of action and declare publicly that Toyota can and will comply with the Senate fuel economy standards of 35 miles per gallon. You have the power to help Americans meet their varied driving needs while reducing oil dependence and global warming pollution.

I look forward to your reply.

Update (4:48PM): The Union of Concerned Scientists campaign is available here.