February 2012
2 posts
August 2010
1 post
July 2010
1 post
February 2010
1 post
January 2010
1 post
June 2009
1 post
1 tag
90 in 90. Um, well, not really.
So, hi there. Been a while, huh?
Admittedly, I did not keep up with the 90 in 90 project for the full 90 days. While this might look like a failure on the surface, I must say that the exercise was a huge success for me. When I started the experiment, I was in a bit of a creative rut, more tied up with project administration than doing anything creative or novel. After just a few days of...
February 2009
8 posts
1 tag
1 tag
17/90: Away.
Like many people, I find that my widespread use of collaboration and communication technologies makes it possible for my work life and its demands to find me almost anywhere and any time on the globe. This makes it almost impossible for me to really get away, meaning that I miss out on a lot of the restorative benefits of time off. Even more problematic is that I find that some of my best...
The most surprising failure of the Bush... →
Apparently the White House is under siege by racoons. This problem has to be the most surprising failure of the Bush administration. For a president whose few strengths include ‘clearing brush,’ this problem seems right up his alley. I’m truly shocked that this mess didn’t get taken care of.
1 tag
16/90: Failure multipliers
We often take reliability for granted since the published MTBF numbers for vulnerable pieces of hardware tend to be quite high. Given that the a component is likely to fail every 6.5 years, we should generally be good. Right?
Systems for remote collaboration, however, are a place where failure gets multiplied. Since these systems often consist of networks of components, that are connected to...
1 tag
15/90: Where was I?
In addition to remote collaboration, one of my core interests is measurement. Personally, I’m drawnt to tools that automatically log data about my life and I keep a log of about 20 factors related to my health and quality of life. Yes, I realize this makes me a little crazy.
Anyway, as I was sitting in a meeting today, reading a paper written by someone living 2,000 miles away and...
1 tag
14/90: Spheres of influence
Recently, I had a very good meeting with someone who was actively looking for people doing work similar to what I do at my institution. This individual was towards the end of his search, and only found out about me because a colleague at an institution 2000 miles away talked about my work in a recent conference keynote.
This experience highlighted the role distance can play on the salience of...
Watchthe brain crack. [ via 43folders ]
January 2009
19 posts
1 tag
12/90: Snakebit
2009 has not been a particularly lucky year for me so far. In particular, the demo gods are frowning upon me through very poor equipment reliability. On quick count, I’ve had at least 8 pieces of hardware fail independently in the past month or so. Different manufacturers, in different buildings, doing different things. No real common element. Just bad luck, it appears.
If you look...
1 tag
11/90: Thoughts on symmetry
A recent conversation with Amy Voida prompted me to take another look at a paper that she co-authored for CSCW 2008, Asymmetry in Media Spaces. The paper presents an analysis of situations in which asymmetry is beneficial in media spaces, recognizing that the goal of enhanced symmetry is not always best. They highlight the benefits of asymmetry in a design study called the ME-dia Space, which is...
1 tag
10/90: 90in90 - Some additional guidelines
A meta post.
Due in large part to a nasty cold that is circulating, I haven’t done a great job keeping up with the one-post-a-day goal. This is unfortunate, but actually not unforeseen. In order to stick to this project, I’m creating the following rules:
On Sunday, I can rest. This means 6 posts a week and a 15 week project.
Missed days must be made up within 10 days.
I’m...
1 tag
9/90: All communications should be two-way
It is not uncommon for streaming media (one-way streaming or conferencing) systems to be built as a set of sender-receiver pairs. Sometimes, these systems use protocols like RTP that lend themselves to two-way communication with the sender blasting packets and the receiver sending some sort of report or acknowledgement back. This is the right way to do things. Many of these systems are also...
1 tag
8/90: Points
Okay. Another short one, but hopefully these will start stretching out a bit in length. I also acknowledge that I have some catching up to do since I let a few microbes force me into taking a few days off.
Related to the brief post about uncertainty, I’ve long been interested in very lightweight approaches to measurement. In any organization, collocated or distributed, it is very...
1 tag
7/90: Uncertainty
Managing ambiguity and uncertainty is a huge part of life in organizations. While there are many techniques for formally evaluating performance in organizations, on a day-to-day basis, people have to make snap judgements about what is going on and how people are performing, based on very subtle cues. In collocated organizations, it is very easy to see when a workplace has a buzz that indicates...
1 tag
6/90: Flipping the problem
So much research in distributed work involves identifying the ways that being apart does not measure up to time together. There is also tremendous value in time alone, though. Instead of focusing on the shortcomings of collaborating over distance, would we design differently if we tried to maximize the advantages of being separated by time and geography?
In a typical work context, weekends...
1 tag
5/90: Thoughts on unplanned collaboration
While nursing my cold today, I watched The Pixar Story via Netflix. It is a great documentary about the origins, challenges and triumphs of Pixar, from its founding to its merger with Disney. In the movie, Steve Jobs says that “unplanned collaboration” is what Pixar is all about, describing the rationale for their amazing and expansive building.
“Unplanned...
1 tag
4/90: Matchmaker
This will be a quick one today, due to a bad cold and a long week.
I’m fortunate enough to be able to travel to many conferences a year (hotel conference rooms and high-carb buffets are very glamorous), providing me with introductions to interesting people from all around the world. Although I have many great conversations with people who have complimentary interests, disappointingly few...
1 tag
3/90 [Somebody] is talking...
Latency is a huge buzzkill for distributed work. In real time communications, even small amounts of latency make conversation bizarre. By disrupting timing, little bits of delay cause people to talk over each other, have awkward exchanges, appear dishonest and make otherwise sharp-witted individuals appear slow. Because so many collaboration technologies operate in near-real time, with only...
1 tag
2/90: human.245
The ITU H.323 standard is widely used in commercial video conferencing technologies. Rather than specifying how all aspects of video communications should work, H.323 describes a framework for how the different components of a communication should fit together, defining a basic protocol stack and providing an outline for how it can be extended through the incorporation of different audio and...
http://www.appenginelearn.com/ →
is an excellent guide to getting going with Google App Engine. Using the book and AppEngine, I was able to get a prototype of the Conferencing Pass running in a couple of hours. Thanks Dr. Chuck!
2 tags
1/90: Conferencing Pass
As I discussed in an earlier post, the telephone metaphor for remote collaboration technologies is profoundly broken. Successfully initiating a video conference or other type of rich collaboration technology session requires a lot of information that is highly variable - not only is the call information infrequently used by many participants, but it varies dramatically from time to time. So,...
1 tag
90 in 90: Remote Collaboration
Over the past few months, I’ve found that I’ve been increasingly wrapped up in management activites of all sorts and my creative side is feeling a little restless. Don’t get me wrong: planning and control is a barrel of monkeys, but it hasn’t provided a satisfying outlet to keep the ideas flowing. In this month’s ACM Interactions Magazine, Rachel Hinman from...
“One thing I realized is that I like to make things. We like to make things. ...”
– John Maeda at 2008 Serious Play conference <watch talk>
as easy as what?
For many years, my research has focused on ways that geographically distributed work can be better supported. In developing or deploying different collaborative tools, it seems that there is always an incumbent tool that people regularly use in practice that the new technology must be ‘as easy as.’ For instance, video conferencing always seems to have to be ‘as easy as’...
October 2008
2 posts
WatchAn AMAZING, globally-distributed Rube Goldberg machine from IDEO. This makes me remember why I got into research on distributed teams in the first place <nostalgic sniff>. (via MAKE: Blog)
so that's where I should have put my money...
I’ve long suspected that scotch is an important resource in hard times, but hadn’t considered it as a viable investment option:
Roughly 11 months after the launch of a Dutch online trade platform for exclusive single malt whiskies, mostly from Scotland, the World Whisky Index has seen an average return of 26.2 percent, compared to a more than 40 percent decline in the MSCI World stock...
September 2008
12 posts
no lifeguard on duty. also, tarpit.
In the most recent issue of interactions, Jonathan Grudin provides this incredibly vivid critique of CHI’s tendency to exlude negative findings:
…it’s true that CHI is disposed to reject papers that report negative results. One program chair said that reporting negative results would “run the danger of discouraging people to go down a certain path… That could be...
grilling in the rain FTW
me: oh - did i tell you that i almost blew myself up this weekend?
not-me: oooh, your story better than mine
As a home cook that takes particular joy in technical recipes, such as those found in Thomas Keller cookbooks (and the anxiously-awaited Alinea cookbook), I’m fascinated by kitchen culture and have relished the wisdom in Anthony Bourdain’s writing. I was interested to see another nod to the culinary scene in an account of a 37signals talk at Web 2.0 Expo.
11. Follow the Chefs -...
“Those pleated khakis and mild salsas don’t buy themselves.”
– Euro RSCG, for Dos Equis. (via The Geography of Bliss)
mike wellings, 1951 - 2008 →
this makes me very sad and means some parts of my job just won’t be nearly as much fun anymore.
people keep asking me about michigan football
C: how are things in the city with the current state of football?
me: it's like the stock market.
no one is happy about it.
it's not particularly surprising.
we clearly got ourselves into it.
not sure what to do about it.
hope that it will get better at some point.