May 2007 Archives

I belong to a list that announced the following upcoming talk. It is in the wheelhouse of several ITS projects.

Center for Human-Computer Interaction: Talk Announcement

Creativity and the design of socio-technical processes
Thomas Herrmann
Professor of Information and Technology Management
Institute of Applied Work Science (IAW)
University of Bochum, Germany

June 11, 3-4:30 PM, Room 304 IST Building
(This talk was rescheduled from February 14).

Abstract
While process management strategies mainly focus on incremental improvement and workflow management support, the design perspective includes possibilities of fundamental change and all kinds of IT-based support for collaborative processes. We focus on building the bridge between technology development and usage with a method of systematic communication facilitation – the socio-technical walkthrough (STWT). It is run in participatory workshops where software-engineers and other stakeholders are brought together. The STWT employs a semi-structured modelling method to continuously visualize the proposed solutions with diagrams as well as their evolution. In a controlled experiment with 24 students, the combination of systematic facilitation and diagrams has proved as more successful than classical methods (text on cards, pin boards, or flipcharts). Our observations in several practical cases reveal limits and potentials with respect to the enhancement of creativity. A variety of factors such as different cognitive abilities, motivation, rhythms, communication behaviour, dealing with incompleteness, varying granularity of details etc. are relevant to understand the effects on the divergence and convergence of ideas in a design workshop. It is discussed how we can support the emergence of new choices (instead of only making choices) for socio-technical solutions of collaborative work processes.

Short-Bio
Thomas Herrmann (http://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de/personenund/personen/th/index.html) is a professor of Information and Technology Management at the Institute of Applied Work Science (IAW), University of Bochum, Germany since 2004, and a fellow of the Electrical Engineering Department. Current research interests include design methods for socio-technical systems in the areas of knowledge management, (work-)process management, computer supported collaborative learning, and concepts of social software for innovation support. He teaches courses in Groupware, Knowledge Management, Socio-technical systems Design, Information Systems and Privacy, Human-Computer Interaction, Organizational Communication, and Process Management.

He was an Associate Professor from 1992- 2004 at the Computer Science Department at the University of Dortmund and was in charge of the development of infrastructure and new media for the University of Dortmund as a vice president from 2002-2004. He holds a PhD in Computer Science of the Technical University of Berlin (1986) and a Master of Art in Communication Science of the University of Bonn (1983).

In scientific computing, researchers sometimes embrace a style of computing called "parallel processing." Parallel processing is a technique used to get more simulation accomplished by splitting up large complex tasks into smaller tasks that can be operated on at the same time, thereby speeding up the entire simulation. The coordination of the work being done between the smaller tasks is profoundly dependent on the speed with which the tasks can communicate - tasks which are often running on differents computers, sometimes separated by miles, not just feet on a machine room floor. In parallel processing circles, programming efficiency is sometimes talked about in terms of the ratio of time spent computing compared to the time spent communicating.

I believe that I can make a case that we - IT and ITS - are parallel processing. We're are all trying to get lots of things done at the same time. In some cases, tasks are - for the most part - autonomous from other tasks. But in most cases, tasks are dependent on all other tasks - sometimes in direct ways, sometimes in indirect ways.

Right now, the dominant form of communication in our business is email. Email is wonderful at communicating very directly about something to a targeted group of people. A fundamental assumption of email is that the To: line contains all interested parties. There are two current flaws with this when considering this "parallel processing" model for an IT function. The first flaw is that by using email as nearly the sole method of communication, our communicate to compute ratio is heading into a direction that is unfavorable. It is taking so long to process daily email queues, that we spend a lot of time communicating and less time computing. The second flaw is that the email based communications assume that only tasks or people that need to know something actually know it - when in fact other tasks and people might derive benefit from that communication.

That's where Web2.0 like communications come in.

Soon - there will be a generally available blogging service available from ITS. When it is available, it is an opportunity for each and every one of us to start to move the compute:communicate ratio back to where it belongs. Critically think about every email you send and whether or not it could be changed into a blog entry so that people can discover it for themselves and decide whether or not your knowledge is helpful to their task. Critically listen in every meeting you attend and conference you go to and think about telling the whole world about what you learned or connected from having that conversation. Instead of listening for yourself, listen for all of us and then tell us what you learned and what you think.

Directly, I've heard two criticisms of encouraging this kind of openness.

The first criticism is - "I barely have enough time to read all of my email. If you you think I'm going to read the same number of blogs every day/week you're crazy." This criticism has no legs because the concept is not to ask N people to read N blogs. The concept is to get N people to contribute their knowledge and insight to a blogging space in such a way that N*1,000,000 people can discover that knowledge and insight. For example, ITS had about 8 people attend the last Internet2 meeting in the spring. If everyone who attended that meeting had blogged the various sessions and tagged their blogs with keywords like "identity management" and "streaming video" and "mashups" and "intrusion detection" etc. - then the rest of could search this blogging space when we need to to see what's new in these areas. It isn't about reading a million blogs, it's about discovering relevant information in a timely manner. This is only possible if we're all sharing what we know.

The second criticism is - "My colleagues are critical of me when I blog or comment on a blog. They suggest that I should get back to work instead of communicating." This criticism is simply hogwash. We are, by the nature of our work, doing things in parallel. We can achieve our various goals if and only if we are communicating with each other. To not communicate is to fail. So to those people who might hear that kind of criticism, I suggest pushing back by telling your critics that communicating is a fundamental part of your job and that perhaps your critic should consider sharing something they know as a replacement for the misguided whining. I will freely admit that one can fall into the dark side of sharing - only sharing and never doing - but I don't have much fear of that happening to too many of us because of the pressures we live with to deliver.

The time is coming when you'll be asked to share and there will be a tool at your disposal to use. It will take some time to get this right - but the first step is to fundamentally change our expectations of how we communicate with each other. Share what you know and what you think.

"How can I help you?"

"I'd like a productive meeting, that is just the right amount of time, with the right people in the room, who are appropriately paying attention."

"Would you like fries with your meeting?"

Two things struck me this week that I wanted to call out here.

Some meetings beg for people to bring laptops with internet connections so that questions can be answered, sites can be browsed, etc. that relate to accomplishing the goals of the meeting. Other meetings, scream for no internet connectivity at all - demanding the singular focus of everyone in the room.

If you are running a meeting, you should feel empowered to establish what kind of meeting you're running in advance of holding it. Tell people it is a "laptop free" meeting, or a "laptops welcome" meeting, etc. You could replace the word "laptop" with "internet" and it would work just fine, too. Where ever there are laptops and connectivity, you run the risk of getting someone's partial attention, or losing your own. It just happens. If you think you've lost someone's attention to the internet - bring them back in with a question. And if after a meeting you've run someone asks you to reconsider what your ground rules are, think about it - have a conversation. Sometimes it isn't black and white.

The registration web site for signing up for "Coffee with Kevin" has been modified to accept group registration. Thanks to Mark Staub for the good work.

There are open slots available.

I was invited this week to participate in a site visit to the Penn State School of Nursing in the College of Health and Human Development. The SoN has submitted a powerful proposal to the Hartford Foundation for the development of a Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence.

President Spanier kicked off the visit and was joined by Vice President and Dean of the Graduate School, Eva Pell, in articulating the strengths and commitment of Penn State to the proposal and the richness of the proposal itself.

Teaching and Learning with Technology is connected in substantive ways to the grant. ANGEL, Adobe Connect, instructional design, and expertise are all being brought to bear on the effort. It's great that we're involved in directly supporting this proposal and I was struck by how much we indirectly support all that was talked about in the morning. If there was ever any doubt in your mind about how IT enables what is going on at Penn State, I wish you could have been there with me.

The moment our meeting was over something didn't feel quite right. I didn't like how it went and I wasn't quite sure why.

Since then, I've had some time to stew over it and I've come up with some theories, ideas, etc. I'd share them here, but I don't want to lead the witness. So even though it may be poor blogging habit to share little but ask for lots in return, that's just what I'm going to do with this posting.

What would like to see as a format for all-staff meetings?

What frequency should we have them, assuming the format was in your taste's favor?

Over the last two meetings we had, what did you like about them? dislike?

Have any ideas about how to solicit feedback for a maximally relevant agenda from the whole organization's perspective? Sure - there might be some things that I'll personally want to talk about and get on the agenda - but what about the rest of it.

Please let me and others who read this know what you think.

Thanks.

I know this has been out for awhile but I thought it was cool enough to share anyway.

A few weeks ago, Google announced the release of the "my maps" feature at Google Maps. It took me all of 5 minutes to create a personalized map that became immediately useful in my personal life. I made a map that provided directions to and attributes of soccer fields in State College so that when we communicate with opposing coaches, they can plan accordingly. It's easy to see how valuable this could be in work constructs. If you've made any cool "my maps", please drop me a line or share them here.

Many of us have known about and sung the praises of RSS for what feels like a long time. But for every person I know who can't live without it, I estimate that I know 20-50 who don't know anything about it.

Leveraging the power of RSS has long since changed my personal habits in information gathering and digestion. I am able to scan and take in much more information that I believe to be relevant to work and personal like than I could, say, 5 years ago.

The ITS Financial Services group had a meeting where they shared a video that describes what RSS and how it works. The video is about 5 minutes long and does a great job of laying it all out. Since most people who read this blog are getting to it directly, it could be that most readers aren't using RSS to get here. Next time you have 5 minutes, I highly recommend watching this video.

BTW - I'm a Google Reader convert, so starting with it (the video uses it as an example) makes sense to me if you are looking to try RSS out.

At the last all-staff meeting, there was music and people seemed to like it. I love music and I'm happy to pick it all again. But if there's a particular piece of music you think would be good for intro and exit, post it here and if I can get it legally in time for the meeting - we'll use it.

-DJ kevin