recklessly accounting

Open Letter to (one) Data Scientist

2013-03-19T10:54:00.002-07:00

Dear Dear Friend,

As you take on the world of analytics and data science make me one promise... well maybe a few.

1) Don't quantify that which cannot be quantified. Specifically qualitative data. The motivation will be to try to turn human behavior into actionable numbers. You will argue that at a macro level, given many transaction/iterations of a particular behavior, you will be able to draw some sort of grand conclusion based on people's propensity to take particular actions given a controlled set of stimuli. I know this temptation and I have and still fall victim, but these generalizations can be exclusionary and if they are institutionalized (i.e. an organizations adds them to the standard list of KPIs) can eventually become obsolete and wrong and can even end up doing damage to the population in question. I don't have a solution but having worked in analytics before I understand the urge and I thought it was always important to be aware of the weakness of my assumptions and I always tried to downplay the significance of my conclusion to allow for error that I was unable to see/measure/understand.

2) Scientists love building models but they are always wrong. The plethora of variables that influence a biological or natural system are broad an varied. Trying to model these is impossible. The inclination is to limit variables to only the important ones. By doing this an unrealistic "world view" is created. And because you are excited about answers and understanding things more completely it easy to want to broadcast the results and try to apply them to other situations. I get it. But this is a mistake. Your conclusion work in a very limited scenario.

3) People will misuse you ideas. You may understand the limitations of your conclusions but others won't. They invariably want science to give an answer and they will apply your model to scenarios that aren't remotely related.

4) Participant observation has to be part of the question. Anthropologists use this a lot. As an observer they are actually changing what is actually being observed. Instead of controlling for their presence they completely embrace the manner in which they change the observed outcomes and contextualize their presence. It is not uncommon for the opening line of an ethnography to read, "As a white protestant upperclass woman..."

5) When at all possible mingle with hoi polloi. Your numbers and observations are about people. You can build models about their behavior or their click through rate, etc. Your numbers couldn't possibly capture everything that is going on. So roll up your sleeves and mingle with your users as often as you can manage. At the end of the day this is all about relationships, behaviors, and people. As much as you may not want to admit it (I don't know if you do or don't) analytics is a marketing effort that tries to get data that is better than what the respondent can give. Combine your hard numbers with qualitative data to get a better picture. Its also more fun this way.

6) Someone once said that if you want to create a better user experience give your product to a toddler. If they can figure navigation out then your product is intuitive to use. The purpose also has to be really straight forward and obvious enough that a toddler gets it. This is good. You have more going on on your site than a toddler can understand? Maybe things should be scaled back. This is reductionist (as cautioned above) but it helps guide your approach, I think.

7) Have fun. The numbers are hat they are. Metrics are what they are. Behavior maybe what you think it is. This effort is all about getting better. There will be very few big wins especially in a big data environment. Its more about small victories.

54.5 MPG is Not About Gas Prices

2012-08-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Photo by: TL Davis

So, if all automobiles in the US improve fuel efficiency to 54.5 mpg and, let's assume that people aren't cutting back on transportation at the current fuel prices, then in the future quantity demanded for fuel will be less because of fuel efficiency and assuming supply stays the same, then fuel prices will increase.

Because there are economists at the Gas companies I would assume that the decrease in quantity demanded will result in an increase of price that results in P*Q=Profits that are similar to profits now.

So, 1) the future price of gas will not pay for innovation and cost of more efficient engines because prices will increase and 2) gas prices seems like a poor argument to justify improved fuel efficiency.

Decreased negative externalities is justification enough for improving automobile fuel efficiency but fuel prices aren't.

Thoughts? The hive is smarter than I am. Surely you can resolve this.

Loudness Wars

2011-08-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

This is an image from wikipedia's entry on loudness wars and this is a perfect example of what is happening in the recording industry. Why does this matter? Its not because it really is all that loud, you can turn down the volume of your stereo. Its because all the good part of the music lives on the fringes. Example: image #1 there is plenty of space for "sparkle" to exist in this song. image #3, there is absolutely no space for "sparkle" to live. This occurs because in digital sound there is no going over a maximum level, period.

Loudness Wars suck because the song looses its sparkle. Sparkle is what makes you feel like the musician is in the room with you. It gives a song life. So what can you do about it if everyone is producing louder and louder songs? Well, nothing at the moment. But that will change soon with some exciting products. This also goes back to yesterday's post, What is Sound?

Loudness wars matter and sound matters because if everyone is listening to highly compressed recordings, the dynamic range is lost (i.e. sparkle). Its like eating pure sugar without flavoring. The crazy thing is that this has been going on so long that we don't even know what we are missing.

Why do you care about sound?

What is Sound?

2011-08-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

Sound is perfect. We and our instruments are imperfect. We damage or poorly recreate sound waves and they slowly lose something as they move through the air. So what is our role as listeners? Do we try to perfect our ability to recreate or process sound or do we just give up and make sound what we want it to be? It will never be perfect anyway.

This is a philosophical question about truth and authenticity the answer to which plays out in the relationship we have with our surroundings. And this is important because it helps us understand our preferences.

Do you care about sound? Do you care about it being perfect? Or do you care that it just not suck?

This is an important question. I will tell you where I stand, but you have to tell me where you stand first. Don't miss out.

Milk

2010-06-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks I've heard over and over again, from a variety of people - young and old - that the idea of milk is very gross. I've heared long diatribes against 2% and how horrible it is for you. Somebody referred to it as just a creamy mess. I drank milk as a kid but mostly the public school chocolate milk. My dad loved to make banana-chocolate shakes with lots of milk when we were kids, but I remember loosing interest in the white stuff really early on. These days it makes my stomach hurt.

So, have I stumbled upon a small group of outliers or has milk fallen on hard times? The Milk commercials are good, but maybe they are just grasping at straws. Do you hate milk as bad as these people? Am I missing something?

Teams and Metacognition

2010-05-31T15:10:00.000-07:00

I've been side tracked by facebook and twitter for the last year. I've posted short updates on my life and my opinions which have mainly been directed at my peers. (And I play there because I like being able top comment on their posts.) But I find that I am censoring myself. The truth is that I have been trying to have a conversation on FB that is probably most suited for a blog. Here I am not limited to 147 characters and I am not worried about straining relationships because of my perspective. So, I hesitate to say, you may be hearing more from me here and I may begin to explore my personal struggle with my new surroundings.

You see I have moved to a different part of the country and my social network has expanded to include people that are much different then back on the east coast. This is compounded by the fact that I now live in a boarder state and I find myself confused with the way people have come to their conclusions. You see, I'd like to say that I approach the issues of the border with logic and reason but I completely lack the experience in the region. Don't get me wrong, as a Latino immigration has been ever-present in my life but I have a starkly different perspective than the locals.

Immigration is, directly or indirectly, a daily topic here in the SW. The issue surrounds the people in this community differently than in any other part of the country and I find there is a common rhetoric that is predominant in my new set of friends. It is a privileged and homogeneous group and they tend to be unaware of how nice they've had it. There is less diversity amongst my new friends and they all tell the same story. To be honest, I haven't come to terms with the difference and I really struggle with the fact that my perspectives are so different. Maybe I feel intellectually alone...Gasp. This isn't meant to be a self reflection, but there are a few stories in this place that keep coming up again and again. Because I spend most of my time at work, its not a surprise that it happens there.

I work for a state entity. It is a government job but it is also Higher Ed. So when coming to work here, I expected a particular level of intellectual rigor. Either I haven't found it or the intellectual process has taken place around a topic that I wasn't prepared or willing to engage. All the political drama aside, I am part of a young diverse team. Most of us are under represented minorities or from other parts of the world. We all have very different approaches and our story has been mainly about building. Our organization has been going through a lot of change and we keep hearing about building this team and getting to know each other more. The truth is, the efforts have been half hearted and mediocre at best. Either way, the issue of team building has been approached in terms of learning each other's styles and preferences so that we can communicate better. This is where metcognition comes into play.

Metacognition is awareness of one's cognitive processes, as well as an ability to develop a plan for achieving a goal and evaluating one's effectiveness of reaching that goal. (http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Metacognitive_knowledge) This seems to be a really important strategy in pedagogy. Conceptually it makes sense too. It is important to teach children to develop an understanding their own learning process so that they are able to formulate plans and evaluate their own progress. I hypothesize that this is what is missing on my team. We are all asked to share our personal styles but it's suggested that we do so so that we can learn how to communicate with others. In reality we should be asked to understand how we learn as individuals so that we can learn how to adapt to meet the team's needs more effectively.

So, to the purpose of my post. Is it important to engage in a metacognitive analysis when building teams? I can tell you all day long that I am visual learner and somehow that makes it ok for me to continue to ask for visually presented information. But is the true role of metcognitive analysis to force team members to self assess in order to find ways to change or "flex" to different styles? How effective has this been in your experience? Your thoughts please.

The "V"

2009-01-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

Mark my words:

Housing sales increased in the month of December. Housing Prices are up. Jobs were cut this week, but employers commonly lag in recognizing when the economy is turning positive. I'll also mention that I have gut feeling that this is almost over. Does this mean that the initial bailout worked to free up the credit markets and therefore bank lending? What about Obama's proposed stimulus plan? If the economy is begining to swing positive and Obama manages to get his stimulus plan then that makes the positive slope steaper, right? Your thoughts are always welcome.

Another way to Football/Engage

2008-11-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

I stumbled upon this Washington Post article through kottke.org about a project called MyFootballClub.co.uk. The basic premise is as follows, 31,000 members pay a minor monthly fee to a nonprofit which owns a soccer team in England. Here's the catch, each of the 31,000 members are part owners of the club. They vote on major and minor decisions, but most importantly, they are engaged in the business.

Why does this matter? We hear a lot about using social networking and Web 2.0 tools to advertise businesses or products. Seth Godin, for example, talks about creating a tribe. The concepts are all fine and well, but how can one apply these strategies to their business? Can anything be wikified? Are all products created equal? What are the repercussions if done incorrectly?

As a consultant I've seen plenty of organizations get very excited about new technologies and strategies but overwhelmed with the implementation. This reminds me of some comments about the TV show We Mean Business on A&E:

"When I watched the episodes, it was my turn to be surprised. I was surprised by how resistant to new ideas several business owners were. Some argued openly with the team about their ideas. There was a follow-up video done a few months after each makeover, and in several cases the owner had un-done parts of the makeover. (Usually in those cases the business was not doing any better, either. Remind me the next time someone gives me advice, to take it.)"
- Anita Campbell @ Small Business Trends

In light of the pitfalls of 2.0 marketing and the challenges associated with change, MyFootballClub and other examples of consumer engagement are exciting and demystify social networking for small business owners. These strategies are particularly important to nonprofits who rely heavily on customer (donor) engagement.

So, to step back a moment. I want to be an owner of a sports team, too. If I were business owner, I would want people to be so excited about my product that they create new niches for it. But the steps for getting to that point can seem overwhelming. Let me know if the tone of this post is TOO cautious.

It starts...

2008-11-06T12:35:00.000-08:00

Whatever youir political views, you have to admit that the use of web 2.0 tools to engage the electorate is exciting. The engaging has begun. This from the Change.gov website:

"The story of this campaign is your story. It is about the great things we can do when we come together around a common purpose. We want to hear your inspiring stories from the campaign and election day."

Exciting!

Politics and the Internet

2008-11-05T12:42:00.000-08:00

What I like about online marketing is that it is targeted. It makes the consumer feel like the center of attention. *Barack Obama ran a campaign that uses one important marketing mantra, this is about you, your experiences and how your life can be better with the product/solution I offer.

Obama has created a huge contact database. Access to the attention of the people on this system is priceless. The all important question... How will Obama further engage these relationships in the political process? I can see the whole 'Google for Government' and CapWiz like tools become really really important. Will Facebook and MySpace pick up a 'contact your representative' tool now that political action is so important to so many people?

Strictly in terms of these great web 2.0 tools, it would be a shame for these relationships to be wasted.

Tell me how you would like these relationships/web 2.0 to be used in the next 4 years.

*My spell check marked Barack Obama as misspelled. Will his name be added to word processor dictionaries so that the name Barack Obama no longer shows up as incorrectly spelled?

Polling and Data

2008-10-29T08:53:00.001-07:00

Everyone's all a buzz with the general election coming up. We see cool touch screen maps on CNN and tons of polling data all around us. I just heard that one candidate took a stance on the whole Georgia/Florida water feud to pick up some votes from Floridian oyster farmers. What?! This is really crazy to me. How does the campaign even know these people exist?

My issue isn't with oyster farmers. I question these polls. As a matter of fact, I am a huge huge suporter of informed decsion making, and guess what, data is information. Let me contextualize my point of view.

For years I worked with non-profits. Non-profits are notorious for being disorganized and mismanaged*. But the misuse of data and innacurate conclusions from poor quality information collection struck me from the begining. I happened to be working for an awesome small organization which has now gone national. Fortunately they were cutting edge: 1) They had a database to track all of their "clients" 2) The database tracked a lot of different types of data 3) They understood the value of using this data for making decisions for and about their "clients" 4) They were willing to learn. I was fortunate enough to be put in charge of the database and I was the lead number cruncher. Interestingly enough I spent most of my time educating my co-workers in how to accurately communicating our results. It was easy to say that 80% of our clients improved when in reality 80% of clients received the instruction and tools which we believed led to improvement. Big difference.

But I digress. As I got deeper into the data analysis and our number crunching became more complex I stumbled upon an anecdote from a college prof. She warned of the dangers of using statistical software to do data anlysis. In her day she had to write the code for the stats software and then crunch the numbers. It took her years to get the training to do this and guess what, she knew her stuff. Today data analysis software easy to come across and large data sets are often offered for free. This means that more people are crunching numbers and coming to conclusions. Today's statistical conclusions, in essence, are cheaper and this has effected the quality of the conclusions. Understand this, the people crunching the numbers today don't necessarily have the same training as the people crunching numbers years ago.

So, I pose this question. Do you trust poll results? Everyone has their unique methodology. Everyone has their biases. Is it possible for polls to be used as a political tool to sway the public? I have seen organizations want a good result so much that they unknowlingly distort conclusions. What is your opinion?

* This isn't a statement about all nonprofits. There are many organizations that are awesome businesses and I think some publically traded companies should take a hint from some of these smaller organizations.

photo by re_birf

Back on the ball

2008-08-27T17:55:00.002-07:00

Its been a while since I've added anything to the blog. As you know I was traveling a good bit in Ecuador and now I'm back stateside and I've settled in the SW. Now this is a big deal for a few reason's:

1) The desert - I spent a portion of my upbringing in FL and I don't mind the heat. As a matter of fact, I like heat and humidity. The heat without humidity worries me.
2) The wife begins a PhD program and this means a lot of hard work for a long time.
3) This is a "small town" and this worries me the most.

Not that there is anything wrong with small towns, coming from DC, I think it will be a challenge to get used to "the volume" of interactions. If you take the law of large numbers into consideration, it will take longer to make contact with that one meaningful person if there are fewer interaction (because there are fewer people). This particularly of concern because I gave up a job in DC and now I must find work in Tucson.

So, I hand it over to you all, how do you find that one meaningful interaction when there are fewer interactions taking place? What is the best starting point in a close nit community?

PS: The posting will happen more frequently now that I'm back on the ball. Thanks for the patience.

A Personal Entry

2008-07-01T15:07:00.006-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I am not in the United States and this has posed a few challenges these last few weeks - internet access being one of them. Its taken me a while to figure it out, but internet access is only part of the problem. I am worried about loosing people's interest by getting too personal. Thus, I am hesitant to blog about myself and my personal life.

Now, you must understand that I am usually motivated to write a post by what happens around me daily - pretty personal if you ask me. But, I still don't know how much of myself to leave on this blog. Since I'm not in an office surrounded by the daily conversations about managing a business, nonprofit, or IT infrastructure, my only source of inspiration is my family and my vacation. And, it just happens that the recurring issues that we addressed at NPower DC aren't necessarily relevant in Cuenca, Ecuador.

So, I turn to you all for advice, how much of your personal life do you leave on your blog? Since this isn't a blog about the latest and greatest in video cards (or anything of the sort), I have the freedom to diverge from the tone of the standard business blog. Right? Either way, I am attaching a photo of our challenging hike in Cajas National Park (Ecuador). You'd be surprised at how little oxygen there is at 14,900 ft. Thanks for reading!

Far Far Away

2008-06-16T19:21:00.002-07:00

I find myself outside of the United States and I am suffering due to the lack of access to information - internet is hard to come by. Needless to say, its been hard to post. Fear not, I have not gone away.

Peace
-GM

Front page of the Washington Post: In U.S., a Multitude of Forces Drains the Spirit of Giving

2008-05-23T08:24:00.003-07:00

This was on the front page of the Washington Post this AM, right below the fold. I guess they didn't like the AP story either.
In U.S., a Multitude of Forces Drains the Spirit of Giving

The slowing economy has a greater effect on the little guy: How charities and Foundations cope with fewer donations

2008-05-22T06:00:00.002-07:00

The free Washington Post newspaper, Express, is the highlight of my morning commute. Usually I stick to the hilarious stories of incompetent burglars or misbehaving pets, but on Tuesday a particular article caught my eye, "Charities Detect ‘Disaster Fatigue’: Catastrophes in China and Myanmar prompt little giving in U.S."* I was a bit shocked, to say the least. I know these kinds of dramatic headlines are important to grab a reader’s attention, but this one hit a nerve.

I work for a Nonprofit IT consulting firm and I KNOW charitable organizations. I hear a lot from food banks that report a decrease in food donations because of the slowing economy and foundations are experiencing decreased numbers of grant requests because taking on new programmatic initiatives is hard to pull off when you don't know where the money is coming from. We are all tightening our belts and preparing for harder times.

There may be some disaster fatigue going on but the slowing economy is effecting charitable giving all across the nonprofit sector. It’s short sighted and premature to imply (by the headline at least) that multiple natural disasters are the only effect on charitable giving. The slowing economy is effecting us all but the under resourced, underprivileged, and undeserved are always hit the hardest.

For all nonprofits out there my headline would be; ‘The slowing economy has a greater effect on the little guy: How charities and Foundations cope with fewer donations’

* The exact story can be found in the May 20th edition of the Express. The following link is exactly what was found in the Express (by Lisa Tolin) but with a different headline: "Disaster fatigue' leads to drop in giving"

Open Source Cooperation - HA! I told you so!

2008-05-21T11:45:00.004-07:00

There is too much incentive to "not cooperate." See this article: Why Linux isn't yet ready for synchronized release cycles. As much as it makes sense to cooperate, its too hard to pull off, even amongst Linux hippies. This IS prisoner's dilemma.

Tell me if its time to get over open source cooperation and move on.

Can open source survive?

2008-05-16T19:00:00.003-07:00

I have this friend from high school who is probably a genius. Both his parents have advanced degrees in economics and this kid used to take derivatives of functions while his dad walked him home from the fourth grade. He really is brilliant.

Back in High School when we were all taking our International Baccalaureate exams he presented this paper to the accreditation board which analyzed the behavior of a community of "genes." These "genes" were instructed to cooperate or cheat in order to maximize individual benefit. Ultimately the goal was to see if these would "genes" create a community or if they would take on the world alone. After creating this complex algorithm to model their behavior, he found that these millions and millions of "genes" all tended toward cooperation.

This was an amazing revelation and we were all really excited for him. At first it was the wild wild west until the "genes" understood that they all could benefit more from working together. But, after millions of "turns" one "gene" would always cheat and it would throw everyone off and the whole group would loose big except the cheater. Essentially the "genes" would end up in a prisoner's dilemma like scenario were no "gene" could trust another "gene." In essence, this cycle would repeat over and over. Chaos, cooperation, cheating, etc.

Now let's replace the word "gene" with "open source developer". We have come to this point where more and more people finally appreciate the benefits of "open" development and everybody cooperates. But, we may be at the beginning a stage where "cheating" or changing the rules yields HUGE benefits. I think open source is going the route of these little "genes" from my friend's high school experiment. Don't believe me? Check out this article from GIGAOM.

The good news is that at some point we will circle back to cooperation. We also tend to remember being cheated better than these "genes" did and hopefully we can avoid the same pitfalls in the future.

Absent some sort of regulation or governing body, open source initiatives are very susceptible to the ebbs and flows of the "gene paradox." There may be nothing we can do to prevent it because we are all part of the problem. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Who owns your relationships?

2008-05-15T19:08:00.006-07:00

I return from a crashed hard drive and what Dr's thought was Strep (WHEW... I just had a common sinus infection).

While I was away with no computer and feeling miserable I had some time to think. I've been hunting through the deepest darkest depths of facebook, myspace, linkedin, etc. in search of old friends when it hit me, each one of these social networking site is a different contact list. Sure there is some overlap, but really most of us manage three or four contact lists. The sad thing about this whole deal is that, for the most part, we don't even have email addresses for most of my friends, facebook does.

All the information that I want about my relationships his held by someone else. In other words, I don't OWN them. I stop by facebook and I tap into free software to "see" who's on my friend list and all this information stays on Facebook's server.

So, at the end of the day I need facebook to keep in touch with my people. Do you understand how powerful that is? Political fundraisers live and breathe by their contact lists. This is why political endorsements are sooo important. You get access to the endorser's contact list.

What's the moral of the story? Treat your contact list as it should be treated. Be nice to it, don't abuse it (don't let others abuse it either), and feed it, just don't be too promiscuous. Do all these things right, keep a safe backup with real email addresses and your contact list will do wonders for you. You may not be as high falutin' as a presidential canditate but your contacts are still priceless.

Photo by: destinlee

5 Steps to making it happen

2008-05-03T06:03:00.003-07:00

Its been about a week since my last post and so much has happened. I'm trying to nail down exactly what this blog is about and, to be completely honest, I don't know. My pal Jocelyn over at the nonproft technology blog makes a great point about discipline as a tool for finding your niche/voice. Writers are always told to write, musicians are told to practice, even Monster Careers puts you through a battery of worksheets to help you find the best professional you. Either way, this intentional approach makes a lot of sense to me. So, here is my modus operandi.

Think BIG or go home - Why do something the same way its been done before? If you're not out there to make a difference, then don't do it. You won't be passionate about your endeavor and when the times get tough, you'll abort.
Discipline, Plan, Discipline, Plan, etc. But at some point you gotta DO. - Religiously working over an idea in a structured organized way (i.e. disciplined) will get you to the core of why your idea is so great. This will help you prove your point. At some a certain stage, however, you have to drop all the planning and step out on a limb and just do it. You'll probably have to make adjustments as you go.
The proof is in the pudding - No one will take you seriously if you can't SHOW that you are good at something. I used to work as a program evaluator and if there is anything that truly drives me crazy its when intelligent competent people make decisions without proof of the DO. "Let's give out ribbons because it will make our clients feel special." True, or they feel stupid. Show me proof that clients prefer ribbons over discounts and I'm all for it.
Pick the low hanging fruit - This is pretty self explanatory. I love small changes that create big impact. Your clients, staff, family, whomever, will be more likely to adapt to small changes than huge overhauls. Put it this way, at least you save on training if the change is obvious.
Be happy - No matter how good the pay or how good the idea, its not worth it if you or the people around you are unhappy.

These 5 points may seem really obvious to you, but you would be surprised to see how many people don't do these things. I know I'm not perfect.

So what is your approach? What makes your life easier and what do you stay away from?

The Energy of the Future

2008-04-26T10:07:00.010-07:00

Last year I had a pretty amazing opportunity to visit Greece. Besides the "amazingness" of the whole trip, I noticed that CNN International had an awful lot to report on environmental problems all over the world. Now, I'm not talking about stories like Anderson Cooper's Planet in Peril, I'm talking about the small day to day stories about water shortage problems in northern Africa, erosion problems in parts of Asia, and smog in central Europe. It struck me that, in this country at least, we don't see this type of small consistent reporting on issues of the world's environment.

Now here's what really hit it home for me. I was in Arizona last week, the desert for all intents and purposes, and there were very few homes with solar panels, water recapturing systems, or even energy efficient architecture.

How did we come to this place where computer chips get smaller and smaller but cars and homes get larger and larger? We have the ability to begin making our day to day tools more energy efficient but the investment in these technologies doesn't match the potential for improvements.

As energy becomes more expensive, as resources become more scarce, as investment in green technologies increases, and political and social will spreads, we will be better able to adapt to our planet and live more harmoniously with our surroundings.

Take a look at my post on "What our Future Looks Like" and check out the Orquideorama. This stuff isn't going away.

Photo by: Marcin Wichary

Xobni

2008-04-20T20:46:00.002-07:00

It was recently brought to my attention that it is difficult to get in contact with me through this blog. Well, guess what. Not anymore. You can send me an email by selecting the link to the right or at the bottom of the page.

I have limited invites to Xobni, so, if you want one I will need a 500 word explanation of why you deserve one more than the next person.

Just kidding. I'll send you one if I have any left, just ask.

Online Learning

2008-04-17T17:46:00.010-07:00

So I had this meeting today where we talked about teaching a class on the internet. As the conversation went on my mind wandered...

Remember the Matt Damon movie with Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting? At one point in the movie Will was in a Harvard bar and he told this grad student that he pays all this money for an education which he could have gotten for $3.95 in late fees at the public library. This got me thinking, why offer an online class?

Anything worth teaching is already online. As a matter of fact, the specific content we discussed in our meeting already exists and is probably better than what our small group could put together. So,why would I take a class from an online institution? For the accountability, the problem sets? The content is already online.

You could say that in an online course you have a professor to answer questions. But why pay all that money for an answer, its already free online?

The professor's answer will save you the time of having to sift through all the BS answers online. So what, that's what learning is about, right?

I am going to predict that the online university will go away but institutions with classroom based instruction will continue to deliver content online. Actually, it may be more accurate to ask, will an online university ever gain the same prestige of a traditional university?

As always ladies and gents, your thoughts?

Photo by: extra ketchup

Gender Roles Reversed

2008-04-07T06:34:00.006-07:00

Now this is really interesting. Geisha guys. Its not a surprise that both men and women begin to behave differently once income is more equally distributed between both groups. We've seen examples of this for years. Women are a group in society increasingly targeted by political add makers and marketing execs. When will there be a Bunny Ranch for - er, Dude Ranch... When will there be a Dude Ranch, Stud Farm, Man Palace, you get the point?

It is interesting that this article talks about a woman's interest in Geisha guys, what about men interested in Geisha guys? They must exist.

The Power of the Masses

2008-04-06T17:48:00.007-07:00

Remember the post I did not to long ago called "Similarities?" Well it looks like there's a new project at the Social Science Research Council that follows the same model. In this case, Social Scientists decide which projects are worth funding.

As much as I like the democratization of information on the internet and I LOVE the idea of many people providing input to help make the best choice, I am worried about another effect that has potential of derailing this concept.

I read a study recently - I have no clue where I read it or who wrote it - but it talked about how liberals tend to read books that lean to the left and conservatives tend to read books that lean to the right. How can we expect to learn from each other if we never venture into the world of people who think differently from us? What are the dangers if this effect happens as niches grow smaller and smaller?

See Death by a Thousand Fragments or point #4 in this post at GigaOM.

Thanks to orgtheory.net and GigaOM for keeping us smart. Photo courtesy of Jurvetson