Lessons Learned

OEIT

OEIT takes on projects dealing with educational innovation and technology. We’re supposed to work to either scale up interesting projects that have been prototyped by faculty/researchers or explore innovative technologies with the potential for broad adoption at MIT and beyond. And what I believe really makes us different is a view to connecting the dots and scaling up. We may choose to work on some fairly narrowly defined projects for individual faculty, but we do so with an eye to what we can leverage more broadly.

So, OEIT is a bit different from the target audience of WebWorkerDaily, which focuses on freelancers and consultants. But we’re also similar. We have the choice as to which projects to take on, how to integrate those projects with a greater whole, and how to accomplish the goals of the project.

Nevertheless, I think we can learn a lot from the two posts, and some of these items I’ve already tried to nudge us toward.

Warning Signs

I’m going to build upon the WebWorkerDaily summary of the two posts, and for completeness I’ll list the two summary bullet lists and then say how it might apply to OEIT.

From Red Flags: When to Say “No” to a Potential Client:

• The never-ending contract revisionist. Beware the prospect that keeps making revisions to the contract — it’s likely they will show similar goal post-moving tendencies during the project.

  [For OEIT: We don't usually ask for a contract, we typically work internally with other individuals and organizations within the university. Nevertheless, it's probably worthwhile for us to agree to an internal contract for why we're working on a project and what we intend to get out of it. And we should probably do the same thing with the client. If we can't clearly state our goals and the scope, we shouldn't enter into the agreement. (I hope to expand upon this more later.)]

• The giant project team. Large project teams can lead to extended timelines and compromised results.

  [For OEIT: This one can be a challenge in a large organization that works by consensus. Nevertheless if we want to get something done, it's critical to have a small, focused project team. Design by committee seems to rarely result in a good nor even satisfying project/product.]

• Mr. or Mrs. Vague. If the prospect can’t provide a detailed description of what it is they’re after, they’re likely not engaged enough to produce a good result.

  [For OEIT: Amen, this has been a root cause of many of our problems. We've let clients meander about and take us away from why we got involved in the first place. We've become general purpose developers, and have gotten away from our "internal contract"--working on the part of the project that meets our mission and goals. Thus having that "internal contract" and a client contract are important, and regularly checking progress against those is even more important.]

• The prospect with ants in their pants. If the client is proposing unreasonable project deadlines, you need to understand why that is.

  [For OEIT: Absolutely! This goes to our lesson learned: Speak with the Actual Client.]

• The vanishing boss. You don’t want to have the boss disappear while you’re working on the project, then suddenly appear later on to tell you that what you’re doing is wrong.

  [For OEIT: 'nuff said, this is probably always the case.]

WebWorkerDaily. (2009, October 21). “Red Flags: When to Say “No” to a Potential Client. Retrieved on October 24, 2009 from WebWorkerDaily Website: http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/10/21/red-flags-when-to-say-no-to-a-potential-client/

From 4 Signs That Your Potential Clients Aren’t Interested (and What to Do About It):

• It’s been a week since their last email.

  [For OEIT: This is something that is often misinterpreted as a blessing. But, one of the things that is within our control is good communication.]

• They keep asking for more of your previous work.

  [For OEIT: This is something we don't usually face.]

• They ask you to make “samples.”

  [For OEIT: This can either mean it's a fishing expedition, or their looking for pro-bono work. In the first case, ask questions as to why, in the second remind the client we do the majority of our work through our base funding to support educational innovation in undergraduate education at MIT.]

• The project is all talk and no action.

  [For OEIT: I sometimes feel we get stuck in this situation too often, and also cause it too often. Nothing concrete, just a gut feel. Something we need to be aware of and take steps to address and mitigate.]

WebWorkerDaily. (2009, June 23). “Red Flags: When to Say “No” to a Potential Client. Retrieved on October 24, 2009 from WebWorkerDaily Website: http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/06/23/4-signs-that-your-potential-clients-arent-interested-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Conclusions

Too early to tell. I can only work hard to try and prevent what Santayana cautioned against…

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Santayana, G. (1905-1906). Life of Reason, ‘Reason in Common Sense,’ ch. 12

(Often misquoted and used out of context. I just learned a little bit about the actual context, and I think I’ve been using it if not in context, at least closer to the original context. I’ve know the actual quote since AP U.S. History in high school–aka over twenty years now.)

Recently, Erik Tarloff posted an article to the Atlantic website decrying “UCB RIP.”

I’m torn, Erik might be right is his opinion that the days of Cal might be waning. He fears that the dramatic cuts in the current state of California budget have started the long, slow slide into obscurity for Cal.

Cal has long been regarded as one of the greatest universities in the country, and in the world. A remarkable, and unique, achievement for a public institution.

But it now looks as if those days are over. It won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen completely. But absent an unlikely, massive injection of private funding, the university is on an inexorable glide path downward.

Tarloff, E. (2009, July 22). UCB RIP. Retrieved July 24, 2009 from Atlantic Web site:
http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/erik_tarloff/2009/07/_when_my.php

And I’m torn with Chancellor Birgeneau’s response that:

As Chancellor of Berkeley, I see the real challenge as not whether Berkeley can remain one of the greatest universities —there is no doubt that it will — but whether it can do so and still retain its unique public character.

Birgeneau, R. (2009, July 24). Berkeley will remain great, but will it retain its public character? Retrieved July 24, 2009 from University California at Berkeley Web site: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/07/24_ucbrip.shtml

I do think that there are challenges ahead–but as a Cal alum that bleeds blue and gold–I have to believe that Cal will solve them. I believed in what Berkeley had to offer so much that I worked there for 9 years after I graduated with my Master’s (bypassing the entire dot com thing). I worked to improve the teaching and learning environment for students. I worked along side faculty and staff to continue the excellence that is Berkeley. My contribution back to Berkeley for my world class education, was my time, expertise and experience.

When I tell people where I work now, MIT, they go “wow, that’s a great university.” I mostly respond with “meh, I used to work at UC Berkeley.” (Not to belittle MIT in the least, I’m used to excellence and working with really smart, innovative people because of my experiences at UC Berkeley.)

In the last twenty years, Cal has gone through budget crises in the past, and has emerged stronger. Though I have wondered what would happen if Berkeley went “private.” During my time there state funding rapidly eroded. I know this change is one that Chancellor Birgeneau (one of the few recent Chancellor’s I haven’t met) is warning against in his reply. He says that he hopes that private giving will make up for state shortfalls–I wonder if Cal can be “public” without any state support at all?

’nuff said for now.

Update: I’ve been experiencing lots of dropped calls, voice mails that arrive even though the phone never rang, and so on. (I actually wrote this post almost a week ago, but scheduled it to be published today. Maybe AT&T knew about it and is just getting back at me.)

I have mixed emotions about this. I totally agree with the commenter that said:

So, it’s pretty obvious, each carrier has its faults and each one has its positives. I could write the same article you did about Verizon where I am (and was very tempted to do so, but though, what’s the use, it’s not going to change).

Rants and raves will go on as long as there are different carriers, of that I’m sure.

–Hudson, E. (2009, July 18). Comment posted July 18, 2009 at 5:30 pm PDT.

But, I do think that AT&T could have handled it’s iPhone deployment much better. Here are some of my thoughts:

• Better activation. Every time Apple launches a new phone, AT&T’s activation isn’t up to the task. Thankfully I haven’t ever tried to buy or upgrade an iPhone right after they were released, I always waited. Though to be fair, you design your systems for the upper limit of normal, not the 1-5 days of the launch. But still, after failing the first time, and seeing all the bad press, you’d think you’d get things worked out.
• Network Capacity. I too have experienced the delay in Visual Voicemails, mysteriously dropped calls, voicemails arriving with current timestamps even though my phone never rang. This one is the most likely one that everyone can complain about. I’m just thankful I don’t live in NYC with an iPhone, all the stories are that it hardly works there.
• Network not feature ready. Uh, you knew Apple was going to release the 3GS this summer. How is it that AT&T’s network is not prepared for MMS and tethering?
• Upgrade Policy. Really, can you try and squeeze some more out of your customers? If I was offered the $199/$299 upgrade price, I’d likely would have upgraded to the 3GS this summer. But I have to wait till January for the lower price because apparently I spend enough money on my plan, and can upgrade after 18 months for the “low” price. But if I have to wait till January for that lower price, why wouldn’t I wait to see if Apple picks a new carrier in 2010 or adds additional U.S. carriers?

Earlier this week, a friend asked if I was planning on upgrading my iPhone 3G. My answer, probably not. For both pricing reasons, and longer term service reason, I won’t be upgrading until January 2010 at the earliest. And given the speculation that Apple might add another carrier or even switch carriers I might just wait till Summer 2010 to see what the next version brings. I hope this business strategy was worth it for AT&T.

Perhaps this is all just an example of “the grass is always greener“.

I think the really interesting point comes from Slide 81 on. Andy Powell talks about “concentration, diffusion, and identity” as being the enablers of the “new” Web. These are things that we can learn from online music sites, that we haven’t really been paying attention to in our development of repositories, and frankly most university-based learning technologies.

I encourage you to take a look at the whole presentation–it should take you less than 5 minutes.

In 2008, I only flew like 60,000 miles. Yes, *only*. So my status level changed from Premier Executive 1K (or just “1K”) to Premier Executive. Also in 2008, I was invited to join an online United Community that they setup to get feedback on various programs and services. I could’ve participated in webcasts with United VPs and senior staff. I *did* participate in some of their surveys.

Sort of unceremoniously in May, I received the email below. Thanks, but since you’re no longer “special” we’re revoking your access to the community. Gee, thanks United.

Source: Brandon/United Airlines

United says, Buh-bye

One of my travel tips, and its the same as what the experts say, is to try and do most of your travel with one airline to build points and status in their loyalty programs. I can definitely vouch for this. As the airlines have had their ups and downs since 9/11 (and before really) I think it’s almost necessary to have status, especially with the main line airlines. Respect has gone from being the norm, to seemingly be restricted to the higher status levels.

Ok, I can understand wanting to have a somewhat restrictive community, but I think they’re being shortsighted. I’ve had 1K status off and on for probably the last 7-10 years. Sometimes I fly enough, sometimes not. Given the economy one off year does not a pattern make. And frankly, they probably do want people like me–tech savvy, able to reflect and understand the business decisions they make, and so on–participating in the community. Instead, they seem to want to restrict the community to 1K and Global Service Members (their highest level in their frequent flier program). I can understand using the high status levels as your invitiation basis initially to start the community, but dropping folks after a single out of status year is shortsighted. Oh well.

And then just recently I received a the email below. Um, thanks United. Really it would’ve been better for you and me to leave me as part of the community, but I’ll take my gift, Monty.

Source: Brandon

My gift, Monty?

(Also I think United mostly miss the point of community, and certainly openness. Maybe I’m one of the crazies, but if you’re going to be open, then be open. So far I haven’t seen a compelling reason to exclude people from the United Online Community from my participation; the one that I *can* think of is that it’s counterproductive to just have people rant and rave in the forums.)

Oh, well. I’ll buy a book or DVD or something.

The final set up is really quite sweet. A member of the university goes to https://blogs.lincoln.ac.uk for the first time and logs in with their usual credentials. The first time they login, they are signed up. That’s it. No sign up page needed. It’s as if they were already a member of the social network, which, being members of the university, they are of course. From there, they see the BuddyPress home pages, can join groups, change their profiles and, when they’re ready, create or join a blog.

Winn, J. (2009, February 17). BuddyPress: A university’s social network. Retrieved June 18, 2009 from ../learninglab/joss Web site: http://joss.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2009/02/17/buddypress-a-universitys-social-network/

Aside: I’m not sure I really like the BuddyPress user interface nor how much WordPress MU seems to lag behind the regular WordPress releases, but I do really like the notion of social network, collaboration and publishing platform.

Thanks to Brian Lamb’s post for pointing this out.

Photo Credit: adc

Kathy Sierra

1. Focus on what the user does, not what you do. For example, instead of focusing on developing a better camera (product), focus on creating a better photographer (user).
2. Give the user superpowers quickly. Users are often discouraged if they’re not “experts” or have problems using products, help them develop practical skills quickly to give them a sense of power.
3. Make the user smarter.
4. *Don’t focus on [x], ask what [x] is a subset of… What’s the bigger thing/idea that your product is part of? For example, don’t blog about a camera (product), but blog about photography.
5. Shrink the 10,000 hours. Create a culture of practice. Instead of requiring or expecting 10,000 hours of experience for expertise, design products to help the user get better/good in less time.
6. Make your product reflect their feelings. How you make them feel about themselves drives how they feel about you.
7. *Create a culture of support. [Policies and scaffolding are important.] Convert people from askers to answerers…if users help other users, they’ll feel better about their mastery of the product, and they’ll help you out by reducing company-provided support needs.
8. Do not insist on “inclusivity”. You experienced users will “talk differently”, embrace that. [I'm not sure if this is really good or not, or if I just missed something.]
9. *Make the right thing easy, wrong thing difficult. Amen, I’d add an addendum “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity”.
10. *Total immersion jams. To learn a product, to get a project done, and so on. Frequency matters: spend 16 hours over two days, instead of spending 16 hours over two months.

For OEIT, I think the asterisked items are particularly important.

Also, I think the items on Kathy Sierra’s list are very complementary to my recent post on Messaging.

Credit: Brandon using Shape Collage

Collage of Brandon's Movies

The nature of technology has reduced the cost of distribution from a few dollars (to press and package a movie on DVD) to nearly nothing (in bandwidth to distribute a movie over the Web).

(Ok that’s a gross over-simplification since DVD distribution includes storage, delivery, shelf space, etc. But that’s not really what I think I need to pay for. I’m not your average consumer, I buy what I want based on interest, knowledge of what’s been shown in theaters and maybe a little Web-research, not just what’s presented to me at a store or on a shelf. Having to go to a store and walk the aisle to browse for a movie (to rent or buy) is not something I really do–it’s rather arcane these days. In fact, it’s why companies like Blockbuster are having problems. Also I used what I perceive as the costs for DVD duplication and not Blu-Ray which has higher manufacturing costs for which I don’t have an order of magnitude estimate.)

So, how do I want to purchase/rent movies? It’s a little complicated. Maybe…

Here’s what I want:

• I want high-def movies. The quality is much better and can improve the watching experience, certainly for newer films.
• I want either:
  • physical media of both high-def and standard def versions, or
  • high-def physical media plus a standard-def digital copy.

  Until I have a fully connected living room where I have effectively unlimited storage of high-def movies* I still want to be able to watch the high-def from a Blu-Ray disc.

• I want digital copies, in high-def and standard-def versions. The high-def versions I can play on my laptop or computer, the standard-def versions I can play on my iPod. Or failing that, I want to be able to legally rip these digital versions from the physical media.

A couple articles came out recently that gave me the impetus to write this post.

Netflix recently announced they’d be charging more to rent high definition (Blu-Ray) movies. Say what? I’ve just proved you’re making money off me. I’m pretty sure you’re making money off most other people. I know that you’re not always renting standard off-the-shelf DVDs, you’re getting DVDs pressed custom for you so the argument that Blu-ray discs cost more than DVD is specious. Yes the media’s more expensive, but not as much as you’re considering raising rates. And you should be using access to a very, very high-quality picture as a differentiation point. You should be encouraging (or at least not discouraging) people to rent high-def movies on Blu-ray instead of the variable/questionable quality of movies streamed from cable or Apple. (Aside: Apple high-def TV Shows and movies are pretty darn good, but I’m also not watching them on a 42″+ TV where I’d think the picture quality would start to suffer.)

Also there was a discussion on Slate.com of how Netflix and Apple are limited in which movies they can stream to my HD-Tivo, how long they remain available for me to play, etc. I think it’s mostly greed by the movie studios (I suppose Netflix might be a little at fault) that has limited the user experience that Netflix users can have. The digital copy (bandwidth costs aside) is nearly zero. Why do I only have 24 hours to watch the movie once I start playing it? Why can’t I stream a video and watch it as many times as I want without having to re-rent it? Why isn’t the whole movie downloaded to my Tivo, if I have the space, so I have a more Tivo-like/DVD-like experience and I don’t have to wait for whole long restreams of the data if I go too far forward or back from the current play point?

And then there was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Here’s the referenence: Peers, M. (2009, May 23-24). Hollywood Studios Need to Romance the Download. Retrieved May 25, 2009 from Wall Street Journal Online http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124301477914747859.html

Drawing from the article, studios are worried that more on-demand releases could cannibalize video sales. Video sales accounted for $8 Billion or 43% of movie sales (according to Adams Media Research cited in the article). Movie studios, it seems, have become overly-reliant on the video sales category, one that didn’t really have until the early 1990s. (Ok, I don’t have data on this, but it follows logically if you think back to the emergence of the VCR market when very few videos were available for purchase, and instead they were renting them out, and if you wanted to purchase them you’d have to spend $100 or more, instead of the $15-40 today (DVD vs. Blu-Ray). So that 43% of revenue didn’t exist say in 1993–so they transitioned once.

$8 Billion in revenue from sales compared to the $0.8 Billion in revenue from all forms of on-demand “sales”, presumably including iTunes, Netflix, etc.

Time to transition again.

* I already have Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players, that I used frequent flier miles to “purchase” so they were effectively free. Yes, I could use a XBox360 or Microsoft Media Center PC but I don’t want to maintain them, and it’s something on the order of an additional $200 investment plus I’d have to hide a medium tower case somewhere. Yes, I could use an AppleTV but they have very limited storage and no really user friendly way of managaing the number and size of digital files necessary to make this effective. Yes, I could use a MacMini with terabytes of storage, but that’s on the order of $800-1000 for a setup that would work for me.

A couple points he made really struck a chord with me.

Programming Practices

Has agile become so mainstream that it’s become a trendy, meaningless buzzword?

The term agile is being used by [some] people to justify poor programming practices such as cowboy coding.

“We don’t have to write documentation; we’re doing agile,” they’ll say. Like with everything else, people are bending the rules to accommodate their personal preferences.

I’ve lived this. I won’t name names or projects, but I definitely think Christophe’s opinion has merit. I’ve been on a project where “agile programming” was “used”. Or at least elements of it like team programming and rapid iteration. However this technique was technologist-/programmer-driven, not customer driven. And therein lay the problem. The technique seemed to be as much a means of removing the programmer from good communication and customer interaction, as a means of developing the product. Unfortunately for the project, it took me a long time, working a number of different methods, to try and address the issues at hand. I think we had some limited success in the near term, but I can’t help but wonder what we did to the long term potential of the project.

The phrase “cowboy coding” also struck home. “Cowboy coding” is described by Kent Beck in another Computerworld article (see page 2) as:

In cowboy coding, you go off and you do heroic stuff, and you feel good about yourself because you figure there’s nobody else in the world that could have possibly pulled out something like this.

I’ll agree that there is a time and place for heroics and all that. But, when every release seems to rely on heroics to get it out the door, there’s something wrong.

And for the love of pete, document what you’re doing. Documentation’s not fun, I know I’ve done it. But, there are strong merits for doing it. (One of these days I’ll have to write my story about developing a video player for my Master’s project.)

Teams

Christophe goes on to say:

There is a good quote from the chairman of Toyota. Someone asked him, “What is Toyota’s advantage?” He replied, “It is our ability to get normal people to do outstanding things. Other companies try to hire outstanding people to do normal things.”

I have a corollary to this thought…we (I) try to hire outstanding people to do outstanding things. I’ve been blessed to work with some of the brightest people around. I’d like to believe that by hiring outstanding people, we’ve been able to do some pretty remarkable things.

It’s also probably true, that the chairman of Toyota was also cautioning about expecting outstanding people to only do “normal things”. Everyone at some time has to do “normal things”, and it’s definitely something to be concerned with if they’re expected to do outstanding as the norm. I think this is where it’s my job (I’ve been the manager) to enable the individuals and the teams to do the outstanding work, while still making sure all the “normal things” gets done.

Another thought comes to mind–definitely hire the person not the skills. Skills can be taught or learned, the intangibles that define the person cannot. Perhaps I’ve been extremely lucky in each of my jobs, but in many cases we’ve been able to hire the right person, and as a result have had some outstanding teams that did some outstanding work.