“The Tipping Point”: ten years later

I have just finished reading Malcom Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”. It was first published in 2000 and it has been an interesting exercise to read this book under the light of current societal events: economical crisis, globalization, ecologic sustainable development, the so called ‘crisis in moral values’ …

For those who have not read it, it is not my intention to spoil it here. Like many books of its kind, the author takes a concept that he likes and develops it by going over and over the main points several times. He takes the reader for an intellectual ride so to make sure she will not get off the book without having engraved those arguments on her mind.

From all the ideas that he exposes, I would like to share two. To be fair, the two findings that I will decorticate are not Gladwell’s, but the result of years of research in cognitive psychology.

§  The importance of details: It seems that humans are very receptive to environmental details, much more that we actually think. In fact, details are what conform how people appreciate and react. This fact can help us solve social challenges, which seem too big to tackle, by simply altering small details in the environment where those social challenges happen. Small environmental details are easier and more affordable to modify directly than harmful or noxious human behaviors.

§  The law of 150: Human brains can only keep an average of 150 active “person” connections in memory, each connection being dedicated to one person. It is like saying that we can actually care for and track a maximum of 150 acquaintances and friends. I wonder if an application like Facebook will change our brain wires and future generations will develop more connections as they are trained since childhood with external help to “follow” people. I also wonder about how much some people really know (and care of) the zillions of Facebook “friends” that they collect. Maybe people might end up becoming an object of collection like coins and stamps. That would be the summum materialism!

I will finish this blog entry by interpreting these two arguments in the workplace. One, every single detail counts, so it is very necessary to invest in maintaining an adequate, nice and professional work environment, and thus, since the environment matters, tele-working from home actually becomes even more of a challenge. Two, no work unit that really wants to be cohesive and productive can be larger than 150 people. If we want productivity to drive a company this should be taken into account into how that company is organized.

Is Computer Science Truly Scientific?

I'd like to share with you the latest Communications of the ACM Viewpoint from Gonzalo Génova, professor at Universidad Carlos III, regarding research, scientific evidence and experimentation.

I will reproduce here some pieces that I found most insightful:<<There cannot be a complete science activity that consists solely of proving theories by means of experiments: first, theories must be formulated and developed and their explanatory power must be demonstrated so that the investment of human and material resources in the experiments, which may be very costly, can be justified: then, the experiments that will prove of refute the theories must be carried out. Moreover, experimental verification may say something about the truth of a theory, but it can say nothing about its relevance, that is, its interest to the scientific community or society as a whole.>>


<<[…] the distinguishing feature of the scientific method is its “public”, “social” character.>>

<<[…] what the scientist looks for is to follow a way toward knowledge that can be followed by other researchers; the goal is to “convince” the scientific community of the validity of certain results.>>

<<Experience and speculation must go hand in hand with the way of science. Some investigations will have a basically experimental character, while others will be primarily speculative, with a wide gradation between these two extremes. As long as all are demonstrable, we should not consider some to be more worthy of respect than others. […] call upon researchers who might feel inclined toward speculative matters –and even more upon those in charge of research– neither to close the door nor give up on this kind of scientific activity, which is essential for the progress of knowledge.>>

I personally like this article because it tells me as a researcher: do not stop dreaming!!!. Even if your dreams can only be proved in a piece of paper and not empirically, they are worth looking at them, talking about them, proving them, ... As the author says extraordinary researchers like Turing, Von Neumann, Shannon, Knuth, Hoare, Dijkstra, Wirth, Feigenbaum, McCarthy, Codd, Chen, Lamport, Zadeh, Meyer, Cerf, Berner-Lee and many others did not distinguish their work by their experimental character.

I will keep all this in mind when speaking to people, clients, and colleagues about how I see the future. I’d like to think that I work to build that future and prove others that it can be feasible. Past experience and current experiments are important, but the future belongs to those that can prove, even if just in their minds and on paper for the moment, how things will be. 

(from Accenture post on 21/07/2010) 

I love my E-book !!!

Have you recently thought about buying an E-book? 

Maybe it is about time to make the move and buy one.

 I did so last Christmas and I must admit that even if the technology is not yet fully mature, I like it. I have been able to play with it for these past months and it is definitively something that I am going to continue using. If more books came out in digital format, it would definitively prevent me from buying paper.

I bought a Sony PRS-700, an e-book with touch screen and note taking possibility. I will not advocate for one brand or type of e-book. Each one comes with its pros and cons and each user will find the right model for them. I chose this one because of its sleek design, the freedom to load any kind of documents on PDF format, and the note taking capability. These two last points actually made it appealing to make it more than just a book, and use it as a kind of notebook to overview PPTs and DOCs for work.

Conclusions:

PROS:

1.       It is light and easy to carry everywhere. This, for me,  is a must, as I basically read when I travel.

2.       Can potentially store hundred books. So I will never run out of something to read, if I remember to keep loading new books.

3.       It is green. My dream: no more paper to store. I love my home library but books are just starting to kick me out of my place. My new strategy: I give as a present the books that I read as I read them. But this means that I cannot re-read them (even if I barely do). With an e-book, no problem, I will keep the books for as long as I backup my computer :D :D .

CONS:

1.       Losing it is a tragedy. It is much more expensive than the average book but as easy as any book to lose. I once thought that I had lost it in a taxi. I was really upset with myself! Luckily, I just had misplaced it, but I would have never got that angry if it just had been a book.

2.       The note taking capability is far from being acceptable for use. I have managed to take a few notes at meetings and use it for reviewing, but it is just too slow. We have a usability/technology challenge here.

3.       It will never substitute the pleasure of scribbling during a meeting :P

4.       It does not give me more time and energy to read. 

(from Accenture Post on the 22/09/2009)

Technology R&D: Distributed or Centralized?

In systems design, the dilemma of Distributing or Centralizing resources, access, etc. is often posed. As a telecom engineer I have seen the evolution of networks from the client-server approach to the wild P2P data sharing solutions. In telecoms, at least, it does not seem to be an either-or situation. A healthy mixture of both worlds seems to be a good solution to the challenge of giving people access to services and content.

Let’s move that dilemma to a more human network, our work network. How should knowledge be running in the company? Distributed or Centralized? Well, as far as the latest KM and e-learning theories point out (at least when I was studying them), it seems to be also a mixture of distribution and centralization of efforts. Companies build centralized systems (e.g. KX, myLearning…) and facilitate ad hoc knowledge distribution (e.g. Office Communicator, WebEx). Even if in some of these examples it is difficult to know if the collaboration tool has been created to distribute knowledge or to make sure that knowledge is kept in a central point and, therefore, not lost.

What about R&D? And specially technology R&D? Should a company focus its efforts in developing an R&D group or should it make innovation mandatory no matter the group? Some people might guess that since I am a researcher, I should advocate for creating an R&D group. The truth is that I do not think so. If we look at the most innovative companies, the majority of them start-ups or former start-ups, innovation is mainstream all over the organization and the reason for their success. BUT, and there is a big but, what happens to these companies when they evolve into maintenance mode? That is, when they are not young companies anymore and they deal with the daily market toughness, business trivialities (HR and others) to survive, to continue making money against competitors. That mainstream innovation fades away into the business processes and tasks, and the need to have a specialized group seems to appear: they create their R&D groups.

During my last 10 years doing research I have observed that there seems to be a relationship between business success and investment in R&D. Nevertheless, I do not think there is a direct relationship of the kind “the more a company spends in R&D the more successful it is”. So where is the trick? Should we have a concrete R&D investment? Definitively. How much? Difficult to know.

I believe that innovation is an attitude, a mixture of technical skills, creativity and imagination. I suppose that it’s difficult to do certain business processes and tasks keeping that attitude, so the creation of a group that mainly focuses on making sure that “attitude” doesn't disappear is necessary. So with this I am back onto exposing that R&D, at the end, is also a healthy combination of distributed versus centralized resources that just focus on that attitude.

I believe successful companies distribute their R&D from the “specialized group” to the mainstream better than competitors. The key to success is to breed and reinforce with policies a curiosity culture that naturally pulls innovation from the centralized R&D into the mainstream. I say pull from R&D, instead of push, because the groups that really have a motivation to make the effort required to make the technology transfer are those that will gain a competitive advantage (R&D does not gain anything from sharing R&D). Although most big companies practice the R&D push (R&D managers selling their ideas to the mainstream), I have little faith that kind of approach actually goes anywhere.

(from Accenture Post on the 8/09/2009)

Why a blog

The Web seems driven by hypes, waves and fashions ... Exciting applications today can either become the obsolete apps of the future or potential lifetime companions.


Several years ago, you needed to keep a blog to be in. It was a must-have to show that you knew well what was being cooked in the Web 1.0 kitchen. Recently, with the arrival of social media and Web 2.0, blogs are not in any more.


Do not get me wrong, people will continue blogging, above all those that have something to say. However, those individuals that started blogging because it was the fashionable thing to do, have moved on. Nowadays, they tweet. By posting their condensed thoughts in multiple social channels they achieve two things: (a) maximum exposure to as many people as possible, caring little on who their readers are; (b) bigger return of attention from time investment, each tweet is effortless compared to the energy required to write a blog entry, and nonetheless, it allows them to be on the spotlight for a fraction of attention in somebody's life several times a day.


So why am I blogging now instead of using twitter like most people do?


Because I thought that sharing my thoughts well deserved a little effort from my side and because my day-to-day life is not as exciting as to be posted in a per-minute basis.


I started blogging at work in our local professional network because I thought I had something to share with colleagues whose professional background was no scientific or researchy like mine. I later told myself,  that if I could share those with my colleagues, I could well share them with the rest of the world too. At work some audience is guaranteed, in the open Web, I do not know if anyone will read me. Chances are that sooner or later somebody will get to my blog. If it is not any good, at last I will not have spammed anybody's twitter account.


Enjoy the reading!