An Innocent Visit to a Women in Tech Group Leads to An Unplanned Time Warp

Why are we still asking the same questions about women and technology?

Somewhere along the line when I wasn't paying attention, I passed through an unseen door into a place where I'm now looking backwards as much as forward when it comes to women in tech. I have been noticing this for quite some time but it really smacked me in the face a few weeks ago when I attended a meeting of a new, small, group of mostly tech industry professionals. Women, the vast majority of whom were in their 20s and 30s.

Without planning it, the few of us who were not Millennials found ourselves clumping together randomly throughout the evening. Not all at once, but over and over I found myself having similar conversations with post 40-somethings about differences in our perspective about the issues and concerns of women in tech. We compared notes about what happens when you've been around long enough to see what lies beyond the ideal of a meritocracy in tech.

The larger group formed, from what I can tell, rather spontaneously, as a result of a few women wanting a smaller more intimate space for women than currently exists in larger social & networking groups. This was their second meeting and part of the conversation was about what topics they cared most about. Creating a female oriented space. Work-Life Balance. Designing Your Environment (where "environment" is broadly defined to refer to "world" and "life").  Several people noted that they weren't into some of the more traditionally male associated networking activities that center around "hanging out and drinking and kegs".

Now that I find myself a holder of "institutional memory" I am having weird flashbacks.

Back in the 1980s (the oh so distant past when it comes to tech) I remember having very similar discussions from the context of wanting to break into the tech industry, to be accepted for what I could do rather than what I might look like (i.e. female). Business wasn't about social activism was it? I flip flopped from wanting to be one of the guys in order to be accepted, to wanting to have a place to talk about why that approach never seemed to really work. Determined to succeed by being the best technically and assuming that if I ignored my gender everyone else would have to as well.

Anyone remember Andrew Dice Clay? The guys in my group of developers thought he was hysterical and watched his misogynist Stand Up at off site socializing events, checking with me to see if I was going to fit in by laughing along with them. I remember "Lisa, what do you think? He's funny, right? ... See, Lisa is ok with it". I was offended but didn't say a word. I had lots of reasons. Reason: I needed a job. Reason: I should let things roll off. Reason: I was afraid of not being accepted. However, I was a feminist outside of the office. I once took off for a weekend to attend a rally in Washington DC and when I came back, someone found out, and two of the guys refused to speak to me for weeks. It was a lousy way to tackle work life balance.

There was a divided opinion at the recent women's meeting about whether it was better to go along with male dominated structures and systems, or whether it was better to take explicitly women focused approaches when working for change. The arguments pro and con were the same ones I heard 25 years ago. The concerns about the effect on men were the same ones I heard 25 years ago. The implicit fears about what taking a stand or speaking out would mean for one's career were the same ones I heard 25 years ago.

Several of the women at the meeting worked for a company that makes a cutting edge tech product for athletes. They were discussing their jobs enthusiastically. One of the women listening to them pointed out that the demographic for that company's products is 18-30 year old males. A discussion ensued about why that was, and if the company could expand their market demographic in order to stay competitive. No longer the only player in their market, the competition is heating up. The entire group discussed what men or women might do with the company's products. No one in the room (that I remember) had bought the product for themselves, although a few had bought it for a male they knew. It seemed clear to me that here was an opportunity to do something good for business and for women in tech by, at the very least, changing the product's marketing.

As I later surmised, fears of rocking the boat are sometimes subtle. There wasn't much enthusiasm for altering the existing product or marketing. So I asked if any of the women working in this male dominated tech company on a male oriented product, had any thoughts about the contradiction (?) of their employment situation while we were sitting here in a group explicitly devoted to supporting women in the tech design business?

The initial response was a shocked look and a pause. Then "We have to focus on our target user". Oh, to know history! In a competitive environment, that phrase is the reason many initially successful companies decline and become irrelevant. Nothing related specifically to gender there; it's a business and marketing basic.  Yet someone added, unprompted and dismissively : "It isn't a business issue".  I had to restrain myself from beating my head on the table.

Sadly, that wasn't the last of my throwback moments. Later in the same discussion someone said, as a reason for not changing the existing product / marketing: "Women aren't interested in technology". As Millennials love to say: OMG.

If I had ever been in doubt about whether or not there were still serious issues for women starting out in tech, (and for the record, I wasn't), the fact that we are having the same conversations, the same fears and denials as we had in the 80s would have dispelled them.

By the way, in the 1980s I remember women who were then in their 40s and 50s saying the same darned things about how they were hearing many of the same darned questions and conversations they heard in the 1960s about women with career ambitions in business.

Oddly enough, I initially attended this meeting not knowing if this was the right place for me. It had not so much to do with the idea of a women focused group, but more because of the fact that I felt so much older than most of the women there. I have experiences and perspective that only come with having been around the block a few times.  I wasn't sure if there was a place for me in this group of women. How ironic. After decades spent as one of very few women in my tech world, I found myself one of very few mid career professionals in a room full of tech women. Neither situation is ideal or particularly comfortable.

Well...I come away from that meeting with more questions and more to think about than I came in with. But one thing I am more sure about than ever: as long as people (women or men) are still asking the same questions about women and technology in a male dominated environment, groups like this one are needed. I hope we can find a way to move forward so that 25 years from now the current group of women in tech don't find themselves having the same deja vu.

Having a Technical Impact Goes Beyond the Bits

Technical Communication Failure

I'm contemplating the human and personal side of science, particularly computer science, more than ever. Both of the courses I taught this past Fall at Harvey Mudd College, Computer Science Education Research (co-taught with Colleen Lewis) and Great Papers in Computer Science, had a pervasive emphasis on the human and the personal along with the technical. I posted about the CS Ed Research class earlier this year, tweeted about it regularly, and my next column in ACM Inroads Magazine (March 2015) will be about that course.

The Great Papers class was perhaps a poster child for the how and the why we need to understand the non-technical factors swirling in and around computer science, and our need as professionals in the field to be able to communicate well about them to diverse audiences. We should talk more about how scientific and technological advances are communicated, understood, accepted or rejected. I suspect most of us recognize that those seminal articles we may take for granted had a significant impact only partially because of their technical merit.

It's about being the right person, in the right place, at the right time, saying the right thing. That last point (saying the right thing) is where we find the technical most heavily, although even there, the "right thing" is more nuanced than the bits and bytes of the matter. If we pause and take a look at the contextual big picture of any one of the technical innovations that have shaped our field, we see the truth of the matter. A range of social, historic, economic and psychological factors either inhibit or increase the visibility and impact of any technical work.

For example, in the domain of computer architecture, Howard Aiken's  "The Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine" (1937)  deservedly takes a spot in the annals of the most impactful papers in the field. Yet the paper that led to the creation of the Harvard Mark I was not a shoo-in; if not for a complex series of historical and economic factors the ideas presented in the proposal might well have languished in the "Don't call me, I'll call you" dustbin.  Then there was Aiken's ability to assemble a rock solid team. Grace Hopper, herself no intellectual or personal pushover, was on that team. Aiken did not succeed in a vacuum.

Psychological factors leading to technological change are blindingly obvious in the infamous 1968 Dijkstra Letter to the Editor of the Communications of the ACM entitled "Go To Statement Considered Harmful". Dijkstra effectively and efficiently communicated the potential negative technical consequences of an unbridled use of the "Go To" statement. However, he used arguably tactless language, upset a lot of people, and his comments went viral 1960s style*.  Dykstra wasn't the first person to argue against using Go To statements but he often gets the credit for the ideas that led to eventual changes in coding practice.

By spending a semester delving into issues such as these, I hope that students will come away with more than increased intellectual breadth and depth in the field of CS. I hope they will have a greater understanding of the deep connections between society and technological success and failure. I hope they will appreciate the importance of successful communication about complicated technical subject matter to technical and non-technical audiences alike. It's not just for people in Marketing - it's for them too.

I just got back my teaching evaluations - feedback to me about where I successfully communicated all these things to them and where there is room for work. It cuts both ways - I'm feeling good about that.



*In class I make a point to spend a few minutes discussing why, in spite of Dijkstra's technical brilliance and fame, pissing people off is not professionally wise.

Thoughts From a Live Node in the Network

Last night's UX Speakeasy meetup was a bit of a mind bender when you stopped to consider the implications of everything Matthew Milan (CEO of Normative) tossed at the audience. After a momentary thick silence at the end of Milan's talk, the flood of questions started. Too bad the guy had to catch a red eye to Miami. We could have kept him talking late into the night.

It was all about design, but not design in any way you are likely to have thought about it before. After flipping up a rather staid and traditional definition of "design", Matthew said something to the effect of "we're still talking about making sh*t up". But that's ok, because one of his company's mantras is "Always Be Learning". A phrase worth bolding.

When you consider his suggestion that "the network" is everything connected by an IP, and that more and more we are connected to multiple IPs in a constant slurry of invisible signals zinging through the air, and technology companies are fire hosing us with new wearable or embedded everything, just like this sentence, Matthew pointed out correctly, at least for the majority of people in the developed world "we spend the majority of our time being a live node on the network".

I never thought about myself that way. This notion makes me think of the time a few weeks ago when I was on a business trip and my internal GPS had been lost on a contrail somewhere. I decided to use Google Maps to look up the location of the city I was in. I got more than I bargained for. Google Maps not only showed me the city I was in, but put a nice little label on the location of my hotel along with a tag listing the dates I was staying there. The *only* way they could have accessed that last information was by scanning my gmail account and pulling the information out of a reservation confirmation message. I was creeped out. Not cool Google. Perhaps Google thought it was being helpful but all I could think was: Get OUT of my email!

One can understand the audience member last night who said that after listening to Milan's talk he was very uncomfortable.  He felt like he was part of one big experiment. Yup, I'm afraid that he may be correct. We love our toys but through them we are live nodes dangling on the end of a virtual fish hook. To his credit, Matthew replied to the stressed out audience member "This stuff isn't supposed to make you comfortable". No attempt to cover up the ubiquitous networked nature of everything with some sugar coated marketing gobbledy gook.

For me, a message I received from Matthew's talk was that we need to wake up and pay attention to what we are designing and how we put it to use in society.

There was a good deal of talk last night about "computational design" that left me sucking on my pen and rolling my eyes upward in thought on more than one occasion. It wasn't what you might think; people and machines are to be thought of on an equal footing in our oh so networked environment. In trying to describe some aspect or other of this point, Matthew said in an unscripted moment that we should think about how to be empathetic to the machine. He then corrected himself, suggesting that "empathy" probably wasn't the right word because, well, you know ...

Not so fast. Check out this news release from the National Science Foundation about a robotics initiative which contains the quote:

 "people not only trust [the robot's] impeccable ability to crunch numbers, they also believe the robot trusts and understands them"

and

"The humans trusted the robot to make impartial decisions and do what was best for the team...As it turned out, workers preferred increased productivity over having more control"

Now that is scary. It may be too late to suggest we not have empathy for digital technology.

On a lighter note, (and at this point I need to remember the lighter moments), one of my favorite Matthew Milan quotes was "we are always putting ourselves in these crazy boxes". What made this really funny for me was that rather than going down some intense psychological route, his first item in the list was clothing!

I never thought of my clothes as a box, did you? Since that moment, I've been thinking about my shirt as a box. A box with 4 air vents to provide circulation. A box with flexible siding. A red box (today at least). I have a closet full of boxes to put myself into. And then...ok, I couldn't help but think about myself as that live node and the future of wearables and I began to have empathy for my soon to be sentient shirt.

Today my shirt might be thinking: "oh dear, not that cheap moisturizer again" or "did she forget to use deodorant today? That means she is going to drool on the underside of my sleeve. Talk about a bad hair day. Sigh...the things I put up with  in order to see the world"

Parting words from Matthew Milan included: Design Creates Culture.

"Having your head in the clouds" takes on a whole new meaning doesn't it?

Strategic Portfolio Planning UX Speakeasy Style

The rest of the United States may be getting buried in snow *again* but this evening in San Diego the UX Speakeasy crowd was warming up to each other  in another one of our invigorating monthly meetups.

We have our version of seasons - at tonight's venue, if you went outside on the 7th floor patio and looked out over the darkened city sky, the wind blowing in your face might have caused you to feel it was Winter. If you then walked back inside with a reddened face and someone asked you where you got the sunburn you might have felt it was Spring. In the toasty room where we heard our presentation, you might have believed it was Summer. Looking at the leafless plant in the corner (see picture above) you could be convinced it was Fall.

Our marvelous patio view, and begging to be explored set of funky office suites at this evening's gathering were brought to the meetup crowd of 114 people by Vaco San Diego and their enthusiastic recruiting professionals. Our host, Mark Richards, gave the group a nice presentation about what to put (or not put) in your UX portfolio. In: specifics. Out: your cat. Portfolio in the larger sense of the word, for Mark provided his perspective on what to do (or not do) with your LinkedIn page, resume, digital demos and a few other important odds and ends.

While Mark was showing the crowd some interesting examples of online UX portfolios in the packed room, his colleague (Eric?) held up a large fan that was determined to steal the show once in a while. There was a UI issue of sorts here for sure.

Some useful online portfolio resources shared by Mark (take note UX people!) included: Behance, Dribble, and Coroflot. Somewhere in the middle of all this, as I was standing near a glass door, someone jostled someone and the next thing I knew there was a large amount of liquid running down the other side of the door. Very artistic.

Vaco was a great host. Did I mention that Eric (?) brought me a personal hand made name tag shortly after I entered? This was before he put himself in charge of the treacherous fan for the benefit of all sentient beings. For those of you in the San Diego area, if you'd like to connect with Vaco, they are holding their annual March Mingle on March 26th at the Hard Rock 207 (the bar in the Hard Rock Hotel downtown) which will be, so Mark tells me, a great opportunity for technical people of all ilks to network.

Intuit appears to be on a serious UX hiring spree based upon what our second speaker told us. Rich Bessel from Intuit spent a few minutes telling us about some of the things he values in potential hires. In addition to supporting Mark's comments, Rich added: Craft. Demonstrate your craft everywhere. Show your passion and that you care about your work. It should ooze through all your materials (ok, he didn't use the word "ooze" but he could have) because you want to show that you care, really care, about your work. Oh, and by the way: Check Your Ego At the Door.

Global Tech Women: "Voices" Speaks Again

Have you heard about the "Voices" conference? Voices is presented by Global Tech Women and is unique in several ways. For starters, the conference is virtual - you can participate from anywhere on the planet if you have access to an internet connection. Second, the conference is global. It takes place not from one location but from many locations. Third, Voices will circumnavigate the globe for 35 hours. The first session will come from Australia and subsequent sessions will follow the rising sun. The final session will take place in Silicon Valley.

It's high quality stuff and it isn't going to break the bank.

Voices debuted earlier this year on International Women's Day and no one quite knew how it would all go. It turned out to be an incredible grassroots community building and empowerment event. Technical women who had never had the opportunity to participate in a gathering of their peers were able to do so. It was a great way to meet technical women from different cultures, to compare and share ideas and experiences, and to learn from the expertise and perspective of others. People participated and presented from every continent; the topics ranged from the technically nitty gritty to balancing the personal and professional. In my own opinion, the greatest result of the conference was the many lasting relationships that were established.

Therefore, Global Tech Women is putting together the Voices conference again for 2014.

Although International Women's Day is a long way off (March 8th), conference content planning is well under way and the call for participation closes November 1st. This is where you come in and the reason I'm whipping up this post now.

You don't have to be "someone important" to present - in fact, toss that silly phrase right out the window.

Curious? Interested? Have something to share with other technical women? Hopefully, I got your attention and you want more detail about the Voices conference and how to be part of it. Go Here to find out.

International Women's Day & Voices For You

It is the month of March, and that means International Women's Day is right around the corner. Pop Quiz: do you know when International Women's Day is?

March 8th is International Women's Day.

The century-long evolution of this holiday is quite interesting. Are you familiar with the history of International Women's Day? You can read more here.

International Women's Day is no Hallmark Holiday - it was founded, and has continued to grow and evolve based upon real need, real passion, real effort. If anyone thinks "we don't need it" any more I'm going to wonder what rock you have been hiding under. Politically Conservative or Politically Liberal, or Politically Not-Sure (also Politically Disgusted), it is hard to argue that things are just peachy perfect fine in terms of gender equality.

One friend and colleague in the computing world likes to point out to me that different countries and cultures have different perspectives about gender issues, and that what may be a concern in one part of the world may not be a problem at all elsewhere. However, as I like to point out in return, I have yet to hear about anywhere on the planet where there is nothing to be concerned about. And I mean from the point of view of the women and men in those cultures. 

We are not a monolith (that would be boring wouldn't it?). Speaking just of the computing world now, women everywhere have things to express about their hopes and desires, balance between personal and professional life, experiences good and bad. Sometimes there aren't very many sympathetic listening ears. Listening to what other women computing professionals have to say is enlightening. The good, the bad and the ugly. There is a lot of all three, but how often do we take the time to reach out, listen, share, provide support for each others growth?

It is absolutely wonderful (wonderful wonderful) to attend a conference of women in computing. If you are fortunate enough to have attended one of the growing number of WICs, you know exactly what a life altering experience it can be. However, on a global scale, the many thousands of women who have been to a physical WIC conference is a very small percentage of  all the women who are part of, or aspire to be part of, the professional computing world. It takes time, it takes the ability to travel, it takes money. Not everyone has those things in abundance.

However, I'm really psyched to say that there is something new for International Women's Day this year and in particular for  technical women. Something that virtually everyone can take part in. (in my usual style that is a bad pun).

There is a global movement afoot to connect technical women to each other. Many of us already know the power of community building and outreach. But there are people out there who have not yet experienced enough of these opportunities. Most of us, in fact I'd wager. International Women's Day provides a motivational opportunity to continue building and reaching.  In terms of walking the talk, there is no better day of the year to connect technical women to one another.

Voila: The Voices Global Conference: a virtual, global conference for technical women. No travel required, miniscule investment involved. You need access to a computer. That's it. I believe that every continent is taking part in this conference, during their Friday this week (March 8th - International Women's Day). It's all online - talk about creative. It's interactive. It's diverse, it's inclusive...ok, I'm waxing in the direction of poetic. Or something like that.

The Voices Global Conference is an incredible opportunity to learn, to listen, to share, to network, to gain access to some incredibly talented, successful, influential women in the computing world.

What Helps People Share in a Meaningful Way?

Why do we share? What are our motivations for sharing? We hear a lot these days about the downside of sharing: Facebook posts can cause you to lose a job or interview; video streaming that globalizes the worst impulses of bigotry and prejudice, spur of the moment emails haunt someone for ever (and ever)...there are justifiable reasons to be wary of sharing.

You can argue we share too much. Perhaps we do. On the other hand, 21st Century computing technology allows us to share in wonderful everyday ways. We keep in touch with a colleague and his children on their Fulbright in Zambia, we receive photos from a relative who lives 1000 miles away, an elderly neighbor can download otherwise inaccessible newspapers to her tablet. Mundane? Maybe. Maybe not.

When was the last time you thought about the everyday ways you share and why you share?

Have you ever thought about why we share so much?

To share is to be human. Angel Anderson, a speaker at the UX Speakeasy Conference Saturday, knows quite well why we share and she shared the psycho-social motivations with her audience. I suspect one of the reasons people enjoyed her talk so much was that Angel bridged the human and the technological in a solid, thorough, in-depth manner and she was upbeat. Upbeat and engaging, in spite of fighting laryngitis and having to make good friends on stage with a bottle of red cough syrup.

Did you know, for example, that most of our sharing has positive evolutionary motivations behind it? We share to get things in return (reciprocation), to feel good, to feel validated (we can't survive without healthy egos), and for relationship building. We are a social species and we need our communities and our relationships with one another. We need them just as much today as we did 200,000 years ago.

Complaining can be a constructive form of sharing. After listening to Angel discuss this point, I was able to tune in to a great example that presented itself this morning. My yoga teacher told our class about the constructive outcomes that can be achieved when a student complains about an injury or a fear. When a student says "I have a weak shoulder" "I often hyper-extend my knees"  "I'm absolutely terrified of falling on my head", the teacher can offer physical adjustments, alternative poses, physical and psychological support. As a result, the student learns to stop torquing on her joints and doesn't fall on his head. These complaints present opportunities that must be voiced to come to fruition.

Angel shared additional in-depth insight into the motivations behind sharing, with the take home point that we need to understand these motivations so we can create great tools for sharing. Yes, "great". Angel used that word with gusto. Understanding the psychology of motivation lets the creator think about the types of relationships they want to foster with their app/tool/device/service. It is all about social landscapes.

Angel echoed the message of earlier speakers when she said that User Experience (UX) work is in an Age of Enlightenment. It has never been easier, deeper and faster to share - such an opportunity for creating meaningful interactions between people!

Ask yourself: "what helps people share in a meaningful way?"

Computers and Society: Computing For Good Arrives Without a Flourish

I am pleased to announce that my book "Computers and Society: Computing For Good" arrived on my doorstep yesterday, and is now officially out.

Many of the people I profiled in this book about computing and computers being used for social and environmental good, are both passionate about what they do and humble. As fate would have it, the arrival itself occurred in such a way as to reinforce the importance of being humble and remembering to value balance in life.

The guy from Fedex sprinted up the stairs and handed me a box while I was having a conversation with a guy trying to (at the very least) scam me for several hundred dollars. I suspect he was high on something as he kept hopping around and babbling. So busy trying to figure out what was going on with this guy that I set the box inside the door and forgot about it. Much later, after the growing evidence made me realize I had been dealing with a potentially dangerous criminal and I had called the police, I noticed the box from my publisher partially wedged behind a footstool. So much for the big moment of arrival!

I pried open the box and pulled out the book, not quite sure whether I was still upset with myself for having turned my back on the crazy guy when my computer chose the wrong moment to make a lot of noise. (This is how people get killed, I thought - don't turn your back on crazy people no matter what your computer does).

However, here it was in my hands - my first book. A book about people who are making the world a better place. Lots of people. The hundred or so people who shared their time and stories with me far outweigh the one crazy guy in my doorway. Whether working to save endangered sea turtles, helping kids in the neonatal intensive care unit, or modeling earthquakes, these people "rock" as they say. Life is short and precious and I'm honored beyond words to be able to share their work with you.

Interdisciplinary Computing Meeting 3: Day 2

My computer screen is still on an acid trip - perhaps more so. Tonight it is purple and orange with green swirls and oozing deep amoeba-like dripping drooling things. But the keys work, so I can continue to talk about the meeting. The same caveats apply as yesterday, about typos, lack of links and copy editing. My notes from today are doubly challenged as I not only took them half blind but am now reading them back to myself more blind. However, I consider this an interesting cognitive challenge.

Onwards.

We started the morning with a faculty panel that seeded a discussion of challenges to Interdisciplinary Computing (IC) as well as interesting experiences. One particularly interesting speaker was Teresa Nakra from the Music Department at The College of New Jersey. She conducted an opera as part of her early music studies and later went to the MIT media lab where she worked with Rosalind Picard (of Affective Computing fame) on digital opera. Teresa spoke about designing a jacket for the conductor to wear which took readings of a variety of activities that were going on during the performance of the opera. Teresa spoke about the interdisciplinary nature of opera, which is probably not something many people in computing think of. This subject matter rang some bells for me, as one of my undergraduate degrees was in Drama, which field led me indirectly into the computing field. At that time everything was analog (certainly not the case now) but there were these interesting engineers in the lighting booth and one thing led to another and...

We spoke in more depth today about the various constituencies that are involved in the success or failure of IC and discussed ways to engage with them and foster a climate conducive to IC. A particularly interesting question came up:

Would it be preferable, in an ideal world, to have a greater preponderance of dual (or multi) subject matter experts or to have a greater number of computing professionals who are fluent enough in another field to hold serious conversations in that (those) field(s) without being a SME (pronounced "SMEE")? 

We as a group had varied views on the matter and this led to a very productive discussion of the implications of each. What do you think? What scenario would be better for the fostering and ongoing success of Interdisciplinary Computing?

In another breakout session that I sat in on we discussed obstacles faced by industry. Interestingly enough, one of the topics that came out without my initiating it, was the very interdisciplinary nature of UX work in industry - short for User Experience if you aren't familiar with the term. Interesting to me, because I have been working on UX , and have written about UX a few times in this blog. It is clearly an interdisciplinary  area of work - computing, psychology, art, design, development - depending upon one's emphasis, these and other disciplines can be central. UX is a clear point of connection between academic interdisciplinary computing work and industry. Much of Computer Science Education research work can or does fall under the UX umbrella.

In discussing the challenges faced by industry it became clear that there is no universal set of challenges and it is hard to make any generalizations that stick. Large companies may have more time to allow people to come up to speed and may have time and resources for some cross training; small companies may have to get something delivered yesterday. Traditional hi-tech companies may have one set of IC needs whereas the health care IT industry may have a vastly different set of requirements (must one have medical background? someone suggested this might well be the case). Non-profits, for-profit companies - different types of missions, thus different challenges. These discussions also led to a brief conversation about how to prepare students in very concrete ways - such as providing advice on developing resumes. Does one want to be a generalist or a specialist within the IC world? If one is working in an IC area, in other words, to what extent should one narrowly niche and to what extent should one be broad? These questions relate back to the question about whether it would be preferable to have dual SMEs or single area SMEs with a solid working knowledge in other areas.

So you see, we were beginning to pick up on patterns of issues that have to be carefully considered and addressed (and we did have discussions on these subjects). I wish I had room to delve deeply into it, but there will eventually be a formal report from the organizers  of these meetings (Ursula Wolz and Boots Cassel) and some of the ideas I mention will no doubt be part of the discussion there.

Another theme that came up again and again, yesterday and today, was the need for communication strategies among people who are involved in IC. Support mechanisms to facilitate communication, formal (workshops, meetings, regional structures to support ongoing conversations) and informal (funded lunches as one idea. A little pizza can go a long way), in-service activities specifically targeted at IC collaborations, mentoring opportunities to bring in and support new colleagues.

Publicity, outreach, and awareness raising came up a lot today. If we are to affect Hearts, Minds and Culture, (a phrase from yesterday) then we must start putting the whole notion, appeal and benefits of Interdisciplinary Computing into people's minds in many different ways. If the general citizenry and youth perceive IC as interesting, and a part of the fabric of society, then we will go a long way towards achieving a major shift towards accomplishing many of the more discrete goals of IC.

Along these lines, I will conclude this once again longish post (and one that is killing my eyes!) with another amusing moment from today. Someone brought up the information that when the original Chuck E Cheese was developed it incorporated a model of exposing entire families to the "product" and thus gaining buy-in from families, and that, get this, Chuck E Cheese was THE premier place for showcasing technology to children through robotics. A member of our group personally remembered this. According to one perspective, the robotic approach didn't quite work out because it scared children (oops).

However, overall the "engage the entire family" model was successful and has continued, spreading to many other companies. Some highly creative soul in our group suggested "CyberCheese" as a name for an Interdisciplinary Computing marketing campaign. Engage the entire family in computational interaction. If the entire family is engaged, parents, kids, extended family, friends - things could take off.

After I about died laughing at the name, I realized...hey...this idea isn't so bad is it?

This post was updated on 11/10/11 to fix typos and add links.

Interdisciplinary Computing Meeting 3: Day 1

This is quite the post for several reasons. I am in Washington DC attending the third Interdisciplinary Computing meeting. I posted about the previous two earlier this year [the January meeting, the April meeting] . When we were at dinner, I was sitting next to someone who is in the arts and telling him how I was very interested in finding an interesting project that crossed over computer science and the arts for a chapter in a future edition of my book. Well, I got back to my hotel room and discovered that the video card on my motherboard has gone out. So I am writing this post on a psychedelic smeary LSD reminiscent screen - and I can't really read what I'm writing. This is not exactly what I had in mind when I asked for a convergence of art and computing. Beware what you ask for! For the next two days I'll be writing this way, as a replacement part will be meeting me back in San Diego later this week. Meanwhile...have patience with the typos and lack of editing because I can't see beyond the pulsating purple and lime green.

So on to the meeting report.  As always, all of the comments in this post are my interpretations and reflect my perspective on what occurred. They are not any "official" pronouncement and there may be others at the meeting who have a different set of thoughts. If that is you, please chime in!

Today was the most incredible example of synergistic conversations that can come out of putting passionate widely divergent thinkers together. 

Two of our meeting goals (as laid out by our trusty leaders Boots Cassel and Ursula Wolz) are to identify the breadth that is Interdisciplinary Computing (IC) and how to Facilitate Interdisciplinary Computing. Lynn Andrea Stein from Olin College talked about the interdisciplinary nature of Olin, an engineering school that was able to design interdisciplinarity into itself in a holistic way in part because they were able to start from the ground up approximately 10 years ago. Valerie Barr from Union College, founded in 1795 and the first college in the United States to offer engineering programs, provided an interesting contrast as she spoke about her work with a large range of successful IC programs.

A common theme was the infusion of computing into courses outside the traditional curriculum as well as a major rethinking of CS coursework - both institutions are having great success, attracting more students into the CS courses and increasing diversity.

With the audience of CS faculty, arts faculty, education, math (and more) faculty chiming in and asking many questions the phrase came up: Hearts, Minds and Culture. All three must be addressed. Further discussions delved into what that means. At the faculty level, student level, institutional level.

We had two breakout sessions and in both I was extremely priviledged to sit with some of the most interesting and engaged people. We wrestled with tough questions such as:

Outcomes are important (we all agreed) as are Goals - should Goals come first, followed by Outcomes followed by metrics for assessing them, or perhaps should desired Outcomes be the starting point with the other items emerging from there? It turns out to be a fascinating way to turn your thinking on its head.

Verbs vs. Nouns. Several breakout groups  (including ours) independently came up with this terminology to describe how we must stop thinking in terms of Nouns (e.g. "content") and think in terms of Verbs (what do we want to DO, to have students DO). And if we make the mistake of framing Goals in terms of Nouns instead of Verbs, we will undercut the whole purpose of trying to be innovative and creative and flexible in our approaches among different departments. Noun (content) orientation can lead to "content wars" in many cases and a lose-lose situation, as opposed to a win-win situation in which everyone can find common ground.

Very interesting idea. Think in terms of Verbs - it makes sense that this orientation would lead to a greater chance of finding mutually beneficial modern ground among widely diverse faculty. Gets us away from the dreaded "coverage debates" many of you no doubt know too well.

I'm going to short change some of the day's activities a bit in order to keep this to a reasonable length for a post, but there is one last item that energized me so much I must mention it. One participant, during a full group discussion, asked the question: should we think of Interdisciplinary Computing as "corrosive"? Corrosive in that it breaks down institutional boundaries and structures? And if so, is it corrosive by its very nature or is it something that those involved would want to specifically focus on? Corrosive. Fascinating. That is such a vivid word. Think about that will you? 

The same person followed up with this thought: if Interdisciplinary Computing is indeed corrosive, then the theoretical ground of doing IC work changes. 

IC is rhizomatic he posited. I know what a rhizome is (in a general sense), but I had to ask for an explanation in the context of this conversation. He explained, (and I try to closely paraphrase) – you can’t teach what you want to teach from any one source. You break something and it will find its way around via  a different route.Wow... think on that one too won't you? This is what you get when you work with interdisicplinary minded people from different disciplines. 

Finally, my vocabulary was expanded even further in the context of IC when in a breakout session we were discussing the topic of forming and sustaining IC community. One member of our group brought up this idea, which we all latched onto: the notion of the Interpersonal as equally important to the notion of the Interdisciplinary. The importance of realizing that it is relationships between people that will make or break IC and that a strong focus on developing, supporting and maintaining interpersonal relationships among *people*, not just "disciplines" is vital. 
 

Interdisciplinary vs. Interpersonal. Put another way: There is interdisciplinary work but there are interpersonal relationships b/w faculty and we need to find ways to facilitate and support those relationships. Equally or possibly even more important. 

And finally, the most mind blowing IC vocabulary expansion  for my afternoon came with someone in our group suggesting we think about IC this way: as Inter-Epistemological.

What?

Inter-epistemological – theories and ways of knowing. The interconnectedness of different models of ways of working. 

In digging around for some definitions of "inter-epistemological" someone found a previously published paper with an eerily provocative title: 

“Moving beyond interdisciplinarity: Academic Reflexivity in an inter-epistemological research program, celebrating indigeneous knowledges: Peoples, Lands and Cultures” 

 Think about Interdisciplinary Computing (corrosive and rhizomatic) in terms of that phrase. 

From purple smeary-land, over and out for the evening. 

This post was updated on 11/10/11 to fix typos and add links.

Creating an Interdisciplinary Profile: Interview Style and Your Written Presence

Writing a profile about someone who is interdisciplinary can be challenging but is a lot of fun and an incredible learning experience. Recently, after several people asked me how I go about it I stopped to think about the process. I write these types of profiles in several venues so there isn't a one size fits all answer. No question: there is always lot of data gathering. For every line written, many lines go unwritten and you have to decide what to put in and what to leave out. However, the starting point always includes knowing who your audience is and what their expectations are. Audience understanding leads to what questions to ask in an interview, how you ask them, and then as you write, and those all-important decisions about tone, depth, and overall profile structure. Compare the approach in two very different outlets: a blog post and a book.

Blog Profile Guiding Principle: Be part of the process and keep the information to one, or at most two, points. When I write a blog post I assume my audience expects a fairly short, punchy profile. I have to get to the point rapidly. There will be a computing component and another field (discipline) component.  I assume a broad computing audience that may or may not have experience in the non-computing field. When I conduct the interview (and there is usually only one interview) I can share related experiences as I strive to learn about the other person's work as rapidly as possible. You can only keep someone on a Skype call for so long before everyone's brain wears out.  When I write the blog post I can share my own insights from the interview which helps the audience relate to what I am writing about. In fact, they expect to hear my voice and thoughts – both directly and indirectly. In a sense, my audience and I learn together.

             

Book Chapter Profile Guiding Principle: Step back and tell a story with many related topics under one major theme. The profiles in my upcoming book on socially beneficial computing are chapter length so you know there is going to be a lot of information which has to be spread out and logically tied together. As in a blog post, there will be a computing component and another field component; my audience is highly unlikely to have experience in the non-computing material. Therefore I know that unless I want to lose my readers at the starting gate I have to provide an engaging yet structured presentation with a clear set of goals. There is time to deepen and broaden the material. My readers do not expect to hear my opinions and insights. Thus when I conduct the interviews (usually there are many interviews extending over many months) I have to pay particular attention to not interjecting my experience and perspective into the conversation. If I don't stick to this interview approach, we will never get to all the complex technical and non-technical information about their work and how it has evolved. Given how often I talk to each person who is part of one of these extended profiles, and the time they make in their crammed schedules to speak with me, I must make every minute count. It's not about me, it's about them.

You can try something I periodically do to keep on my toes: read a profile someone wrote and try to figure out how they structured the interview(s).

Here are links to some of my prior profile posts. What do you think I did to prepare for each interview and what questions did I ask?

http://computing4society.blogspot.com/2011/08/things-to-think-with-crochet-hyperbolic.html

http://computing4society.blogspot.com/2011/05/journalism-meets-computing-in-big-way.html

http://computing4society.blogspot.com/2011/01/unusual-computational-science-educator.html

Programming, Body Language and Poetry

I had the most interesting discussion (here at the ICER conference) today with a doctoral student from the University of California Berkeley: Colleen Lewis. She gave an overview of her dissertation work called: "Integrating Prior Knowledge Into Pedagogy". As part of her work Colleen provides students with code and asks them to talk aloud about the code. Colleen believes that successful students are integrating non programming knowledge from other fields into their programming. Her mention of the humanities got my attention so I went over and spoke with her and asked for some detailed examples of what she has observed.

Critical Reading Skills. Most of you have likely been involved in discussions of code or sat in when someone was describing code. Colleen told me she hears students not simply saying what the line of code is or what it does, but explaining it in terms of what it means in a greater context. She told me when she listens to successful students she hears a story. She used the words "narration" or "narrative" repeatedly. Although she didn't say it in so many words, what I was hearing / interpreting from Colleen's narrative was that as she listens to successful students she hears a story much like the one I am writing here. Not just a sequence of statements, or an algorithmic description, but a more holistic contextualized explanation. Interesting.....Have you ever thought about code as a story?

Gestures and Body Language. Colleen took American Sign Language in college and perhaps this is what disposed her to notice that when she asks students to trace code aloud, some students actively use their body as part of the description. For example they might speak like this: "n equals 1; ok, now n equals 2; now n equals three..." while using their arms to show the movement. Colleen demonstrated by starting with her right arm out, palm up on "n equals 1", then placed her left arm inside her right arm, palm up, then moved her right arm inside her left arm, then the left inside the right again, while explaining "they are saying and showing: 'the code moves from here [right arm/palm], to here [left arm/palm] to here [right arm/palm] to here [left arm/palm]' ". These students not only narrate with words, they narrate with physical movement.

The discussion of movement caused us to look up. There were several of us standing together; Colleen and I were in motion and two others were standing, listening, with arms crossed. We then observed how some people are more physically demonstrative than others. Colleen and I for example use our bodies a lot (even while furiously taking notes, I was not standing still).  Two other people commented that they tend not to use their limbs as much when they talk...what might this mean for coding?

Watch people in action as they talk or listen - it is very interesting to tune into. Psychologists know about the messages body language sends - it isn't something we talk about as much in computing.

Poetry. This is where conferences are such wonderful synergistic experiences. I asked Colleen for yet another example and she started describing a process she observes where programming students read a challenging chunk of code, rephrase it in their head, re-read it, and re-read it, and think it through some more. At that moment another conference participant, Nanette Vielleux from Simmons College, spoke up to say that the process sounded like studying poetry when you are having trouble with a poem. She suggested that perhaps some techniques used to teach poetry could be used to teach programming. Now that is a fascinating idea.

I got an immediate visual of a page of code in a language I don't know well sitting next to a page of poetry from a writer whose style is alien to me (I often find poetry challenging). I have found that if I read poetry aloud several times and roll it around in my head I have a greater chance of making personal sense of it. If some students successfully use the same process with challenging code....wow. Cool idea. I have no idea how poetry is "taught" in the classroom. Wouldn't it be interesting to apply selected poetry pedagogy to the study of existing code and see what happens?

Interdisciplinary Computing Meeting Number 2: Day 2, Part 1

The second (and final) day of our meeting was jam packed. I need a giant suitcase to contain all the notes I could write about our discussions. So... I'll start again with some of the items that jumped out at me from the day.

• Interdisciplinary need not be (as some have feared) a zero sum game. In fact, Interdisciplinary Computing (IC) can change the zero sum game (either you go into field X or field Y). With IC, one department does not lose students to another department ("student stealing"). Quite the opposite. Programs that implement IC programs, minors, (or the variety of forms I have discussed previously) often result in students having a foot in multiple departments. Depending upon how an institution calculates FTE  a student may be counted towards FTE in more than one department, thus giving "credit" to both departments - a good thing. (FTE = Full Time Equivalence, or to the layperson: a calculation of how many students are considered to be in class/department/division/school. FTE numbers often have a powerful effect on fund distribution, hiring etc.).

• Here is an interesting observation: look at the National Science Foundation Discoveries site. This is a site where the NSF highlights innovation; most of the featured projects are IC - computing and another science. 

• Big Science and Small Science. These terms were introduced and there was a bit of a discussion about what they mean and the implications. One table (I was not sitting there) later spent time discussing the topic in detail. But from the more general discussion, here is the gist I came away with. It started when someone posited the idea that computer science projects would more likely be "small science", i.e. local projects that produce a lot of data; "large science" (aka "long tail science") projects are large multi-institutional / multi-group / multi-person projects such as those conducted by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The "problem" would be that larger projects are more likely to get large funding, and thus dissemination. What to do?

I'm not sure I totally buy this definition and the gloomy conclusion. There are certainly computing projects that obtain multi-million dollar funding - when I was working on my PhD some faculty I knew received that kind of funding. And even if we are talking smaller funding levels, I think multi-institutional grants of $500,000 or $1,000,000 are nothing to be sneezed at and can certainly produce results and wide dissemination. Those are available. I was recently one of several PIs on a grant in the first category. Sure it helps to be a government agency, but one does not have to be one in order to get your results "out there". You may have to work a little harder at dissemination, but there are channels. And in fact, sometimes, you know exactly who the groups are that have an interest in your type of work and can target them in a direct semi - personalized manner. And we haven't even mentioned the fact that Industry is working on IC projects and they have their own mechanisms for dissemination, sometimes working with academia, and other times going it alone.

But really, the question is: Why is "small" vs. "large" important for a discussion of IC? Our conversation turned to how small science (let's say 2 departments such as CS and History working together) can leverage large science. NASA, Historical Archives and a variety of organizations make large amounts of data publicly available; these data can be used and added to at the local level. Perceptions of both fields can be changed and information made available that otherwise might gather dust. Here is a great example: check out this project, which one of the meeting participants is working on: Digital Durham, a fascinating integration of computing and history.

Arg. I'm out of space (assuming the general protocol of not making a post tooooo long). To be continued...

Interdisciplinary Computing Meeting Number 2: Day 1, Part 2

In our afternoon discussion of faculty motivation for interdisciplinary computing (IC) I learned several interesting things. First the small but amusing: we had been flinging acronyms around quite a bit, and at one point someone used UTA right in the middle of a sentence. No one asked what this meant so I was brave. UTA: Undefined Three Letter Acronym. Cute.

Some food for thought items came out of the motivation conversation that addressed the questions (what is motivating about IC, how to support it) in a memorable way. I'll start with those.

 - "The transaction between 2 people in different domains is what makes each one better informed and knowledgeable." This might be taken as a a given, but it is interesting to consider it under the realm of "motivation". The affective side our reactions is often as or more motivating than the cognitive side of our reactions. If a synergy develops between two people discussing, brainstorming, and creating, then yes, this can be exciting (an affective response) - hence motivating.

- "It's data; it's representation. The domain doesn't matter". There were some interesting examples of this, such as all the ways to represent data in a form other than rows and columns or bar graphs. We saw a magnificent and beautiful simulation of what happens when people get into an elevator. Apparently this has been studied quite a bit. There are definable patterns of behavior that have a very mathematical predictability. The more data (people) you add, the more interesting the scenario gets. The collaboration was between CS and Art. We watched a colorful square show how people realign themselves as more people enter the elevator. For example, at first one or two or three (ish) people arrange themselves equidistant to one another. Then as more people enter, people spread out towards the walls, leaving a central open space. As more people enter, there is a shuffling around until everyone has almost exactly the same amount of space between them and are fully distributed through the elevator.

Now here is the even cooler part. If you REALLY want to make someone uncomfortable,  move over next to them - we watched this on the simulation as the little colored dots shifted around. If you do this, the other person will immediately try to reposition to regain their equidistant space. This can set off a domino effect of the entire elevator realigning itself.

Later on, a friend and I got in the elevator and watched people's behavior and yes, all of this was absolutely true. It all seemed to happen without anyone consciously thinking about it. We had a little conversation about whether or not we should test out the last part of the theory by engaging in conversation while casually moving closer and closer to someone. But we didn't carry through on that.

The elevator simulation was just one engaging example resulting from close collaboration and the synergy it produced.  It could not have been developed without the art and cs faculty in close communication.

Originality: One of the meeting participants gave us a short demo about teaching algebra using a rope. Someone suggested obtaining a video of the performance and posting it on YouTube. I sure hope that happens; I'll link to it. Hard to describe but the basic idea is that knot tying can demonstrate algebraic concepts e.g. "single instruction, multiple data = sheep shank". The premise is that math can be mapped onto many different systems; in this case the system was a rope. I'm telling you, the math concepts stuck in my head better than I ever remember from dragging my way through theoretical descriptions and chunking through example after example of plugging in numbers. We, the group, were transfixed and the presenter was clearly enjoying himself - very motivated.

We focused much of our conversation about Action Items (to support motivation for IC) in breakout groups. There are far far more than I can list here; some of them made it into my previous post. Many of the ideas related to putting in place support mechanisms to ease logistical hurdles (geographic, fiscal, advancement/promotion, departmental assessment/accreditation mechanisms, etc). The list was long. The ideas varied from top down to bottom up. Just to give you a flavor, here is one top-down item: Because they have clout, organizations, leaders, funders should voice public support for IC;  people who otherwise might not listen, will often listen if the message comes from someone in a position of respect and authority. One bottom-up item: hold a mashup of people who come together to discuss and address an issue: get them all in the same room to attack a given problem. (Sort of like what all of us were doing)
 
To try to sum up (a difficult task): An overarching action item: Develop a Framework of how to solve IC problems.

International Women's Day Spawns Important "Science Magazine" Post

I have a "new and different" blog post in the wings that I hope to post tomorrow - I am waiting for confirmation of some information I'm very excited about.

Meanwhile, I want to reference an interesting blog entry in the Science Careers Blog (part of Science Magazine online) posted yesterday as part of acknowledgment of International Women's Day.

The post discusses the significant positive improvement in retention of women when applied contexts, in particular real world social contexts are presented as an integral part of computer science coursework. Given that this is Science Magazine, there is more to the post than unsupported opinion and commentary. I quote a few lines:

" "The faculty initially did not think that the students who dropped out could hack it," Huang said. "But, on closer examination... they found that women had lost interest because they did not see what algorithms were good for or why they needed to learn how to design a variety of complicated algorithms." The faculty decided to focus the first session of the course on how algorithms may be used to help social causes. [my added emphasis]" Once this began, the retention rate for women increased so much so that now all professors spend the first class introducing their courses by discussing the applied relevance of the material that will be presented," she added. "I admit, I was really relieved to find that the women could hack it." "

(I wonder if there was an intended play on words there. Probably not.)

The post goes on to report that the male students did not respond in the same way. Interesting, however a very intelligent response followed:

"Assuming that men and women continue to have predominantly different interests in how their research is applied later in life, here's my thought: There are differences between individuals of the same gender of course, but couldn't women scientists use these differences to find a niche for themselves that their male colleagues may not necessarily have thought of? It is still difficult for women to work in male-dominated fields in many ways, but the culture has changed drastically in the last several decades and there is now more space for new ideas and individuality."

All I can say is YES. There is space. There will continue to be more space. I happen to think that there may have always been space for new ideas and individuality but that it was not sufficiently recognized or acknowledged or supported. I am so glad to see this recognition coming along. I am even more glad to see research in support of the notion that including social relevance in computing coursework is good for the computing field itself.

Computing faculty, what do you think in reaction to this?

Full Science Careers Blog Post: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2011/03/a-genderbiased.html

An Ideal Environment for Interdisciplinary Computing

After discussing the benefits of engaging in interdisciplinary computing and the challenges we face we considered what an ideal climate for fostering interdisciplinary computing efforts might look like. If you recall from the earlier posts about this meeting, these conversations took place our first morning, as a sort of "lay it all out on the table" exercise. The intent at this stage was not to eliminate ideas that might be arguably "impossible or impractical", nor to come to a consensus or final list.

I found it very productive to go beyond the initial benefits and challenges conversations to a discussion that drew upon those ideas. This was where some real sizzle came into the conversation. By this point people were ready to rock and roll* with their visions. Some ideas were familiar and some were not; sometimes one idea might appear to contradict another idea. But it was all material to sink one's teeth into.

I'd like to share some of these brainstormed ideas; they provide food for thought and are a pre-requisite to the inevitable "what next and how do we get there" questions.

Hopefully they will pique your imagination as they did mine.

- The vertical school based system is eliminated i.e. topics are not rigidly identified as belonging in a specific year.
-  Coursework at the college level is not limited to people who already have "the background" (this phrase is in quotes because defining it is a very interesting discussion in itself!)
- There exists a highly supportive environment for people to build bridges between disciplines, share perspectives and talk. This will produce greater trust, competence and value.
- At the college level each department creates two endowed chairs whose focus is on the support and development of interdisciplinary computer science / computing.
- Budgets include a guaranteed line item dedicated to interdisciplinary computer science / computing.
- People on campus who are dedicated to interdisciplinary efforts are actively located and supported at all levels (administration, staff, faculty).
- We locate other models outside of computer science where interdisciplinary collaborations already work, we study and learn from them.
- Colleges and universities reward interdisciplinary work with tenure.
- Recognition that the issues and focus are different at the K-12 (pre-college) and college level.
- Recognition that there is more to computer science than programming and we model that recognition in the classroom.
- We include more visualization (through any of a number of mechanisms) in computer science coursework.
- Vertical communication within a university is smooth.
- Peer reviewed journals that cross disciplinary boundaries are highly valued.
- Workload assignments recognize that interdisciplinary computer science / computing teaching and research may take extra time and workloads are adjusted accordingly.
- There exist more social venues for informal but critically important interactions in interdisciplinary computer science / computing work - conferences, workshops. Increase those  "water cooler conversations".

- Intellectual content from all represented fields are equally present. This point came up often, in various guises, during the two days we met.

Having intellectual content from each discipline is critical if we want to avoid the perception that interdisciplinary computer science is the application of computing to another field and nothing more.


* We were staying at the Hard Rock Hotel, which in addition to providing all the meeting facilities and services of a more traditional hotel, was another "think outside the box" experience.