Thinking Crazy - Do It!

"So much of coming up with great ideas is allowing yourself to think crazy" spoken by someone in the film "Design & Thinking" which screened last night at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. But can the corporate world accept this idea on a widespread basis? Can it be done without busting budgets? Important questions, addressed both directly and indirectly throughout this interesting film.

The film opened with scenes from the Occupy Movement and spent the next hour and fifteen minutes roving back and forth between New York City, San Francisco and Toronto, speaking with and observing a diverse and eclectic group of people in the design movement. I'm not sure why I'm calling it a movement, but after watching these people passionately describe what they do and what they think about the term Design Thinking, "movement" seems fitting.

There was the PhD candidate in Biology who had never heard of the term but described how he designs experiments with frogs (it seemed that no harm comes to the frogs - at least I hope so) and evolves his work through an iterative process that might sound familiar to someone from a classical design background. When he described the process of needing to be flexible and creative, it sounded rather like the many conversations during the film with people affiliated with classical design schools. These designers also spoke about following their intuition and being willing to shift course when development of a product produced unexpected feedback and results.

Moving from scientists to artists, along with CEOs, CTOs, and university faculty, one of the emerging themes in the film was: learning to be comfortable with taking risks. Realizing that you can do so at low cost. Taking risks and being willing to fail doesn't necessitate a huge budget. One of the challenges addressed throughout this film, both directly and indirectly, was how to "get a place at the table", i.e. in a number crunching bottom line world that wants algorithms for achieving success, how do you get the message across to all the relevant decision makers?

It can be done and the film showcased some wonderful examples. I loved the segment when the founder of Code For America was interviewed (was she was in her pajamas?) and spoke about the fear public officials have of putting anything up online that isn't "perfect". She made the very good point that the reason public officials are so risk averse is because we, the voting public, have made them afraid to make even the smallest mistake. No wonder they are afraid to innovate and experiment in the same way as firms in Silicon Valley. The good news however, is that organizations like Code For America are fostering cultural change in small incremental steps.

There is a lot more to say about the film's point of view on multi-disciplinarity, social entrepreneurship and having an impact. For now, consider how this might apply in your world:

"So much of coming up with great ideas is allowing yourself to think crazy"

Why Do We Need NUIs? Assistive Technology

If I had to pick one reason why we need natural user interfaces (NUIs) it would be for use in assistive technology. Technology for increased convenience is all well and good. Technology for improving our ability to multi-task may or may not be good. A growing body of literature demonstrates the more we multi-task the less productive and efficient we actually are. Disturbing to say the least.

However, there are people for whom NUIs have the potential to be life transforming. Jonathan Josephson of Quantum Interface (introduced in my last post) told me about an incredibly moving experience he had observing a quadriplegic trying out a motion based NUI prototype. Apparently, many partially paralyzed people have limited range of motion in their forearm but not their upper arm. After studying what the natural motions were in this situation, QI designed an interface that enabled this individual to interact with his computer using his arm even though he could not lift it. Consider: prior to that moment, this man had been forced to use a straw held in his mouth. Put yourself in his shoes and imagine what that would be like. 

 

How would you feel?

Jonathan's voice choked up as he told me how the user and his family members were virtually in tears. To them, this interface represented freedom and autonomy.

What is holding back full scale development and deployment of this type of NUI? Sensor technology for one thing. We need highly precise 3D pinpointing sensors to locate and track motions, and to enable fine tuned feedback. Fortunately, says Jonathan, these are on the horizon.

So when people get into discussions about what is "natural", there is no single, simple, answer. As pointed out by a LinkedIn reader in response to my last post, there will be cultural differences. There will be differences based upon ability and impaired ability. As we become increasingly sophisticated, and some inventors move into the realm of AI, cognitive issues will become increasingly important. For example, what is "natural" will be different for victims of head trauma.

Our society is undeniably digital and the more people who can access technology easily and naturally, the better. 

There is a ways to go before the assistive technology Jonathan envisions can be produced and marketed widely and affordably, but when it happens the societal impact has enormous potential. At the end of the day, this potential is what drives Jonathan in his NUI work.

Genetic Sequencing, Bio-Informatics and Computing

Today I obtained a new view into the world of bio-informatics when I had a chance to speak with someone who works in the field. This person is not a computing professional but was able to explain to me some of the interesting work in the field that relies on computing. With her assistance I located a company that does some of this work (link coming below). I gathered much of this information over a breakfast meeting and sometimes my coffee, granola parfait and egg (separate plate) got cold as I scribbled notes like mad on the seat next to me. On the other hand my freezing orange juice warmed up while I was writing chewing and talking.

There are many different areas of bio-informatics - huge field. Interestingly (perhaps not surprising) the medium to large sized companies employ many computing professionals who are cross-over people. For example, in one major company my breakfast colleague knows about there are three computing groups under the umbrella of a Vice President: "traditional" IS/IT support, a bio-informatics group and a software development group.

For a company that studies or supports the study of genomes, there are lots and lots of data to manipulate and crunch. Typical customers of such a company are academic researchers in a hospital setting, researchers in federal agencies such as the CDC or NIH, and corporate entities including pharmaceutical companies, bio-tech companies and diagnostic companies.

What do they want to accomplish? One angle is to study a gene, or a biomarker, to try and understand better how it works. The researchers may want to cause a particular gene to do more of what it naturally does or to turn off a particular gene (cause it to stop doing its job). The term used a lot in this type of work is Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) which, very simply put, means to amplify a region of a genetic sequence so that it can be detected and manipulated. Another angle of research has as its goal to figure out if a specific gene has an error in a particular (living) population - related to a pathology perhaps. Cancer is a classic example. There is a lot of bio-informatics terminology that I am trying to avoid using, but to use the official terminology as it was explained to me in this instance, people in the line of work we are discussing are trying to identify what the nucleotides are in a particular region of a gene, which will then be used as primers in sequencing. Yes, a mouthful if that isn't your field. If you are still with me you get brownie points.

Computing is the backbone that allows this kind of work to take place, because the clients referred to above want to order specific sequences of DNA for analysis. A company such as Integrated DNA Technologies (the example company I located) supports researchers who are studying genomes by (among other things) providing the genetic sequences needed by those researchers. It has been a loooong time since this was done by hand - with what we know now and the data volume we have it is unimaginable. Forget the row of people in white suits pouring things in and out of test tubes (they may exist, but not for this task). There is an entire computer driven manufacturing process to synthesize desired genetic sequences in the most efficient manner possible. These sequences may need to be highly customized.

Let's say an order comes in for 100 oligonucleotides (a short sequence of nucleotides, which are the basic building blocks of DNA and RNA). Each of the 100 requested oligonucleotides is 20-200 nucleotides long and each one is different. There are banks of computers that have programs to synthesize (create) these oligonucleotides. Not only must the software determine the correct chemicals, the timing of their use and the stability of the result, but the software must also recognize that load balancing is required; the heavily customized sequences slow down the process and are generally forked off to another process along with other similar desired sequences. This can lead to orders from several clients being created together on one "plate". There might be 5 orders of 100 oligonucleotides that are distributed across the system at the same time in order to provide accurate and timely creation.

Eventually the software must take the end results and regroup them for the appropriate customer. Every step of the process involves complex algorithms, timing, QA checking, load balancing and rebalancing and did I say LOTS of quality control? Heaven forbid a customer received a different genetic sequence than they asked for. Someone (lots of someones) has to know their software system optimization techniques as well as their chemistry.

A different computing dependent activity IDT is involved in is providing the software to help customers design the oligonuclotides they want. Double stranded DNA can be several thousand base pairs long and the customer wants to determine where in that genetic sequence is the best place to make and attach (or detach) an oligonucletide. Software provides the ability to evaluate the characteristics of a given oligonucleotide (there are many factors involved). The software can predict the specificity, the stability and the cross-reactivity / structure of potential candidates (I'm getting tired of typing out the "o" word - I'm bound to mis-type it if I haven't already). The customers can use IDT's SciTools to help them decide what request to submit for manufacture.

These tools have to have all the hallmarks of any well designed and constructed s/w application - an easy to use UI for the target customer, efficient processing and logical functionality. The inner guts have to have the usual features including: bug free, flexible, sufficient, robust and responsive. Who is most qualified to design these applications? You guessed it - (interdisciplinary) computer scientists.