My Spider Plant Made Me Write This.

Now what? An Outer View

I can't blame the foliage, but it's because I want to stop dictating blog posts to a piece of greenery at 4am that I'm breaking my unplanned silence. I've been dictating blog posts to the Spider Plant. Ok fine, but they haven't been getting from there to here. What gives?

In a recent Twitter message, someone pointed out that science bloggers write when they just can't stop thinking about something.* But I have been thinking non stop, at speeds that defy measurement, for months now. I have been radiating ideas, any one of which could have become, but haven't become, a great blog post. For example:

The Computer Science Education Research class I'm teaching this Fall provides endless opportunities to discuss what happens when you have undergraduate CS students conducting real, not toy, research on real, not toy, human beings. The qualitative research methods we use cause the computer science  and social science worlds to collide. No number crunching here. One of my favorite quotes from a student discussing his experience conducting a research interview "...and then my brain exploded". Hearing what people are really thinking in an unfiltered way can do that to you sometimes. It's one reason I love qualitative research. It's one reason I love this class.

My other class, Great Papers in Computer Science, is no less stimulating. Unlike a traditional "Great Papers" class, we wrap our heads around the non-technical factors that aided and abetted a seminal paper having the impact that it did. Just yesterday, when someone asked what an example of a psychological factor would be, we found ourselves discussing how McCarthyism bred fear, and  speculating how that fear likely led to certain kinds of research and publications being supported while others were suppressed. On a lighter note, and in another era, someone jested that Hippies might have had a connection to the development of Unix. Maybe not Hippies per se, but I can envision formulating an argument that there was a direct relationship between the Civil Rights Era mindset and the later Open Source Movement.  I love that class!

In my work as a Independent Evaluator for education research projects, I have been crisscrossing the country quite a bit recently and each trip fills my head with ideas. For example, just last week I found myself thinking, not for the first time, about how early childhood development relates to the ability to acquire computational thinking skills. How early can children learn to code? What constitutes coding anyway? How does teaching computational thinking morph eventually into teaching computer science? What role do teachers play in this transition? What do teachers need the most to succeed? What are the critical leverage points?

Those examples from my teaching and research are only for starters. Why hasn't it all come out in blog posts?

For the past few months I have been focused on People and Process. Relationships. In itself nothing new, but perhaps more than ever; it's like a fire under my feet and burning up and out. Among other things, ever since I stumbled on the Science Communications community a few months ago I have wanted to know where computing and technology fit in. Can fit in. Should fit in. Why aren't we there? 

My mind was like this

Yesterday in class, one of my students said something to the effect that it could be hard to speak up in class when there was so much going on, so much being discussed, so many stimulating ideas, that you could get lost in a sea of potential.

That's it! My radio silence wrt blog posts hasn't been about writer's block or lack of ideas. The process of writing, assuming there ever was "a process", is, yes, about being unable to stop thinking about something, but that something isn't always directly a technology or science issue. Perhaps I thought I had nothing to say to my predominantly tech audience because I was being consumed by thoughts of the importance of people, process and relationships.

What ever was I thinking? I'm going to go fertilize the Spider Plant right now.


*Thank you Paige Brown Jarreau @FromTheLabBench for aiding and abetting the foliage

We are Still Leaning Into or Away From Gender Questions

Hands up please if you have heard something about the controversies surrounding Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In. Keep your hands up if you have actually read it. How many of you formed an opinion or jumped to conclusions without having read the book?

I haven't read virtually any of the controversy, and I haven't watched the TEDTalk she gave prior to deciding to write the book. Sources tell me (I just love saying that) feedback after the talk led Sheryl to clarify with evidence many of her claims, which as far as I'm concerned shows an admirable receptivity to critique.

Being in the tech world, I can't help but have heard a lot about the whole thing, however I prefer to form my own opinions by going to the source. So I read the book. Sometimes I agreed strongly; sometimes I disagreed. I'm going to focus today on some areas where I resonated with what Sheryl had to say.

Perhaps one area where I have changed the most over the years and where I completely understood what Sheryl was talking about, was when she talked about how pretending that gender doesn't exist, doesn't make it not exist. We are acculturated, especially in the computing industry, to just try and fit in, to believe in a culture of meritocracy.  Sheryl points out - quite accurately in my experience - that gender is always there, just below the surface. It pops up, because as humans, we judge other  humans subjectively even when we think we don't.

I periodically have people tell me "there is no difference between men and women". I used to believe this. I used to operate as if there was no difference, which meant, in reality, that I was trying to be one of the guys. As far back as grade school, long before my life as a computer nerd, I found that the guys never believed for a second that I was a guy no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise. It wasn't because I really wanted to be a guy. It was because I learned early on that guys were often doing what I wanted to do and the girls weren't.

Somehow I missed the message that I should want to be doing what the girls were doing. So I busted my childhood butt to be one of the guys. It didn't work as planned, not in 6th grade, nor later in 10th grade, nor as a young software engineer in the 1980s. Just when I would think I was being accepted as an equal, something would come up to remind me we were not the same. In 6th grade it happened when suddenly the rage among the guys was the Playboy Bunny. That little black rabbit head started appearing everywhere in the classroom.

I remember the moment I found out what the bunny referred to and realized there was a problem. I had no idea what to do other than ignore it and pretend it didn't exist. It was about that time the guys threw me out of their fort in the woods and told me I was not welcome. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident but it was not. I wish I could say it doesn't ever happen in 2013 but sometimes it does.

Memory of my bunny  moment flashed through my head as Sheryl wrote about going out to dinner with the tech guys to drink whiskey and smoke cigars, only to find it made her sick. These experiences are not uncommon, and as most of us who have been around a while have come to learn, they aren't simply extracurricular activities that can be ignored. They are part of how important relationships are built and business gets done.

So with regard to those people who tell me there is no difference between women and men, I have come to realize that in most of the cases I encounter, these people are well meaning and are expressing an ideal. But that ideal is not reality. Stating it, and thinking that will make it true, is delusion.

Strong words? Yes. Sheryl talks also about how there is a danger, both perceived and real, to speaking openly about gender. As she puts it, you are wading into deep and muddy waters; it can be a no-win situation. Tar pit is what comes into my mind. On the other hand, there are a lot of very good reasons (discussed at some length in the book) for speaking out.  Professional as well as personal. I suggest you read the book and judge for yourself. Go to the source.

If, after reading Lean In, you want to talk about it with other interested people, Sheryl Sandberg's book is the subject of Global Tech Women's next virtual book club on Friday September 20th at 9am Pacific Time. Everyone is welcome.

In addition to all the practical reasons Sheryl discusses for speaking out, I will add that acknowledging what "is" can be a powerful thing. Living either in denial or ignorance doesn't lead to happiness. Becoming attuned to what is in front of you, in your here and now, has the potential to do so however. Not instantly - there is no free lunch. You have to decide what to do with your reality and taking action is work. Sheryl would call this leaning in.

Growing Pains for Inroads and its Fans

Transitions can be painful even when you realize that the eventual outcome will be a good thing. We tend to get comfortable with how things are and we understand how to operate in that world. Sometimes change catches you by surprise and it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under your feet. There are several unhelpful ways we sometimes react to changes that push us out of our comfort zone, including ignoring the situation and operating as if nothing has changed, becoming defensive, and invoking passive aggressive behaviors.

What Makes A Magazine a Magazine? (only 1 is by ACM)

A few years ago Inroads became ACM Inroads Magazine, and as both a columnist and Associate Editor, I have had the opportunity to watch the growing pains inflicted upon all involved. It is a wonderful thing to be a magazine. ACM has just a few magazines, and joining the ranks of those high quality publications brings many benefits. These include greater exposure for computing education, more diverse articles, more diverse readers, more diverse authors, and more interesting articles.

That last item is really where the rub is. By saying "more interesting" I am not saying that articles were not interesting in the past. (Trying to fend off any rotten tomatoes before they are launched). What I want to say is that a magazine has a rather unique kind of mission. What makes a magazine?

Ask yourself: What do the likes of Wired and People have in common? Seriously. Pretty darned extreme differences (and quality) but between them, and along the whole spectrum, there are some commonalities. How about (feel free to suggest non-snarky additions): articles that grab your attention and suck you in - I mean really suck you in, if well written and if you have even the remotest interest in the subject matter. Articles that don't require in depth subject matter expertise just to get beyond the abstract. What a minute: what abstract? Toss out the abstract. And for heavens sake toss out almost all citations. Perhaps include a few bibliographic references for the interested reader at the end. Toss in visually appealing pages - color! Photos? Diagrams? Toss in engaging relevant pictures that may or may not have data involved....

Which brings me to a bottom line: A magazine is not a research journal. Or a conference publication. Nor should it be approached as one.

That fact can be hard to adjust to for authors and reviewers and readers who are used to publications requiring the setting of a theoretical base, providing a literature review, citing prior and related work, defending every opinion (wait, there aren't supposed to be "opinions" except perhaps in the Discussion section - but even then they had better be thoroughly grounded one way or another), presenting data data and more data, drilling the point home and leaving the reader convinced (if the article is well presented) that no other reasonable conclusion is possible [here I smile, because there is always room for disagreement, even if only on a matter as significant as whether Power was reported]

It isn't that we don't know what a magazine is on an instinctive level. It is just that if we aren't used to reading and writing and reviewing for professional magazines, but for research and conference journals, it can be difficult to adjust. This is what I have been seeing in some cases. It doesn't matter how many times the Editor in Chief points out that Inroads is a magazine: heads nod, but when it comes time to read, write and review...some revert to a way of thinking based on the academic model of evaluating publications. Depending upon the personality involved, this can mean a wide variety of reactions to what is clearly not, nor intended to even come close to, a research article. That is what I have been observing.

It's hard to adjust to change. ACM Inroads Magazine (as I am supposed to refer to it when being official) is breaking new ground, reaching out to the wider computing community (Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Information Technology, Informatics, and others), as well as industry readers and leaders who share an interest in education. ACM Inroads Magazine is moving towards articles that grab your attention, don't require a PhD with a specialization in security to be engaged by an article on security, aren't littered with citations, and trade nailing down every statement of opinion or philosophical viewpoint for thoughtful and sometimes intentionally open ended provocative assertions.

No, ACM Inroads Magazine is not turning into People Magazine. Although it occurs to me I could have a great deal of fun writing a tongue in cheek column about what that might look like. We aren't turning into Wired Magazine either. We aren't sacrificing quality; we are applying standards for top rated magazine quality (most decidedly not People magazine). The magazine format provides us a platform to become incredibly useful to a broad audience interested in computing education. That is a good thing, isn't it?

Introversion is Not a Pathological Condition

According to the book "Quiet : The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking", somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the population are introverts. According to other sources, too many to list, the percentages in technology fields is much higher. In fact, it is so commonly accepted as fact, that I bet most of you read that and went "Uh-huh" or had thoughts to that effect.

On the other hand, as discussed in "Quiet" the heads of many (most?) American corporations are extroverts. This is not necessarily a good thing, which may come as a surprise to many people (in the States). America is one of the most culturally extroverted countries in the world and this leads to a preferencing of extroversion over introversion, even within technology companies - if you want to rise to the top that is. You need to learn to be the loudest or most persistent voice in the room (and it helps in this regard if you are a White male). Dominating a conversation, and sounding super confident, doesn't say anything about the validity of your ideas, but we often act as if it does.

"Quiet" does a credible job of refuting the contention that it takes a super extrovert to be a successful leader. Even in corporate America. In addition to referencing a bunch of research, the author provides several compelling case studies of where over the top extroversion led to chronic poor decision making and the ultimate demise of a company. She also makes a strong case against the argument that it is "natural" that extroverts should and will run the show. In our cultural cocoon we may think so, but biology, history, anthropology, evolution say otherwise.

Bottom line: We need balance and we need to pay equal attention to everyone; this may mean going outside our comfort zones.

But do we ever make it hard on our introvert colleagues sometimes. Instead of valuing the strengths of introversion, we push people to change. How many friends or colleagues in technical careers have you met who are great contributors, incredibly productive, but who are being pressured to move into a management track, the thought of which makes them miserable? In part it makes them miserable because of the implicit understanding that they will need to change their personality in order to "succeed".

How many people with excellent experience and skills for a needed activity are overlooked because they "think too much" or "are too sensitive"? I mean really, what a way to put somebody down and keep them down - make them feel defective.

One of the many things I like about "Quiet" is that it makes it quite clear that introversion is not something that needs to be overcome or "addressed". Sure, there are pathological introverts, but no more so than there are pathological extroverts - we just don't see extroversion as pathological nearly as much (practically ever?) as we do introversion.

While reading, I had a new insight into the challenge of increasing support for computing education in the schools - something I spend a lot of my professional time thinking about these days.

How much of the societal disregard for the importance of computing studies (K-12 through post-secondary) is related to the societal dismissal of introverts as less interesting, less worthwhile, less likely to succeed, less likely to contribute, less valuable people? 

In my ideal world, everyone would be heard and equally valued. Women in computing talk about this frequently as a gender issue, and I agree that there is a gender issue here. There are many layers here; I want to hear what other women in computing have to say about this; I'm going to get my opportunity, because the book club discussion of "Quiet" by Global Tech Women is tomorrow. Are you attending? Everyone is welcome and everyone will be listened to and respected. Of that I am sure.

SIGCSE: The Perils of Textbook Publishing

Today was a split day - SIGCSE in the morning and the beginning of the ACM Education Council meeting in the afternoon. Oh...and snow in between. A small romp on the sidewalk in the lovely snow, which unfortunately had all melted by evening when we popped out of meetings. It was great while it lasted.

Snow was a good mental cleansing agent after a fairly serious morning session about the high price of textbooks. There were four people on the panel - two publisher representatives and two authors. One of the publisher representatives was my editor from CRC Press, who I have nothing but good things to say about. I wanted to be in the audience as a friendly supporting face if needed.

No one disagrees that textbooks are very highly priced. Whenever I have to tell someone what my book costs I am prepared for sticker shock if that person is not from the academic world. And my book is definitely on the low end of textbook costs, in part because my publisher tries very hard to keep the cost of its books down.

What I learned, both from having been through the process of being an author, from specifically asking my editor about the subject, and then even more from listening to all points of view during this panel today, is that it is a complicated issue.

So here are some of the interesting things to consider. No one, including textbook representatives, will try and tell you that they are ok with the high price of textbooks - at least not anyone I heard from today. I was impressed to hear just how aware they are of how unhappy a lot of people are about textbook prices, and how much they are looking at different models to reduce prices. Depending upon who you are talking to, publishers are exploring a whole host of alternative business models from ebooks to custom publishing, to interactive online resources...at one point the representative from Wiley put up a list of options that was mind boggling. I had no idea. My brain hurt looking at it. So did at least one member of the audience who said it was all too complicated and could they please just make it simple?

Which leads me to another set of issues. It is flat out complicated and expensive to bring a textbook to market as compared to a trade book. A good publisher (and I count mine as one of those) works closely with an author, providing support, guidance, answers, and a whole host of services such as editorial development, professional design, layout, copyediting, typesetting (which is more labor intensive for textbooks than for a novel) iterative feedback, solicitation of professional peer reviews and other things - all before the book ever becomes a physical object. Then there is marketing and promotion. A myth is that printing costs are one of the major expenses for publishers and thus with the influx of ebooks prices should come way down. Not so I learned - printing costs are a very small percentage. And creation of quality ebooks is complex and expensive for a whole host of reasons I won't belabor here. And then there is volume - textbooks will never sell anywhere near what tradebooks can sell. So there are few economies of scale available to textbook publishers that are available to trade publishers.

I belong to a writers and publishers professional organization in which the majority of the members are independent writers and publishers - i.e. they publish themselves. This allows them to price their books as they choose and keep all the proceeds. The organization (Publishers and Writers of San Diego) provides incredibly invaluable professional-quality information on all aspects of the business side of writing. One of the side benefits of belonging to this organization is that I see just how much work my publisher has done for me and how incredibly expensive it can be to develop your own professional quality book. It can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars and suck up untold numbers of hours on activities most writers have zero interest in (page layout and design for example? ee-yuck).

At times the invective in professional circles against academic textbook publishers has been quite nasty. Sad to say, the situation just isn't as simple as some people think (wish) it was. The situation with regard to traditional publishing is in many ways similar to the situation the recording industry went through recently. Changes in technology led to inevitable eating away at traditional music purchases and huge problems with piracy. The recording industry fought tooth and nail to force people to stick with a traditional model of music purchase.  It was a lost cause from the beginning.

Similar societal and technological pressures face the publishing industry. Until recently I just assumed that the publishing industry was as much a stick-in-the-mud as the music industry. However, it is now clear that publishers, academic publishers in particular (all I can really speak to), are running around like mad trying to adjust and figure out what business model will balance a need for financial viability with responsiveness to demands for greater availability, flexibility and lower cost.

It just isn't easy. New business models have to come into existence that acknowledge the (justified) demand for lower priced textbook while maintaining financial viability of good publishers providing the valuable infrastructure that brings a book from idea to reality.

Finally, I want to point out something brought up today by someone. Higher education is becoming more and more expensive and the financial pressures on students are only getting worse. Many complicated factors contribute to this situation, which those of you in education circles are all to familiar with. It's messy, it's political, it's entrenched in decades of attitudes and policy. We have to do something about our educational crisis and the growing equity gap with regards to access to higher education. However, it was pointed out that textbook publishers are a convenient scapegoat.

It is easy to direct a lot of anger about the overall state of higher education at publishers and textbook pricing. Publishers are not blameless, but should not be treated with such disdain nor blamed for so much more of the problem than is really deserved.

I rarely hear a balanced conversation of the challenges facing the textbook industry. It is hard to see their side of things if you haven't either been in their shoes or have worked with them as an author. As with many things in life, there is a middle way - in perspective and in actions taken. We need to work in a mutually respectful fashion to find that way.

I don't know about you, but my brain hurts again; I'm hoping for some more snow.

Source Code Commenting is Writing

An Example of Poor Commenting Practice

As part of a research project I am involved with* I have been pondering the problem of computing students not liking to include comments within their source code. This is an old problem, well known within the computing education community. I suspect that over the years there has been much head banging on the part of faculty who despair of getting their students to take source code comments seriously, and much head banging on the part of students who just don't see the point. At times the problem appears intractable.

Why do so many people dislike writing? Because we are talking about writing and it isn't just source code comments. Many people (not only students!) will go out of their way to avoid natural language** writing, or will throw something together and spend minimal time making it comprehensible to others. If writing was taken more seriously, then perhaps articles, white papers, grant applications, reports, presentations wouldn't be procrastinated to the last moment such that "there wasn't time" to create kick-butt effective prose. If you have ever served as an NSF panel reviewer or for that matter a peer reviewer for ... well, anything... we feel each others pain.

**Natural language refers to languages such as English, French, Arabic, etc.

The idea that writing code and writing natural language have parallels is not new, but there has not been significant pedagogical research delving into the comparisons. There is much literature on teaching writing which is read by those who teach in departments such as English or Literature. There is a somewhat sparse literature in the computing education community about parallels between developing source code and natural language prose.  

Good source code comments take thought and consideration just as good articles and reports do.

As far as I know there is no literature evaluating the similarities and differences between code commenting and natural language writing*** There are many possible reasons, such as the possibility that there aren't that many people who are pedagogical experts in both coding and natural language writing.

***If you know of any literature on the topic, if you have written any, please let us all know! 

Meanwhile, let's toss out some thoughts to grease the cognitive wheels, shall we?

Natural language involves using words from a spoken language. Source code comments involve use of words from a spoken language. What are the similarities between a well constructed natural language sentence and a well constructed source code comment?

Natural language writing involves developing a logical narrative (in most cases). Source code comments  clarify a logical narrative derived from the source code. What procedural lessons can be gleaned from the extensive literature on structuring logical essays and applied to source code comment development?

Students who like to write code often go out of their way to shortcut or altogether avoid writing comments. Students who like to write code often go out of their way to shortcut or altogether avoid writing papers, essays, etc. Students who have never seen a line of code often go out of their way to shortcut or altogether avoid writing papers, essays, etc. Motivation motivation - what leads to someone developing a healthy respect for a well written article and how can we apply the same psychological principles to source code commenting?

While I was teaching a computer science course at UT Austin I took advantage of a grant funded initiative, provided by the university writing center, to spread pedagogical best practices in integrating writing across the curriculum.  I learned there is an enormous body of literature detailing effective strategies for teaching and learning writing. Equally important, it became clear to me that Coding is a lot like Writing...er, Coding is Writing.

Now I would add: Source Code Commenting is Writing.

After you get over the blindingly simple obviousness of that statement, think about the potential implications for the challenging task of encouraging programming language learners to produce more and higher quality source code comments.

I'm wondering how often pedagogical writing professionals hang out with pedagogical computing professionals. If they do, do they talk shop? What about comparing notes on pedagogical writing strategy? They ("They" being the non-computing members of the conversation) have many decades (centuries!) of experience to draw upon and share. I suspect there is an opportunity as well for knowledge transfer from computing to natural language writing. We share many of the same challenges (improving: motivation, quality, quantity, process, evaluation techniques, perceived value).

It might take some time to become comfortable with the different cultures and to develop common communication. That's nothing new for interdisciplinary computing buffs. Let's start the conversation.


*Comments in this post are my own creations and do not represent the official views of the COMTOR project or its team members!

Radio Interview about Computing For Good

Of all places not to have mentioned this - I am going to be interviewed this morning (11am Pacific Time) on Internet radio (link below) about my book, and socially beneficial computing in general.

If you miss it live, the broadcast will be posted online.

Here you go:

"What Happens When Computing Puts Humans First?"

No photo for this post, in recognition of the audio nature of radio.

Happy Monday.

**Updated "later that day":

Interview is now available online.

SIGCSE 2012 - Hal Abelson, CS2013 Social and Professional Issues and More

Official registration at SIGCSE is 1278 as of Friday (yesterday) morning when we listened to Hal Abelson give the day's keynote talk. A very impassioned talk. Hal spoke at length about computers as instruments of intellectual empowerment. Computational Thinking -> Computational Values -> Computational Actions and the importance of generative platforms. A generative platform in this context is a platform (tool, application, etc) which can get used for something the people who created it had not thought of or planned for. A pedagogical tool, idea or lecture, a set of research results leads you or I to run in a different direction and produce something exciting for the classroom, for the community, for the academy (for anyone).  Hal  claimed that a war is underway for the soul of the university - there is a danger that the university is becoming more a marketplace for intellectual property and less a place for open sharing of intellectual ideas. (What does your experience tell you? Do you agree or disagree?)

As evidence, Hal provided impressive examples, such as copyright restrictions being placed upon faculty when they publish research results, such that they no longer own or can share their own research. He also shared a quote by one university general counsel (a large research university) stating that note taking in the classroom could constitute copyright infringement of faculty intellectual property; the suggestion was then made that faculty hand out a license agreement for students to sign at the beginning of the term.Wrap your head around that one if you can. Hal's talk was full of thought provoking information like this.

I visited the poster on display by the faculty group working on the Social and Professional Issues section of the new computing curricular guidelines (CS2013). Carol Spradling, Beth Hawthorne and Flo Appel and I had a fascinating conversation about what topics are generating the most discussion in the community - should they be part of the computing curriculum? Professional Communication is apparently a hot area. Some people believe it is critical and others believe it should not be included at all. In case you are curious, we are talking about (and now I quote from the draft document):

• reading/understanding/summarizing technical material

• source code and documentation

• writing effective technical documentation

• dynamics of oral, written, and electronic team and group communication 

• communicating professionally with stakeholders 

• utilizing collaboration tools. 

Also suggested:

• dealing with cross-cultural environment

• tradeoffs of competing risks in software projects, such as technology, structure/process, quality, people, market and financial

What do you think - should these topics have a place in the computer science curriculum?

Perception Overhaul Needed: Good Business IS For Real

It wasn't part of my plan to write a post today. But yesterday, while attending a professional association meeting, I was reminded just how far we have to go with influencing common perceptions of what "computers and society" means.

I am quite used to people reacting to the phrase "computers and society" with comments about how bad it all is. Never once has anyone I have introduced the phrase "computers and society" to assumed anything other than that it refers to negative uses of technology. When introducing the profiles in my book, as I was yesterday to a fellow writer, I am quite used to needing to explain that I wrote there (as I do here) not about bad, but about good uses of computing. Good that is clear to almost everyone and hard to argue with. An all too typical reaction is a deer in the headlights expression accompanied by a confused pause.

Yesterday, I tried to circumvent this reaction by explaining that when I write about business entities, I like to showcase those who are doing good with computers as part of their everyday business. Listening intently, my conversation partner nodded and asked if I knew about a certain organization in Washington D.C. I did not, was interested, and asked what they did. She replied that they went after businesses that were "not doing the right thing" and got them to change their behavior.

Arg. I took a breath, thanked her, and explained that this was not my focus. Ignoring the familiar, growing, puzzled expression, I explained patiently that there are corporate entities out there that have a business model that integrates doing good for society. Not as a side activity, not as a ploy, but because they feel it is the right thing to do AND it is good business. Not necessarily because they set out to save the world, but because their personal ethics are integrated with their professional corporate ethics.

As is often the case, the conversation ended shortly thereafter. I'm not sure how much she believed that you all are out there and are for real.

Why? Perhaps it is partly a reflection of our national lack of civility in public discourse; perhaps it is a  human tendency to gravitate towards the sensational and dwell on suffering. Perhaps it is a tendency of people doing really exciting positive work to focus more on getting the job done than getting the word out. Admirable, but it leaves much of the greater public with the impression that "computers and society" is a negative concept. It leaves the impression that business benefiting society is a side activity, or something that only happens when it is forced upon a company.

Not true. So I keep writing.

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.

Commonalities Among Computing Professionals Who Work for Good

I am performing a final review of the the production text of my book on socially beneficial uses of computing (officially: Computers and Society: Computing For Good).  The computing topics range all across the discipline of computer science (high performance computing to social media) and the non-computing topics are as diverse as saving endangered sea turtles, medical informatics and educational software for children with disabilities.  Several years in the writing, I met on this journey either virtually or in person, dozens and dozens of people. Looking back on all these wonderful encounters I am struck once again by the commonalities among them. 

1. Passion. More than anything else, the people who shared their stories (and those of their organizations) with me felt that their work was more than a job. Again and again I heard about how the cause they worked towards (earthquake prediction, identifying best practices recommendations for infant care, poverty alleviation) gave a sense of purpose above and beyond a paycheck. When things got tough, their passion for helping people or the environment supported them.

2. Risk Takers. As many books on innovation in business have documented, a willingness to take risks, experience setbacks or even failures, is absolutely necessary. Some people I met had abandoned secure positions to follow their dreams, or within their current careers they strategically stuck their necks out to convince others that their ideas were sound and worthy of support. Again and again. Technically and non-technically. Risk taking, dealing with the inevitable setbacks by getting up and moving forward are an ingrained trait in many of the people who are doing the greatest good with computing.

3. Curious and Open Minded. A common reaction to being a risk taker (whether in the world of computing innovation or elsewhere) is to face and go beyond those who say "it can't be done" or "this is not the time". In fact, as the interdisciplinary computing pioneers I met demonstrated, you need to let these critiques roll off. Instead, keep asking questions, gathering information and recognize there is rarely only one way to solve a problem. In fact, the more that conventional wisdom says this is so, the less likely it is to be true.

4. Keep Technically Current and Constantly Learn. Just as I had the privilege and necessity of diving deep into the world of mobile devices, computer security and other areas of computing, the people who are highly effective and innovative with their socially beneficial projects are continuously studying. Not necessarily (or usually) through formal education, but through reading, experimenting, sharing, and just plain digging into material further than they "had to".

Perhaps more than anything else, the computing and non-computing professionals knew themselves well, and knew what their dreams were. They made a personal commitment to pursue those dreams.

If you are reading this, it is likely you have a desire to "do good" with computing. Do you know what your dreams are and are you pursuing them?

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

IFF Computing == Cabbage

I am periodically asked "what is it like to write a book?" If you have written a book you may be having a small laugh to yourself all of a sudden. A sort of evil chuckle. Because you know, .... well, I don't need to tell you. It takes you over in strange and wonderful and unexpected ways.

You probably also know that no matter what you say it may not convince the conversant that conceiving cognitively comprehensible and convivial concepts takes considered concentration. Even if you say "it is Computer Science!" (people often assume fiction for reasons I know not why) there is ofttimes a clinging to the concept that you must spend much of your time continuously cavorting. Come again? If we waited to compose for when we felt suitably inspired by The Muse ... my Editor could conceivably consider calling out the Costa Nostra (uh, just kidding...right, Randi and John?)

Perhaps my more-often-than-usual far away look, prompted not by my new glasses so much as by a looming deadline, brings on the question with greater frequency lately. However, I find myself contemplating a different question: "How do you know when you are really and truly becoming one with interdisciplinary computing?" (with which topic my book most certainly is concerned).

I have the answer. It came to me this evening as I took a break and sat looking out over a neighborhood canyon just breathing calmly. Even in stillness, everywhere I looked I saw things that reminded me of a computer. "Canyon - how lovely...oh, Canyon starts with the same letter as Computer." "Critter poo on the sidewalk leading up to the bench....Critter reminds me of Computer". "I Cannot see the stars because there are Clouds in the sky. Clouds? Computer!" "Concentrate on your breathing ...Concentrate. Concentrate. Computer Computer Computer".

A Colleague gave me a red Cabbage from their garden. Oh my gosh that was good - a fresh Cabbage tastes like Candy Compared to Cabbage from the grocery store". Candy? Compared? More "C" words! Cabbage. Is an excellent source of Vitamin C and beta-Carotene. Consuming large amounts of Cabbage reduces the Chances of getting Colon Cancer because it Contains Chemicals that protect Cells against free radicals. All those words Commence with the same letter as COMPUTER! Perhaps I have passed the threshold and am now officially (Crazy?) Coalescing with interdisciplinary Computing and Computer science and Computational thinking.

The Cabbage Convinced me. Computers are truly everywhere. All you have to do is Consider it.

Security Mechanism Can Enhance Historical Record Keeping

Recently a friend showed me an incredibly creative application of computing technology with all sorts of possible uses. I am a language buff (that means Big Fan) so I immediately grabbed onto historical language issues. Now, this technology project has been around a little while so it isn't completely hot off the press. But I didn't know about it so you may not either.

The reCAPTCHA project. You probably (?) know what a CAPTCHA is: those squiggly tortured hard to read words you have to type in sometimes to gain access to a site, sign up for an online account or post a comment on a blog. If you don't type the word correctly you don't get in. Fortunately you get additional chances with new words. This technology exists because people can usually read the words but computers cannot. This keeps automated spamming out.

Here's the cool upgrade. Have you seen one of those where you have to type in TWO words next to one another? Why two? Isn't one enough? Well, this is what is going on. There are projects underway (which you probably *are* familiar with) to digitize books, newspapers, archival texts. The really old ones, the hand written ones, the faded or slightly crumpled ones - the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software being used to scan and translate those texts cannot read many of the words.

Fortunately the computer identifies words it doesn't understand. Many of those words are being placed into those CAPTCHA screens. So you get two words: one is a known word, made to look hard to read, and the second is a word that was hard to read to start with (perhaps made more so, just to be safe :). That same unknown word is paired off and given to many many many people in CAPTCHA boxes. If you get the known word right, you get in (at least that is my understanding). If the vast majority of people get the known word right AND provide the unknown word with the same answer, the odds are the unknown word has been correctly identified and it is plugged into its spot in the original scanned text.

I realize the book scanning projects are controversial in some spheres, especially in regard to recent works. What captures (oh ow ow pun) my imagination is the thought of ancient Medieval texts written by monks with all those flourishes being scanned and translated. Ok, they are usually in Latin. Providing a Latin word in a CAPTCHA screen might be a giveaway, but the idea of being able to digitize previously inaccessible texts by harnessing the power of millions of people passing through online security checks is impressive. For now we may have to stick with Victorian English or Elizabethan English or whatever the native language is of the country where a site exists is, but eventually I suspect, computer scientists will find a way to put this to work with languages that are no longer in common use.

Meanwhile, and this might already be in the works, languages like Latin or other special-use languages might be applied to sub-populations of sites where they make sense. To get into a repository of ancient Sanskrit resources you have to type a two word Sanskrit CAPTCHA for example? Ancient texts can be made publicly accessible much faster than they would have been otherwise.

More information about the project: http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore

Writing well about computing - What does it take?

For the past 10 days or so I have been following a conversation in the LinkedIn group Science Writers. The conversation started when someone asked for opinions about whether or not it was necessary to have a science background to succeed as a science journalist. Her exact words were "to be a good science journalist". Oddly enough, the woman who asked the question has had a successful career as a science journalist for 20 years. The question turned out to be more about whether or not people felt that she should follow her interest in gaining additional education in environmental journalism. By most standards she would no doubt be considered "good" already as she is publishing in widely read science magazines.

The comments back to her were interesting though from the point of view of perceptions and marketing of computer science. Many of the respondents were people without a science background so they predictably replied that no, you don't need a science background. Yes, it was a self selected respondent group. However, they had some points worth considering. One that stood out was the claim that it was more important to be a good writer than to have a science background and that it was easier to obtain "scientific literacy" than the "fundamental craft of writing".

Now, I would take some issue with that comment. I do believe that at least in computer science, given the widespread misconceptions about what we are, what we do, what we don't do, and the frequency of journalism articles that are off target in one area or another - it IS important to have a background in some area closely related to computing if you want to tackle head on the public perceptions of what who how etc. That takes more than "scientific literacy" or in this case the more narrow "digital or computing literacy", terms that we are currently wrestling to define.

There are no doubt writers who are so darned good that they can do the background research, talk to the computer scientists and write an article that is accurate, digestible, interesting and has solid content for public consumption. But as with any other interdisciplinary situation those cross over professionals are a rare breed.

That said, I agree that a writer has to be a "good" writer to get across the computing points so that the general public is interested and gets the correct information. An academic writing style flops with the general public. Writing well is as much a creative and technical endeavor as computing. Thus I would argue that neither the computing background nor the writing background trumps the other.