Software, Software Development and other Atrocities

On Privacy - Part 2

2010-08-28T15:38:00.011Z

The other day I googled my name. Most of the hits I got were expected. Information about me which I knew was searchable, because I had made the decision to make that data public previously. Some hits were from data aggregators showing profiles made up with data taken from various other websites. All of these were wrong of course having taken data without my consent (although that data are public I haven't agreed for them to be used by another website) and without me verifying its accuracy and quality. These aggregators mix data that is mine with data from people with similar names. The result is of course an unreliable and unethical source of information. This isn't good, is it? Anyway, even if I don't like this I was kind of expecting this kind of links.

There was however one hit (on the 5th page) which was completely unexpected. It was a link to a Facebook Music Application Page saying that I had "claimed" a song on a specific date 2 years ago. The music website appeared embedded within Facebook, similar to what would appear if I logged into my Facebook account. But I hadn't logged in. What worried me more though were two things:
1. It showed my Facebook Profile Picture, which I had made private to my friends only.
2. It stated that I had "claimed" the song and that I had been the first person to "send the song".

Why am I worried?

1. I had previously checked all my privacy controls on Facebook and made sure everything I wanted private was private. I missed something obviously.

2. My Facebook Profile Picture is a photo which I uploaded on Facebook, not on this second application/website. This photo is not public is private. And this application is displaying it to everyone. Even if I had set my photo to "public", meaning everyone within and outside Facebook can see my picture, it would be my "Facebook Photo" not my "Music application within Facebook Picture". This change of context is misleading.

3. I never "claimed" or "sent the song". What I did is to build a list of songs I liked from a broader list offered by the application. In other words I created a playlist with songs I got from the application. I never knew if I had been the first to pick a song, I never cared. What I know is that I didn't want to "claim" anything let alone being tagged as the one who "sent the song". When I built my playlist I was not aware of these "other" things I was doing. The application never gave me a clue. Or maybe nothing happened in that version of the application until someone decided to change it to add new events. So now it uses a different wording to categorise the actions I did when they were called differently. The change of wording is misleading.

What did I do?

I removed the application from Facebook.

Was any of the information displayed by this music application inappropriate or embarrassing?

No, no personal embarrassing information here. I would've not minded this information to be made public had I actually done what it said I did and been informed previously. This information was not true and taken out of context. It was just frustrating to see how I can easily lose control over my data.
Stuff to read about privacy:
Nissenbaum, (1997) “Toward an approach to privacy in public: the challenges of information technology,” Ethics and Behavior 7(3) , pp. 207–219.
Nissenbaum, H. (1998), “Protecting Privacy in an Information Age: The Problem of Privacy in Public,” Law and Philosophy, 17, pp. 559-596.
Regulating the Use of Social Media Data

On Privacy - part 1

2010-08-10T13:32:00.030Z

You may have read (a lot) about online privacy recently, privacy on social networks and web applications that feed or are fed by social networks. I am also a user of those networks and hear/read what people are saying. People are either, ignorant or panicking, afraid of the unknown, unable to control what is happening to their data or at least not knowing if the controls they apply actually work. Being technology literate myself I sometimes doubt if my data are safe out there, I am concerned too. So I thought about blogging about this. This is what is happening, from my point of view anyway.

With the rise of web2.0 technologies (and open source) the ways in which people engage with technologies have changed profoundly. This includes techies and normal users :) Now techies can easily create applications in no time. They can access sources of information through APIs and create networks of interconnected applications (mashups, widgets, APIs, Atom Feeds, etc) Normal users have acquired new powers as now they can also create content by using the applications techies develop. Users have come in the millions to create their blogs, wikis, open accounts in social networking sites, buy online (e.g., eBay, Amazon), read the news, watch videos, etc. In all these places users enter their information, trusting it will be kept safe and private.

Because now users have so many accounts here and there (some of which they forget about), application providers have thought of ways to interconnect those applications and help users to manage their information (ha, although “help” might be in their minds I think their main aim is to make more profit out of those interconnections and to make the web into a super massive web).

A hypothetical example is, to tweet from another site that I just added Filemón as a friend or that I just tagged myself as social software fan. For that I would need to access my Twitter account while being connected to the first site.

To do this, exchange of information is necessary between these applications, and at least the user is (hopefully) aware that there are two applications there. There are other cases where this isn’t clear. When within an application one accesses other (external but which look internal) applications which pick up our information. For example a music application where we select the songs we like and share them with our contacts in a social networking site. That music application might have their own website, accounts, etc. and our data taken from the social networking site, although we may have never opened an account with them.

What do they do with our data is unknown at least to the lay person. Actually, most people are not even aware that there can be other applications collecting information about them when they are just using the one application they know. And if to all that confusion we add the (legal but unethical?) aggregation of (private) data without users’ consent we get a complete mess of data and application interconnection. A mess that of course the techies can understand, and even people like me find promising in terms of potential for development of the semantic web for example.

But what do normal (semi-technology-literate) users think? People get lost in the mess and do two things:
Well, the mess is such a messy mess that people start fearing it. We fear what we do not understand. We fear what we cannot control.
Or people just do not care, or over-trust, or are so ignorant they are not aware of any problem. They use the web and disseminate their data with little care. They publish their photos, their contacts, their address, PEI (personal embarrassing information) etc taking lots of risks like identity theft, being exposed to people they do not want to (boss) and loss of privacy.

My advice to people in general is to be careful about where they go online and the kinds of content they upload there. Trust only sites where you have control over your data and its privacy.

But this is not about telling people: if you want to be online you have to be public. Or put in other words, that "privacy is dead." That is wrong and stupid. My hope is that online providers (hey Facebook!) start taking privacy issues more seriously. Not limiting it to the technical (yeah, (.) private ( ) public options are not enough, privacy is not a boolean variable) but considering the human and social aspects of it, by learning how people deal with their privacy off and online, and by understanding the implications that making assumptions and getting privacy wrong has on people and societies. (hmmm, " public" by default is wrong!) Because the data that they have, is not only data, is information about people and their lives, data is people.

I think it is going to be a s-l-o-w process, creating laws, enforcing laws, creating awareness and learning to be careful online. All that while technologies develop at the speed of light, difficult but not impossible.

Note: I think data aggregation is a good thing, when it is regulated, when trusted sources are used and when owners of data are aware of who and what people are doing with their data, and when users can, if they decide, stop sharing it with some applications or everyone. Aggregation of data and the semantic web can help content be more accessible, organised and therefore useful. But if you don't do it right you can misslead people, violate contextual integrity, threaten privacy and more. I wrote about that here.

Something extra to read:
Howard, A. (2010) Online privacy debates heat up in Washington. O'Reilly Radar
(2010) IT privacy campaigners celebrate. BCS
Don't share things you don't want people to discover

On data aggregation: Benefits and Issues

2010-04-21T15:23:00.042Z

My work at the moment has to do with digital repositories, registries and data aggregation. I work in a university. I am a project analyst and have the privilege of witnessing state of the art technology development and most importantly users’ reactions. Developers around me use semantic web technologies to create systems to harvest and update data about research from a variety of sources, store and record provenance as well as preserve, give access to and view these data. The result is a registry that mirrors data which can have a variety of uses.

Data about research is data that describes research activities and researchers. Most of these data come from already publicly available sources: departmental and project websites. These sources are in the hundreds (lots of URLs to remember!) They are dispersed and disconnected. The point with collecting all these data is to have them in one place and to build connections between data objects which originally were not connected. Data objects are researcher, project, grant, etc. For example, we can find researcher A’s biography in website “one,” a list of his publications in website “two,” his name in three project websites, his name in grants in a research council website and a list of research interests in a group website. We can put everything together and investigate whether all this data belongs to the same person. If so, we can present a much completer picture of this researcher.

The benefits of data aggregation are obvious, at least to us. We can create improved pictures of researchers and their research activities at individual, departmental, university and field levels. Having all these connections can facilitate discovery of research opportunities or trends. We can identify connections between researchers who do not know each other, for example if they have similar research interests. We can build connections between research groups or identify research islands. Instead of having to navigate through a huge amount of websites (via Google) users can access this information which is stored in one place. It can also help the inexperienced (e.g. students) to find information.

To give you an idea about how this happens --> users can see these data via a registry explorer (a search engine), or via APIs to create websites, widgets, etc. All these have been developed in the office. The list of benefits is much longer than this but I think the above can give you a good idea.

With all these fantastic benefits one could think no one could resist data aggregation. Everyone would prefer to access aggregated data rather than the individual, disconnected sources. Everyone would like to be aggregated so they can have a nice online profile. Well, that is not entirely true. While some people (geeks!) love the idea, some people think data aggregation raises many issues and brings with it many risks. Risks which they think are not worth taking.

--> This bit is a more general discussion
Having read some general literature on this topic I can summarise the main issues here. Data aggregation:

Threatens individuals’ privacy: one aspect of privacy is controlling information about oneself. I decide what and where to disclose (or not disclose) my information. Do we have the right to take data from sources which are not ours, store them, aggregate them and display them? even thought these data are already public? Even if we publish data in a public place, we have the right to their privacy. It doesn’t mean we want everyone to read it. -- Allows systems of surveillance: people may choose to disclose some of their private data in bits in different places, but by aggregating their data we are not only exposing those bits but creating a more comprehensive picture of people's activities and interests? Aggregated data can play a big role in big-brother monitoring people. That is invasion of privacy, isn’t it?
Can lead to security problems: since data aggregation makes it easier to identify people – people can be identified through bits of anonymous data put together – it can help identity theft and other kinds of crimes.
Can mislead people: aggregated data is not always comprehensible or true. How reliable are data aggregators and their sources? How do we know if the data presented is correct and belongs to the same person? One can get their profile mixed with someone else’s and that can lead to serious misunderstandings.
Does not always follow the same original intentions of the creators. Can we use data as we wish, for uses which are different than the originally intended by their owners? Would this be ethical? How can we reinforce principles like the use limitation principle and the purpose specification principle? (van Wel and Royakkers, 2004)
Can violate contextual integrity, in other words can de-contextualise data changing its original meaning: the process of collecting and aggregating data involves the moving of information from its original (appropriate) context to different ones not necessarily appropriate. Some people will find this morally offensive (Nissenbaum, 1998).

The above are general issues and apply mostly to online data aggregators which are spreading rapidly over the web. (e.g., http://www.nodalbits.com/bits/spokeo-latest-personal-data-aggregator-exposing-data-privacy-fears/) These aggregators are hungry machines, they pick up everything they can (with or without permission) and offer their data (?) to a variety of business and users.

Nissenbaum (1997) warns us about two misleading (but common) assumptions:

Erroneous assumption 1: There is a realm of public information about persons to which no privacy norms apply.
Erroneous assumption 2: An aggregation of information does not violate privacy if its parts, taken individualy, do not.

--> end of general discussion

These issues can be partly related to the work we are doing with information about research.

While we aggregate data in a much smaller, limited and controlled universe we are facing some challenges as well. We are using - not personal but research - data from official, public websites in the university and we make sure we always ask for consent from our contributors. If someone does not want to be in the registry we do not take their data. Simple.

Although not dealing with data of an intimate, personal, nature we are exposing the work of researchers. Whereas some researchers would like the publicity, some researches would consider this information as private - to themselves or a small circle of colleagues - at least at early stages of their work.

In some way we are creating a system of surveillance where others can monitor performance. Again, not everyone likes to be watched.

There are other things people have raised, things like:

How complete and accurate a picture we can build of their department or university if some people choose not to contribute and if we do not have control of the sources? How useful can an incomplete registry be?
How many errors or gaps can be identified or make more evident once data are aggregated? Can they be corrected?
Sharing: Do we need to share what we are doing? We do not want everyone to see what we are doing. (Research-data/Research activity privacy?)
Duplicty: Is it going to replace our official websites? why do you duplicated them?
Coverage: I am only interested in my field of research and I know where I can find relevant information. Aggregating research data is not useful.

Interesting isn’t it? There are more issues of course but again I hope the above gives you a good idea.

My work in the coming months is to try to clarify these issues with a set of users and to identify ways to address them (solve or soften them.) I can see this will involve three areas of work, one improving collection and visualisation of data, two educating users and publicising our services in better ways and three listening to what our contributors say about their aggregated data. Yes, software development is not only about coding but about finding out what people need and how they will react to what we do.

You can read:
Ethics of data mining and aggregation
Data aggregation: Actually a threat?
Lita van Wel and Lamber Royakkers (2004) Ethical issues in web data mining. Ethics and Information Technology 6: 129–140
Nissenbaum, (1997) “Toward an approach to privacy in public: the challenges of information technology,” Ethics and Behavior 7(3) , pp. 207–219.
Nissenbaum, H. (1998), “Protecting Privacy in an Information Age: The Problem of Privacy in Public,” Law and Philosophy, 17, pp. 559-596.

Also
Exploring a ‘Deep Web’ That Google Can’t Grasp

On Twitter social and not so social experiences

2010-04-19T19:49:00.005Z

I’ve been on Twitter for over a year now and I have to say my opinion of it has changed a bit. http://clk0.blogspot.com/2009/08/this-is-what-i-think-about-twitter.html I joined when a friend of mine, Dr T, told me it was fun and that he found it extremely useful. I have to say that I find it useful too but perhaps not at the same level. Dr T’s experience has been quite different from mine.

Here I want to compare our two completely different Twitter experiences. Dr T’s has been extremely social, active and multi-dimensional whereas mine has been rather individual and uni-dimensional. Why has this happened? I guess that is because of our different original aims and motivations, and our behaviour.

On Twitter as in any other SNS you can create your own network of contacts and that network will define a great part of your future interactions. Depending on the time you devote to it you can build up a following list of people whose tweets you find interesting. Perhaps people who you think you would like to meet in real life! (and I am not talking about celebrities.) Dr T was keen on meeting new people and be part of something on Twitter. A group, a community? I was just curious and wanted access to information (news, trivia, etc.) I couldn’t (or didn’t have the time to) get by other means.

Dr T talks to people a lot. I just read tweets, broadcast a little and seldom address someone. Talking means using the @ symbol for example to address one or more people, means replying when they address you and means following threads of conversation. Conversations are extremely important to build online relationships. Conversations and socialisation in the online world basically mean the same. Conversations define the social in Social Networking.

Dr T tweets from his bed, his kitchen, his office, the gym, pubs, etc. I tweet from the office. Dr T uses Twitter in conjunction with other tools e.g., FourSquare, Tumblr, Facebook, etc. I cannot be bothered. He’s attended tweetups! and was part of a public Twitter art display. I found that amusing. He has tweeted 5 to 6 times more than me. He spends time looking after his following list and adding more people. He is much more conscientious of the people he follows and follow him. I do not have a strategy for following people. I don’t mind noise and I have never dedicated more than 2 minutes to check my following and followers lists. I follow people with different interests. Actually I do not have a topic per se but just follow random interesting people. I find people when they are referred to in tweets and sometimes when they talk to me. Many of the people I follow do not tweet more than once a week. Maybe that is why I do not get much noise! hmm No... Some of them tweet 24/7 but I am not watching 24/7.

The above just shows how different our online behaviour has been but the consequences of those behaviours have been even more dissimilar. Dr T has been able to build real friendships over Twitter. He has met some of these people and thinks they are cool. I, on the other had, haven’t been able to move beyond my computer screen. Not that I haven't tried. I tried mobile tweeting but got frustrated when the client's provider started to charge. I know. I could've looked for another client, but to be honest, I couldn't be bothered.

Update: I got Twitter on my mobile again. It took me a bit of time and a new mobile :)

The Reflexive side of Structuration Theory

2009-11-02T11:41:00.005Z

One of the most interesting aspects of Structuration theory (ST) is the idea of reflexive monitoring of action by human actors, which offers an insight into how structuration processes can persist over time and space. ST's basic concepts: duality of structure, structuration and its three modalities, as you can see in my previous post, explain how human action and social structures are interdependent. The modalities (or dimensions) of structuration: interpretive scheme, norms and facilities define the process of structuration but also provide us with analytical lenses through which we can explore it.

How do people use their social structures and modalities to act? Or as Orlikowski (2000) would say how do people enact structures?

Giddens' explanation is through the concept of reflexive monitoring of action. When people act they use their knowledge (of what they are doing) at the level of practical consciousness. Practical consciousness is the actors’ ability to act according to their stock of personal knowledge but which they are not able to explain. It is what they “know how to do” Giddens (1979). Another level, discursive consciousness, is the actors’ ability to explicitly articulate their actions and motivations in terms of their knowledge. That is when actors are able to explain what and why they are doing things. To achieve practical and discursive consciousness actors need to act in a reflexive way. Reflexive action happens at an unconscious level, so you do not need to be thinking on what you are doing all the time. It is the natural way of doing things based on what we know and have (as in the modalities of structuration.) Reflexive monitoring of actions means that actors are always assessing their own actions, the ones of the people around them and the results of those actions. The result of this assessment may be a continuation of actions as they were happening or their modification. The reproduction of structures (as they were) leads to routinisation of actions. This means that routines are created which form patterns of interactions which become institutionalized, that is they become part of the structure of the social system in which actors are interacting. However these routines are only a temporal effect as unacknowledged conditions and unintended consequences of action can alter the results and lead to change. These adjustments occur at incremental paces as each actor monitors their actions. Seen from a societal point of view these changes can be seen as individual, slow, imperceptible changes but which aggregated lead to the evolution of societies.

Atkinson and Brooks (2003) see the reflective monitoring of actions as not accounting for conscious, dramatic change. That is, for overt initiatives, such as the implementation of an information system in an organization, which can interrupt the flow of slow change to impose new technologies. This means that there is one actor or actors (e.g., the IT department) which is consciously trying to solve a problem by changing the structures (and interpretive schemes, norms and facilities) of their users. However Jones and Karsten (2008) disagree and state that the dimensions of the duality of structure already account for emancipatory change in every instant of action. That is, the actions of the IT department could be studied by the use of the modalities and considering the reflective monitoring of actions of Software developers' own actions and the ones of their users.

Giddens, A., (1979), Central problems in social theory : action, structure and contradiction in social analysis, Basingstoke, Macmillan.
Jones, MR, and Karsten, H. 2008. "Giddens's Structuration Theory and Information Systems Research," MIS Quarterly, 32(1), 127-157.
Orlikowski, W. J., (2000), 'Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations', Organisation Science, 11(4), 404-428.

Structuration theory and technology - Brief summary

2009-09-23T13:06:00.026Z

Structuration theory is a social theory developed by Anthony Giddens. It brings together two aspects of social systems: human action and social structures, aspects which were treated as separate and addressed by opposite epistemological standings. (Postivists study societies from the perspective of structures which are thought of as tangible rules, and Interpretivists study societies from the point of view of people’s actions.) Having these two aspects of societies in one theory helps to explain social phenomena at macro (structures) and micro levels (actions) together.

According to Giddens, human action and structure presuppose one another. They are defined as a duality in which both are mutually dependent and recursively related aspects of social systems. Structuration is the process whereby the duality of structure evolves and is reproduced over space and time. Structures are the rules and resources implicated in social reproduction. They come to live through human activity (as apposed to being tangible, objective rules.) This means that they exist in the memory of people and are reified through people’s actions. Human agency is social action reproducing existing structures or producing new ones.

The process of structuration can be analysed by looking at its three dimensions (or modalities.)

Interpretive scheme: is the stock of knowledge based on experience that is used to convey and understand meaning.
Norms: dictate whether a conduct is appropriate or not. Conducts are legitimised by actions.
Facilities: resources to accomplish desired outcomes. They produce structures of domination.

Orlikowski (2000) adapted Giddens structuration model and created her model of enactment of technologies-in-practice, which can be used as a lens to analyse use of technology. Orlikowski says that technology enables and constrains human action but at the same time technology is a social product of human action. (Recursive relationship.) Orlikowski also says that users of technology are situated within a number of nested and overlaping social systems. (This means that users environments are not simple.) Therefore by looking at the structures that surround users (not only the technology itself) through the three modalities of structurtation we can understand better why people use technology the way they use it. This can give us interesting insights into technology-uses beyond what users tell us and what is embedded in technology by its designers.

Source: Orlikowski (2000)

One way of using the model of enactment of technologies-in-practice is with software... have you ever wondered how people use software and in which circumstances? Do they really use it as it was intended? or maybe Why do people reject software even if in theory it is the perfect solution for their problems? Asking users is a good start, but having a tool like Orlikowski’s model to analyse what they say and contrast that with what we think and have can be very helpful.

On a similar theme... It can also be helpful to look at the processes of software development and implementation as structuration processes. So instead of focusing only on the technology and its users we can also see software developers as acting on or enacting structures while they develop software. Software developers are influenced by structures within their working environments but are also influenced by the requirements and needs of their users. However, being the users’ organisations separate entities, we should treat these structures as perceptions or interpretations. Developers are not working with their users and neither will use the software they produce as their users. So in reality software developers use “what they understand” from their interactions with their users to develop software.

Adapted from Cecilia (2006) i.e., my thesis. Click to see larger picture.

The diagram shows an illustration of what I said. It shows software development as a structuration cycle. The boxes on top of users and developers represent their structures and their images represent their actions, as in using software and developing software.

Here a practical example. The following is an extra-short portion of the structuration processes taking place when students write their theses:

Structures: University culture, time pressures, personal/family commitments
Action: students use technology to write their theses

Interpretive scheme: I need to use a word processor to write my thesis. A word processor is more efficient than a typewriter. I need a reference manager to manage my bibliography. A reference manager is more efficient than doing it manually. If I do not have "facilities" (below) I cannot write my thesis.
Norms: University regulations require me to submit an electronic version of my thesis. Avoid plagiarism: sources have to be cited. Theses have to have a minimum of 70 thousand words and a maximun of 100 thousand words. Theses have to be formatted according to the University's regulations.
Facilities: Computer, a word processor and a reference manager.

From the above one can understand what a student needs and why... of course this is a very limited example, but I hope you get my point.

Orlikowski, W. J., (2000), 'Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations', Organisation Science, 11, no.4: 404-428

Project Analyst

2009-08-30T21:58:00.014Z

I work as a Project Analyst. Strictly speaking I am not a techie (or a nerd or a geek!) but I know about the techie world. I understand the processes by which software are designed and produced. I also know about users and their work. I talk to them, I study their behaviour and business processes, their needs (what they need and what they think they need), and make conclusions about how we can help them. I pass that information to developers. This is not an easy task, believe me. I am bilingual. I am like a U.N. interpreter. I speak the language of software developers and the language of users. I listen to users and then tell developers about them by using words like searching, browsing, screenshot, widget, dataset, datalink and object. They, of course, would consider these very basic terms and reply with machine-code-like language. I take those words plus samples of their work (prototype, pilot, etc) go to users and explain them what we are doing. For that I use words like browsing and searching but avoid technical words as that would confuse or annoy them.

As a project analyst I also have to do some reach out, project advocacy and dissemination: meet people and talk to managers, directors and alike. Tell them about our work and the benefits for them. Then, I am trilingual because this last one is management, strategist language.

I think that, within a project realm, a project analyst is an important role. Techies, users, strategists and other stakeholders speak different languages and have different agendas. A project analyst is the person who keeps all of them together. Without the project analyst all these people would be heading in different directions.

This feels like being a double sandwich. Like the meat between users and software developers, and the cheese between the producers of software and the project stakeholders.

I also have to do a bit of academic dissemination through traditional means: conferences and papers (I work in an academic institution.) Perhaps this aspect of my job takes me to a different dimension, not completely related to the practical aspects of the project. For academia it would not be enough to produce software and to make it succeed. Academia needs explanations and analysis, reflections on how things were achieved, design of models, building up on established theories or developing new ones based on the data collected. Academic dissemination does not necessarily play a crucial role in the success of the project but I find it the most fulfilling as it allows me to reflect and analyse strategies and also build on my academic career.

I’m starting to see the picture of a chameleon here.

Now, you may want to ask me why on earth I am doing working as a project analyst in a software related project if I want to pursue an academic career. The answer is... I don’t know :p lol Did I mention that I like my job? I think I like the "practical (hands-on)-academic (reflective)" combination. I am an analyst, I like software development and I like to talk to users. I am also a sort of ethnographer. I like to mingle with techies and users. I like first-hand experience in (not necessarily academic) projects. I question different interpretations and I like to reflect on what I see. And I like to write about the things I do.

This is what I think about Twitter

2009-08-14T08:40:00.016Z

I have been on Twitter for a few months and I have formed an opinion. My opinion is limited of course. It is based on the few interactions I have had, the few people I am following, the tools I am using and some technical problems I have encountered (yeah yeah problems too).

Having used Hi5, Flicker, Facebook, Linkedin and similar sites I have to say that Twitter feels quite different. My first impressions are:

Twitter is not so good at allowing social interactions. In that sense Facebook and MySpace outplay Twitter. Social relationships on Twitter feel incomplete and weak as there is only one way to communicate. Twitter is a one way communication channel. Facebook and MySpace offer a number of possibilities for expression and communication which help members to know better their contacts.

Twitter asks a question “What are you doing?” which does not make sense to me. Are they suggesting we should only post about what we are doing? Can I post about what I did, will do or haven’t done? Can I post about what I am thinking? Can I repeat other people’s posts? and so on... the answer is yes we can, and that is why lots of people ignore the question and post whatever they want.

One can chose the kind of information to get in their personal timeline by following relevant people. Some people post about their personal live, their leisure activities, sports, etc. Others post about their work or businesses. There are people who use twitter to advertise their businesses and websites. And among them there are some who see Twitter as a market and not as a social space. Problem is, there is no guarantee that one will understand everything these people say.

Twitter has poor content. 140 character tweets are not enough for providing context and meaning as most people are used to. See for example the following tweet: “God help us... the adviser has a heavy accent :(” Ok I understand the adviser has a heavy accent and that isn’t good, But I do not understand why, what they are doing, who the adviser is, where he is, etc. To know this I would probably need to search for previous tweets and hope there is an explanation there. But do I care so much to take the time to do that search? NO.

Click to see full picture

Although one can post consecutive tweets to convey better developed ideas, we do not know if followers will receive the whole package as we intended. Each individual twitterer has their own timeline comprised of the tweets of the people they follow. Those tweets come all together in chronological order, so some packages intersect between them. Again, to understand some of these tweets I would need to filter my timeline and of course I rarely do this, unless there is something there that attracts my attention.

Having only 140 characters forces people to communicate by small, discrete blocks of ideas. Best twitterers are the ones who master this art. For example: “What a day! What a week! I'm shattered. Tomorrow: snooker with #timsawesomegrandad & lunch with my sis & niece b4 #timsgoingsurfing @ t'wknd” Mastering the art of text compression isn’t easy and I admire the ones who can do this and still say something meaningful and interesting. But as usual I always want to know more. I would like to know why “What a day! What a week!” Was it tough? Was it good or bad? What happened??

I can always ask the twitterer if I want to know more. That is something I prefer to do rather than browsing through tweets. I have found that exchanges with other people are more interesting. It is a personal opinion of course. When I talk to someone on Twitter, the context gets clearer after each message, and it feels like having a conversation or a social interaction. However although Twitter can be used for conversations, it isn’t a natural chatroom or forum.

One way for making up for poor content and lack of context is to use tools which help to organise content by filtering it. The hashtags site is one of them. I usually go there when there is a major event like the Wimbledon final and follow the tweets there. I also use the TweetDeck search option to filter tweets by a certain topic, like for example #socialsoftware.

Twitter is excellent for distributing and disseminating messages. Like a chain reaction machine. This is because people RT a lot! For example if a celebrity tweets he is getting married, one hundred thousand followers would probably RT that message to their own followers, some of those followers would RT it again, and so... in a few minutes millions of twitterers can come to know about that wedding, even if they do not follow or do not like that celebrity.

People post links to the online resources they write and/or read. These sites have longer texts with more complex and elaborated ideas. Bloggers for example do not use twitter to say what they want but to disseminate what they write in their blogs. I follow a few news accounts as well and I find them very convenient to know about what is going on in the world. The news posts have a short text usually the news headline and then a link to the actual news site.

Some people send their tweets to their FB accounts so their friends can also read what they are doing. I do not think that is a good idea as those are different contexts with different audiences. This presentation does a good job at explaining this http://www.slideshare.net/themarketingnerd/why-your-tweets-should-not-feed-to-your-facebook-status-its-a-fail-1314380.

From the above I conclude that Twitter is good as media and not so good at social. Through my twitter account I come to know about lots of things happening around the world, have found good blogs, read a lot, but I know very little about the people who post those messages. On Twitter I have developed rather loose links with some people whereas for the rest I am just a lurker, occasionally reading their tweets sometimes without understanding them. I guess it would take a few million tweets more to get to know some people.

Speaking of people, for some the success on Twitter is measured by the number of people who follow them. That is a measure of popularity, which in most cases, I believe, does not say anything about the quality of their relationships or the quality of the content of their posts. If you are public figure thousands of people will follow you even if you post boring tweets. With this I am not saying that all twitterers who have a large list of followers are boring to everyone. People in general follow people whose tweets are interesting to them. But of course there also people who would follow people expecting they would follow them back.

Followers and following lists are very important. They are connections to the rest of the Twitter world. Losing them is something that can ruin the twitter experience. Rebuilding these lists could be an impossible task especially where they are made up of people who are not know to the twitterer. And it is here that I want to talk about one of these many “bugs” that affect twitter, and has affected me as well. I recently lost over 70 followers and while seeking for support I saw I wasn’t the only one. Hundreds of people are losing their followers and what is more worrying their following lists are going down to zero. Following zero people means they do not get any tweets and are virtually blindfolded. That has never happened to me on FB or Hi5 and makes me wonder about Twitters reliability.

Regardless of the above Twitter has this addiction effect. I see lots of people who are obsessed and cannot live without tweeting everyday (yes, I am talking about you!) However I think I am still immune to Twitter because of the reasons I discussed above (I prefer social media rather than just media). However there was one thing that boosted my participation maybe by 5%. At the beginning I found the Twitter.com interface boring to use. I installed twibble on my mobile and then I became a bit more interested. After that I installed TweetDeck and twhirl in my computers and things became even more interesting. Getting notifications when I get a Tweet and being able to organise posts makes this thing a bit more manageable. Because of this, I think, I tweet a bit more.

There are other tools that help to complement tweets and enhance the Twitter experience (or addiction?) These are just a few examples. Twitpic is used to post twitterers’ pictures. There are also tools to tag users and find people with the same interests: Twibes, TwitR or wefollow. There is also Twibbon where one can start a campaign, cTwittLIKE where one can see Twitter like someone else, Tweeting Too Hard where one can find original tweets and Cursebird where you can see who is swearing on Twitter (this one's fun). Oh and TweetRadio where you can listen to Tweets as if they were news by Twitterer or by Topic. I have explored these and more sites but still Twitter does not convince me as a social networking tool. Ok, I can have fun conversations here and there but I do not consider them as social relationships but as random loose links. I think Twitter is poor at social, weak at meaningful content, good at quantity of content, good/excellent at disseminating news and links. And if you want to explore the potential of Twitter as a disseminator you can use Tweetburner a tool that shortens URLS and tracks the links that you share.

Anyway, last point I want to make in this post is that I would not have been able to say all this on Twitter. That is why I have a blog :) But hey, don't panic I'll stay on Twitter. I won't call it social networking but broadcasting machine. It is interesting and I kind of like it.

Social Media's disease

2009-08-03T20:19:00.013Z

Social networking and social media are concepts that define activities that integrate people and technology. These activities can take written form as in online conversations, oral form as in video or audio streams or visual form as in video again and pictures. Social media can also be seen as the places where you go to have social interactions (in many forms as stated above) with other people.

Social media has this enormous and growing audience of people hungry for online interactions. Millions of people use social media and it has become one of the most popular online activities. This is why, I think, it has become a very attractive gold mine for wolves.

Yes, marketers and strategists see social media as places they can use to do their business and to increase their profits. I see this as interference, as having uninvited guests in a house party(1). Businesses have their own places on the web, they can also have their own forums, online communities, etc., if they wish. However as real social networking sites are more populated they are potentially more fertile lands for businesses to grow profits. Yes, it is easier to go where the people are than make people come to them.

Have a look at http://mashable.com/2009/08/03/what-is-social-media

By engaging into apparent social interactions with real people they want to gain their trust and make them buy their products or follow their religion. Marketers and strategists accounts in Social Networking Sites (SNS) are in fact social masks that they wear to appeal to their public. But those are not the real them. In reality marketers and strategists have their own agenda: make money out of you. They do not want to be friends with you they just want to sell you things, they do not want to listen to you they want you to listen to them.

I do not blame them. That is how businesses have done business for years. Before, they kept themselves to their places. Slowly they claimed territory into our private lives, in the newspapers that we read, on the TV, and now into our online social interactions. This had to come sooner or later, and I think we will get used to that. What worries me though is that by carrying out this invasion they are changing the nature of these spaces. They are taking the social out of the social media and adding the profit to their business playground. In fact they are misusing and subverting SNS in a way that potentially threatens their existence.

For example I do not mind a few ads on Facebook but I mind too many. I mind strange accounts sending me messages about buying this or that, or reading this website about god knows what! Facebook is an excellent SNS exactly because you can have social interactions there. You can do all the non sense you like. You can talk to your friends, you can gossip or bitch. You can share your photos and videos, you can fill these stupid questionnaires, or eat fortune cookies, or you can follow your favourite music band or charity organisation. That is what Facebook is about. If it gets infected by people who think I am their audience or their customer I will not like it anymore.

There is one place though where marketers and strategists fit better: Twitter. Twitter is this strange place where people talk to everyone and to anyone at the same time (unless you are using the @.) Some people on Twitter are geeks, some are egocentric, some are normal (like me) and some of them are into business. Thousands of people join Twitter to advertise themselves or their businesses. I can post links to this blog and tell people hey there is a new post! Promoting or advertising things on Twitter is an accepted practice even though that does not answer Twitters question “What are you doing?” but who cares if people are happy. On Twitter promotion and advertising do not feel as intrusive as in other sites. This, perhaps, is because Twitter is very impersonal and has very low social presence. Twitter is more media than social. What Twitter has is a very high rate of exchange of information and lots of potential readers (or buyers!)

There are other kinds of interference attempted into social media. One of them is by eLearning. Some people would like to use real SNS to teach and I cannot understand why. The fact that children and teenagers use these sites a lot does not mean that they will welcome their teachers or their classes there. I however think that social networks, web2.0 type of tools can be used for teaching, but in separate spaces where purposes are clearly defined and the word educational replaces the word social. Have a look at http://monitorhypothesis.typepad.com/esl/2008/07/facebook-and-i.html Added later --> I also think that initiatives such as eGovernance can make good use of web2.0 kind of environments because citizens are familiar with them. And I think I would welcome their intrusion into my social network as long as they are kept minimal and seek citizens' benefit.

--------
(1) This view is perhaps influenced by my understanding of social media as online communities. In fact I think social media is just another buzzword that represents the latest step in the evolution of online communities.

Writing writing writing

2009-07-16T20:00:00.013Z

I keep forgetting to blog about what I write outside this blog. It might be that I have been totally immersed into social software ... Not that I waste my time uploading photos in social networking sites, no no nooo... I waste my time thinking and reflecting on why I upload photos in social networking sites :)

I am not a natural writer so I have to make conscious efforts to sit and write my thoughts. Writing this blog is easy for me because this is a sort of leisure activity, I write about whatever I like or comes to my mind, and I am not bothered about academic rigour at all. But when it is about serious writing I turn to serious mode (and grumpy and anti-social mood.)

When I finished my PhD I was so tired of my thesis I promised myself to never write anything again. But that is a promise no one can keep if one works in academia. And this is how my first paper happened. I was working on a project that had to do with eLearning and eMentoring when a colleague of mine came to my office asking if I could fill a space in the next issue of a journal she was editing. She knew I had just finished my thesis and that it was on the Information Systems field, a perfect fit for her next issue. I broke my promise and said yes. I gathered some sections from my thesis and put them together (that was my Frankenstein version.) I worked on them for a few weeks, transformed them in one (I hope!) coherent paper and submitted it. The final result was a not so ugly discussion about a structuration-based framework (Giddens, Orlikowski) which explained social aspects of software development.

Next paper was a sort of accident as well. I was still working on the eLearning and eMentoring project when my boss came to talk about a conference that was going to take place in the school. She wanted to submit a paper about the project. She had put together some chunks of text from the project bid and from her own thesis, but she needed help. So I had a look at the paper and found a gap where I could contribute. The paper was about language learning in the logistics industry and explained how participants in our project acquired language proficiency through online interactions (i.e., by carrying out eLearning and eMentoring activities). My contribution was an introduction to Online Communities of Practice and Online Pragmatics; and an analysis of online textual interactions by using these theories. We presented the paper in the conference and we were lucky enough that it was chosen for a special issue in a respected academic journal.

After these two accidents I thought that writing serious stuff wasn’t that bad after all. So I decided to be more proactive. About a year ago I wrote a to do list and then I reviewed that list at the beginning of this year. You can see that for six months that list didn’t change that much! Writing is a time consuming task, especially if your job involves other activities which are not directly related to the subject of your writings. But if you are persistent you can see the results… eventually. This is what happened.

Last December, after a few months of work and while working on the VGS project, my ex-boss and I submitted a paper which analysed eLearning and eMentoring processes by using Orlikowski's model of Enactment of Technologies in Practice. (This is a second paper about the eLearning and eMentoring project and has a slight overlap with my first paper). Orlikowski's model is based on Structuration theory, a social theory developed by A. Giddens. In March I got an email from the editors saying that the reviewers had suggested publication but they also had asked for minor changes in a couple of figures. So we did the modifications and a week after I got another email saying that our paper was going to be published. That felt great... almost no corrections. We did all the formatting the publishers asked us to do like for example provide figures in 300x300 dpi TIFF format. I signed the copyright agreement and posted it to singapore. I don't know when it is going to be printed but I hope it will be this year.

I spent the winter weekends writing a chapter for a book about eGovernance and eParticipation. I was supposed to do this at the end of last year, but I couldn't. So I had to sacrifice a few (or a lot!) weekends this year to do this :'( My chapter is a discussion of the nature of online communities (one of my favourite topics) and from that discussion I drew some conclusions on how eGovernance initiatives could make use of common online strategies to improve their rate of success. My point was that online communities success depends on community engagement. That is, members need to be kept interested and satisfied with their participations for the community to survive. That usually happens naturally if they are given the right tools to express themselves. Designers should therefore understand community members' purposes, interests and social dynamics. And that is where the intersection with eGovernance efforts is, as eGovernance is about providing better electronic services and promote citizen participation through online means. I finished that chapter, got feedback from the reviewer and then made a few corrections, like changing the title of the chapter because he didn’t like it! I submitted the final version a month ago and again I am now waiting for this book to be published.

Now I have reached a point where I have to be proactive again. By the way I am not bored or have nothing to do. Quite the opposite. I have a busy job. I am just finishing a 14000 word (maybe longer!) analysis report at work. This report is about requirements and uses for research activity data, and it will be used for the design and implementation of a research information infrastructure. Very interesting by the way, and I think the data I gathered has the potential for a paper in the information systems field. I write about that in my other blog.

A couple of years ago I drafted a paper on Online Research, again based on the methodology I designed for my thesis. Somehow I forgot about that paper, and I thought I had lost it. But I found it again two or three months ago. So now I am thinking on resuscitating it and probably ask someone to co-author with me as I think it needs a new angle.

Another one, 1 friend of mine and ex-colleague, the #awesome guy, has asked me to write with him about social networking. He is a Twitter advocator and I think he liked my previous posts about social networking. This is something I would really like to do, although it will involve some long hours of immersion in the library as I need to catch up with the social software/social media literature.

Why I like Social Software

2009-06-18T09:00:00.018Z

I have liked software most of my life, but not every kind of software. I like software which has the people and social aspects embedded in it. Why? because I find it more interesting to think on people using software than only on software. Software that fit that criterion are Software for Information Systems and Social Software.

Information Systems are all these systems within organisations which make information accessible to the people who use it. Information Systems are aligned with the aims of the organisation. Software that supports those information systems are designed mostly to fit the (pre-designed) business processes which keep the organisations alive. On the other hand as they have to support the people working on those business processes they have to account for the unpredictability, nonlinearity and ambiguity 1 of humans. People are not robots and cannot be fixed as business processes on a blueprint. Most information systems and software development methodologies struggle with this. Old, traditional methodologies assumed organisational environments remained unchanged through time and focused only on the practicalities of software development. (E.g. Payroll was a system that did the same calculations every month.) With time things started to change, and human and social aspects started to play a more important role. Systems like workflows and groupware started to appear. Those applications modelled better what people were doing at work, they accounted for group work and collaborations, and they were a bit more flexible. Yet the feelings I got from using those applications were that they were rigid, too computer-oriented rather than people oriented.

During my PhD (a study of software development) I came across the term social software. Social software is software that encourages and allows social interaction within groups and facilitates the control of the information created through those interactions. Modern forms of social software include weblogs, Wikis, IM and online forums. Yes, that’s right; I am talking about software to develop Online Communities. Although this term has evolved from groupware and similar kinds of applications, now social software is mostly focused on web 2.0 technologies and aiming at online interactions, but not limited to them... social software ≠ web 2.0.

Social software has what traditional information systems perspectives lacked: it pays explicit attention to human and social aspects of groups using software. This means that the design of social software considers individual and social characteristics of their users, or in other words, the nature of their interactions through the computer: CMC (Computer Mediated Communication.) Designers have to translate traditional old usability guidelines to new group-usability ones, old Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) methodologies to Human-to-Human interaction (through computers obviously) approaches. For example, by asking questions about how groups of people (and not only individuals) would react to a certain event, they could design effective tools to allow (or impede) those reactions. The interfaces resulting from these experiments would not be only computer interfaces but social interfaces which are tailored to the kind of community they want to support. This means that social applications contain embedded within them some rules or norms which reflect the rules and norms that distinguish these communities from the others and that keep them alive.

And here is where I start giving some examples. YouTube, one of the biggest social networking sites, hosts a community of video creators and sharers. A priority for YouTube therefore is to allow the creation and sharing of video files. Users of YouTube can create their profiles and upload their videos. They can also create channels containing sub-sets of videos. An example would be a YouTube member having a sports channel and a holiday channel. All these videos and channels help users to create an image for them, an image which they can use to interact with other users. As YouTube are supporting a “community” they also encourage interactions between members. For example by allowing commenting, they let members talk between them about their videos. This talk is enhanced by the ability to respond to videos with other videos. Also with the embedding of videos option YouTube allows its community to spread its arms beyond to other communities. For example a blogger can embed a video in his blog.

Different kinds of communities have different kinds of tools, because their users’ needs are different. Justin.tv a community for people who share live streaming video have chat rooms facilities along their videos, so users can talk while they are watching what’s going on where the camera is.

Facebook users can share lots of different thingies but that community is more focused on developing personal profiles. So they draw on the self-centred nature of people as well as their voyeuristic facet (members can secretly see friends’ profiles.)

Twitter, hmmm, at first sight Twitter is a community for attention seekers, nerds, celebrities.... or just people with particular communication skills... so particular that they can fit in 140 characters. By keeping posts to 140 characters Twitter are restricting the kind of users they get to the stereotype above. It feels to me that talking in Twitter is like trying to fill a glass drop by drop, but in fast motion. Yes, tweeters have to be quick at reading and at writing, the more people they are following the more information they have to organise and assimilate, and that information comes in little chunks of 140 characters. Twitter is not a place for people who are shy, it is a community of people who want to share everything they do and think, now, not tomorrow or next week, but now.

So, why do I like social software? I've alread mentioned one part of the answer in the introduction, I think it is more interesting to think on people using software that just on software, and that is what social software does. The second part of the answer is because, although tailored to particular communities, social software provides more freedom to users, to explore their chaotic, unpredictable, nonlinear and ambiguous nature. That makes life even more intersting.

---------------
1 Software is structured and predictable. People are unpredictable, nonlinear and ambiguous. Social interactions are even more chaotic. One cannot predict exactly how users are going to behave when they use software. They can use its features as they were designed by developers, or they can subvert the system, inventing new uses or just using the software incorrecty. People are non-linear, their behaviour looks more like a web rather than a line because human behaviour is variable. After one input thousands of possibilities for outputs can emerge. Ambiguity migth be one of the characteristics that software developers hate the most. People cannot always be straight and express their thoughts or feelings. When asked about their job they would tell you what's on the paper and not what they do in reality. There are always hidden agendas flowing in the underground of organisations.Have a look at Cockburn's...

Social Networking, Devices and Uses

2009-05-28T19:38:00.037Z

This post is the third instalment of my social networking series where I discuss some of their success factors. For me there are three factors which are essential for these sites to survive. First, good social networking sites should be places where I can find friends and people I know, people I can talk to so I do not get bored. Second these sites should have attractive communication tools which help me to engage at a deeper level. Third, these sites and tools should work in my computer and/or mobile and for the situations I am when I use them. (I have talked about the first two factors in previous posts, this one is about the third one.) These factors are obviously biased by my preferences and by my personal experiences (I like ethnographic approaches!) I am also influenced by the little bit of theory I know about computer mediated communication (CMC) and online community dynamics, theories like online communities of practice and online pragmatics. (Read an essay on CMC I wrote a few years ago.)

As you can see above, my practical and theoretical biases are mainly on the human and social aspects of online dynamics. And I have to say I have a fairly narrow experience in the hardware/platform field - which is partly the focus of this post. I have used lots of computers in my life. However, for the last 8 years or so, I have been restricted to the Ms Windows platform, out necessity and chance, not choice. Well, not 100% restricted, I own a smartphone with Symbian OS v9.1-UIQ 3.0. which is veeery nice. I guess what I am trying to say is that my discussion below is (very) limited to the platforms I have mentioned. So keep an open mind.

Since my smartphone has a browser (Opera 8.65) I should be able to access most online sources I access from my PC, particularly wap enabled sites. However I never use my phone as a computer. It is a small computer of course but not "a computer." I use my computer for work and if not at work for more than 10 minute tasks. On the other hand I use my smartphone for short online tasks when I am on the move and when I find a free hotspot!

My computer social networking activities are based around writing emails, Facebook and Hi5 (and sometimes LinkedIn1,) reading and commenting friends' blogs, and uploading pictures. Some of these are a bit passive, reading things, clicking here and there. Some other actvities are more active, I create and upload content, which will be read and seen by someone else. I also use Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and Skype for chatting2. All at the same time. I do not use more because it then becomes a mess. My approach to IM is simple: keeping IM turned on (online/busy) all the time I am at the computer. I have long, informal conversations with whoever is online (one or more people). I intercalate these conversations with other tasks, so sometimes my contact and I can be silent for one or two hours and then we continue talking again when we are free. IM software come with some nice features such as video chatting, graphic emoticons and access to email accounts. I like to use these tools whenever I can.

My mobile phone social networking activities are very different from the above. The point I want to make is that it would not make sense for me to translate all this use from my PC to my mobile phone, mainly because the situations I am in and the reasons for using them are different. And also because my mobile has a small screen not suitable for some tasks I perform at the computer.

So what do I use my smartphone for?

Obviously I make calls and send texts. I download RSS feeds with the news and my emails (don't like push emails though.) I also use Twitter and chat. Facebook? hmmm, no. I don't like accessing Facebook (m.facebook.com) through the browser, it is just not usable for such a small display. And I do not like interacting with Facebook via text messaging either. That is too restrictive for all that Facebook can offer. Facebook client? Not yet, haven't found any for Symbian.

You may have noticed I did not mention twitter a couple of paragraphs above. That is because for some reason I find it boring browsing Twitter when I am at the computer. I find it too static or maybe too simple. Just one list of posts for such a big screen! I thought on installing a Twitter client in my laptop but decided to do that in my phone (for variety you know.) At the moment I am using Twibble which I find usable and attractive. So for example, if I am waiting in the dentist's and I am bored I use Twibble and download the lastest Tweets. I just need to scroll down to read them all. If I wanted to write something, say "I am at the dentist" that would be as simple as writing an sms. I bet a great percentage of twitterers are mobile users. I think their 144 character post model fits mobiles nicely. I however have to emphasize that I do not find Twitter as engaging as Facebook. So far my participations there are not as abundant as any average twitterer and they are random rather than with an objective. This is a content and language problem I would probably write about later. But what I can say now is that Twibble is a good way of killing time when you are bored.

I also use my smartphone for chatting. I installed Fring (Instant Messaging) in my phone. I did this just as an experiment (not a need) to see what sort of use could come from it. In Fring I have activated my MSN and Google accounts. Contacts from different sources have different colours, off line contacts are in grey. Conversations appear in new tabs and you are alerted by a sound when someone talks to you. So far I find Fring little to medium fun. It might be that I am useless at it. I just can keep track of one or two conversations at the same time, and as in a mobile phone I cannot type as fast as in a computer my exchanges are very slow. I think it is just a matter of getting used to it and not trying to mimic my computer (which I do unconsciously). If I can't do that I will probably dump it and get another application which I find more natural for a mobile :) Maybe a location-based social network app which I can use and definitely need when I am on the move.

Social Networking is not restricted to PCs. They are in other kinds of devices like mobile phones, PDAs and TVs, and they keep growing into other devices. Who knows, maybe in the future you'll read your tweets in your treadmill screen or you'll see your friends in the Facebook Holodeck. However moving applications from one platform to the other will not just work like that. One has to be careful to not take anything people throw into the market without thinking on its usability and reasons for using them.

----------------------------------------------------
1 LinkedIn is a networking site but it isn't social, therefore it's kind of boring.
2 I know, these are not social networking sites per se but Instant Messaging applications. I think they have similar purposes: both are social applications.

Engaging with Social Networking

2009-03-08T11:32:00.014Z

This post is a continuation of the post below this one titled Social Networking. Since I wrote that post many things have come to my mind regarding engagement in online communities, particularly social networking sites. One question I see everywhere is how do you create a successful online community or social networking sites? How did Facebook manage to take over MySpace? Why are those sites so popular? What do they have that the others do not?

In my last post I talked about people. People you find in those places. For me they key is finding friends and people I know. For others it could be finding new friends or contacts. But something I did not address in that post was how those people ended up in those places in the first place.

You cannot expect to turn up at one of these sites and find everyone already there waiting for you. Open arms and big smiles, and then you stay there. These communities grow slowly. Users come and go, and if more users keep on coming than going then you have good chances to become a successful community.

So there should be another factor that makes people come and stay in a social networking site. And I guess that is its tools. Good looking, user friendly tools that do not fail, provide security and gain the trust of their users. And if with them you can do cool things you never dreamt of, you'll get thousands people joining, acting like kids with new toys.

When I joined MySpace I really didn't like the looks of it. I could design my own website, by using html, etc... but I didn't have control over everybody else's websites. I like it clean and simple. But I found websites so so ugly and unreadable I wanted to cry. Just the look of their websites prevented me from talking to their owners. But on the other hand, being able to design their own space must have attracted thousands of people. I bet lots of people did not feel intimidated by the fact that they needed to learn html but maybe thought that was something cool to learn. So the same feature attracted some people but prevented others from participating.

Facebook... what can I say. hmm I liked its white and simple style. Everyone's got the same looks in their profiles. The differences depend on the tools people choose to use and of course in the actual content. Another think I like is this easy customization, i.e., adding of applications. You just need to pick an app from a list and voila. Facebook have done various modifications to their platform across the years. Just in a few days they are going to introduce another one in their homepage. I see many people annoyed with these changes, but I do not see them quiting. It must be because those changes work. They are easy to learn and do not interfere with users ongoing interactions.

Twitter... Twitter IS THE PLACE TO BE at the moment. Twitter is very simple, it has a text box and you can enter 140 characters each time. You have followers who read your entries (or tweets) and you can follow other people whose tweets you read. Personally, I see Twitter as a messy, context-less bulleting board. But that is a content issue. As a tool it works. How could it not? It is a simple idea. One thing I like about Twitter is not the Twitter site itself but all these Twitter desktop and mobile clients (Twhirl, TweetDeck, Twibble, etc) which are much nicer than the original site. They use Twitter's feeds and organise them in different ways, for example according to topics.

And if I want to talk a bit more about Twitter I have to talk about content (I think this is the weakest link of Twitter at the moment). Users of Twitter or Twitterers or Tweeterers continuosly develop new conventions of communication. I guess, because they need to put some order into those millions of context-less posts. One of these conventions is the Hashtag. Hashtags are like metadata within the content of tweets. They define "groups" or topics of conversations. For example, if I include #watchmen in my post, I will be creating or participating in a group conversation called watchmen. If you want to know who else is talking about watchmen in Twitter you can search for your hashtag in the hashtags site: #hashtags. I think Twitter has an interesting model for creating and connecting data. 140 character posts which can be interconnected by different kinds of tags. Sounds cool, especially now that the semantic web is getting more attention. Not saying that Twitter could ask people to use semantic web vocabs (nooooooooooo!!!) But twitter's future certainly looks semantic webbish to me... if it is going to survive it needs to improve the quality of their content by adding meaning to it.

So yeah, many things to talk about in this area. New software tools are created all the time and it is hard to keep track. Thing is, we should think on keeping a balance between programming the best, coolest, state of the art applications and seeing what users really want and do with them.

Social Networking

2009-02-08T21:36:00.029Z

What is Social Networking? connecting and interacting with people, online, through a variety of tools, which are mostly available in one site. Members of these sites create a set of connections with other people who they can call contacts, friends, followers, etc. All these connections form a network of contacts through which social interactions happen, hence the name social networking. There are hundreds of Social Networking sites out there. You may know names like MySpace, LifeJournal, Bebo, WAYN, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Orkut, YouTube, Windows Life Spaces, etc, etc, etc.

I have tried some of these and others... and with little success, except maybe for Facebook. But I have to say that the magic is fading.

What do I call success? Well, for me, a successful SN Site is one where

1. I can find friends and does not get boring (because people keep on creating new interesting content)
2. It should have a series of attractive interaction, communication tools which
3. work on my computer and on my mobile phone.

Each of the points above deserve a separate discussion on their own. In this post I will focus on point 1, and will leave the other 2 for later.

Why did I stick with Facebook? I use Facebook not because Facebook is Facebook but because there I can find people I can interact with. And those are people I have met at some point in my life: friends, family, colleagues, someone I met in a holiday, in a conference, etc, or people who are friends of friends and I know by name. Of course there are people I have met in my life that I don’t like, I block those. I know there are people who send friend requests to everyone because they want to meet new people or just want to have millions of friends. I don’t. I like to have a network of contacts I know because then it is easier for me to talk to them, because there is something to talk about. As it happens Facebook is that network. If I could find the same people elsewhere I'd probably move. This is a personal opinion of course, and you may have different reasons to join a social networking site.

I started with this Social Networking thing years ago. I think it was in 2003 (or was it 2004???) when I got all these emails from friends inviting me to join Hi5. I joined Hi5 and found it a bit dull, so I used it very little. I kept on adding friends though. On rare occasions I would upload pictures or comment on friends profiles.

When I did my PhD fieldwork (2004-2005), I turned to Social Networking as well as to other online media (discussion boards, weblogs, etc), to collect my data from. I remember I opened an account in MySpace, as at that time that was THE PLACE TO BE. When I got there I couldn't find anyone I knew. All my friends were in Hi5. I kept the account though because I was supposed to be looking for information for my PhD. My research topic was related to software development and I joined some software development online communities. However I also needed to understand the dynamics of online communities to write my methodology chapter and MySpace proved to be very useful... as an object of study of course but not as a social networking tool for my personal use.

I kept that account for months and as far as I remember I couldn't engage on a personal level. It might be my nature but I didn't feel comfortable with talking to strangers who were so different from me. I made friends with a Poet though. A guy who would send his friends a poem maybe every week. Sometimes he would send me romantic notes! At the beginning I thought it was fun but after a while I found them boring. I like poetry but not cheesy poetry. However I had a good look at his profile and at the way he kept on getting new friends who liked his poems. His friends would also send him poems so he had a huge archive of amateur poetry... and big number of fans. Another interesting character I found on MySpace was this lesbian movie director, who had recently made a movie, about lesbians, and who had a large fan base of lesbians :). Everyone was asking her things about the movie and the actresses, etc. One interesting thing she did on MySpace was to schedule a free online screening of her movie. Free for her MySpace friends. That attracted even more hundreds of friends. Her profile was exploding with posts from fans!

At the same time I also joined YouTube and found Terra Naomi a singer who was advertising herself there. I subscribed to her videos and saw how her fan base grew as well. She made her videos at a small studio. Some of them where guitar lessons! And the kids loved them! So did I and I also liked her music. One interesting thing I witnessed here is hundreds of people video taping themselves playing her music. I thought she was doing well. And I think she did. The other day I saw a CD of her in a London shop.

So yes, MySpace and YouTube were working for them, and did work for my PhD as well. But they didn't work for me. I closed those accounts when I finished my thesis.

Then two years ago a friend of mine invited me to Facebook. At that time it was restricted to students or university staff, so you needed a university email address to open an account. I didn't like Facebook that much at the beginning because I had very few friends. but i liked its desing. I thought it was simple and clean. As time passed, Facebook opened to everyone, and my friends started to join in. I found it a very useful tool for keeping in touch with people and for having fun. I found friends from my primary school there... or should I say they found me!

I have engaged with FB at a personal level, but been able to think about it a bit as well. One of the main characteristics of the Facebook community is that everyone one seems to be self-centred. And this might be due to the design of the site. Most interactions I see are people showing what they are, have or do in their profiles. So for example I don't need to talk to everyone, or send messages to my friends, I just need to put some stuff in my profile and they will see that. A friend of mine can upload a holiday video and I see what he did. He doesn’t need to e-mail me. By uploading his video he is telling his network of contacts what he has done. That might save him a lot of time. I may make some comments... about how cool he looks in his video and those comments will be kept on his profile for others to see. If I go to the movies and like (or hate the film) I can write a comment on the movie app and my friends will see that. I don't have to tell them one by one.

There is one thing about FB I never liked though. It is all these useless, dumb, mind numbing applications where you can hugh people, or send butterflies, or complete stupid questionnaires, or find out how male/female you are. I really hate those!

Anyway, after two years of use I have to say, I am not using Facebook as much as I used to, but I am still there... and all the links to my friends profiles are still there too. So I can come back to them any time I feel like. However I think I am bit tired of doing the same thing all the time, logging in and checking my feeds to see what other people are doing, and then commenting on how cool they look in their pictures or, uploading my pictures so my friends can tell me how wonderful my life is. Facebook hasn’t changed much, its core is still the same, but I think I have changed. I know Facebook will be there when I feel the need to come back but for the moment I am seeking new pastures. (I think my Facebook will end up like my Hi5, it's there, I am there, but I don't use it very much.)

A few weeks ago I opened an account in Twitter, only because a friend of mine said it was better than Facebook. And he is in love with Twitter, so I thought I should give it a try. It might be that within an environment like twitter’s I may be able to talk to strangers! I think it is still too soon for me to say if I like it or hate it. What I can say now is that Twitter is the equivalent of the FB status. Everyone communicates by saying what they are doing, not to someone but to everyone. And unlike FB you don't need to be a friend to see what someone is doing. I have few followers there but I will wait a few weeks to see what happens.

World of Gadgets

2009-02-01T21:52:00.019Z

Do we really need gadgets? Or do we just buy them because everyone does?

I've been asking myself that question in the last few days. I have a few gadgets but hey I don't think I am a gadget freak (or am I???) The gadgets I own at the moment are in the following list which includes my reasons for having them:

Sony Ericsson W960i mobile phone: I need to communicate! and this one is cute, has touch screen, wifi (which I use very often), a good camera, 8GB memory and walkman.
Pentax Option L20 Digital Camera: I like to take pictures when I travel or meet with friends.
iPod nano: I take it to the gym, I hate gym music.
Dell XPS M1330 laptop: my favourite... I don't know what I would do without it.
TomTom GO530: this isn't something I would normally buy but I need it to get to work (just changed jobs in another city) I am using it as an MP3 player as well with it's FM transmiter, it has 1GB of memory.

And that is it! I thought I wouldn't buy any other gadget for a long time (gave up on the iPod Touch and the Wii as I thought I didn't "need" them)... but

in this new job I have met new people who own some and I have been tempted.... The other day I had a meeting and I brought a paper notebook and a pen to take notes. When I got there I saw everyone had either a laptop, netbook or PDA.

Another day I went to a meeting in a nice coffee shop and of course, took my paper notebook and pen with me, the other guys had nice mobile devices with them.
Should I keep strong and carry my paper notebook everywhere or should I sucumb to the gadget fever?

Writing 2

2009-01-25T18:47:00.030Z

A few months ago I wrote a to do list of things I needed to write. Today I want to check how all this blah blah write write went. I have to say I haven't done my homework as I wished because I had some interruptions. I moved cities and then I changed jobs! In my new job I am working with digital repositories and the semantic web. I will definitely write about that in a future post. Hopefully it won’t be about RDF, or similar standards, but maybe about what you need to design the “inputs” and “outputs” of such framework.

As the end of the first stage of the VGS project was coming, I wrote a short Project Report, which was part of all the documentation we needed/wanted to produce to explain what we did with the money we got. I guess people liked it because we also got more funds for one year and a half to expand the project's pilot web site. The VGS project was about building an online environment for PhD students and Researchers with research resources created from their own material and or personal accounts that I recorded in video/audio tapes. The report was far from being technical; on the contrary, it was very qualitative as it explained the process I went through from identifying candidates for interviews or focus groups, to running those and analysing the data collected. That data justified the approach I took at creating and providing the research material.
Structuration paper.

Structuration paper: In December my ex-boss and I submitted a copy of that paper to a journal (don't know if they will like it.) As I thought, the objective of the paper changed several times during our discussions and writings. My ex-boss is more into e-learning and learning theories, I am more into online tools and communities and software. We managed to find a middle ground where we were both comfortable. At the end we used some Structuration concepts such as the dimensions of structuration, time-space distanciation and Orlikowski’s model of Enactment of Technologies-in Practice to explain what happened in this e-mentoring project I worked in 2 years ago. If you wonder why I would write a paper like that or if there is any “technology” involved... well yes, a lot. E-mentoring is mentoring carried out by using online tools. So what I was interested in is in seeing the effects of the technology in the reactions of people, the way they used the available tools and the overall outcome of the e-mentoring process in their professional careers.

The book chapter... I am now working on it. The editor liked my abstract, although I think it was awful! The chapter is about online communities and governance. What I am trying to do is to explain the dynamics and norms of online communities. Those dynamics and norms show the way online communities self-govern and keep control of what happens there. This is the only way they can stay alive. Hopefully by seeing how these things are done online we can learn some useful lessons as to how we can go about e-government and e-governance. I just started a few days ago and it still needs a lot of work (have written only 2000 words which may not like later), but as a good friend of mine told me a while ago, when I asked him about his PhD upgrade report, it's not the Mona Lisa, but it's smiling :)

BT

2008-10-10T13:55:00.004Z

British Telecom one of the biggest broadband, phone lines and mobile products, digital TV, web hosting, online security and networked IT services for home.... providers in the UK have been giving me various headaches lately. And this is the story:

I recently moved to a new place in the south of England, and of course needed a telephone line and broadband connected to be able to work from home. I ring BT (after finding out that other providers aren't that good, or at least other broadband providers needed a BT line installed... so I decided to go for the whole package with BT.) Give them my new address and tell them I want a telephone line and broadband. They say they will get back to me.

Two days after: someone rings and says they cannot connect my line because it has been taken by another provider and they didn't know who. So they asked me who? And of course I didn't know (although I tried to find out before asking our state agents, but with no success.) Thing is I would have to pay the price of a "reconnection" £125 (aaahhhh). I say Ok I needed a line and broadband quickly. They book a technician to visit me in 10 days. (!!!!!!)

Ten days after: the technician comes. (During those 10 days I went to a local coffee shop and local library to use the internet.) The technician connects what he has to connect inside and outside the house. Then comes back to me and says. There is a problem. Your broadband should be working but the telephone line isn't. There must be a fault in the "exchange" and he was going to report the problem. So I connect my BT Hub which arrived that same morning and Yes the broadband was working! :)

Being able to at least work from home I was not bothered that much by the telephone line (not yet) and I decided to wait until someone contacted me with news.

Five days after that: my broadband stops working. I reset the HUB and nothing happens. Then I get a call from BT: "we are sorry to inform you that your broadband hasn't been fixed yet. We found a problem in the exchange and we had to disconnect your telephone line too. We will be able to fix everything in 20 working days." (that is a month!!!!). I tell them, hey it's the other way around, my broadband was working and the telephone line wasn't. You disconnected my broadband! They just listened and said in any case we have disconnected both your services and we will repair them in 20 working days.
AHHHHHHH

I thought on possible solutions. I couldn't think on going back to the coffee shop/library routine again. Too slow connections and too uncomfortable. I went to THREE and bought a Mobile Broadband USB Modem. A pay-as-you-go one. Not contract one. I did want to use BT broand still because I though it was more reliable. A pay-as-you-go broadband thing would enable me to work from home at a relatively low price. £50 for the USB modem and £15 for a top-up 3GB for one month. Which I could use during these 20 working days. I have to say that that was a temporary solution only. The 3 broadband network isn't good at all. I got disconnected all the time. And it was slow.... but at least I could do my job.

Ok, what happens next? BT ring me days after and tell me that my telephone line will be fixed in a weeks time and the broadband in 2. So I say thanks. The lady, tells me her name, Patty and gives me her direct telephone and asks me to ring her if I had any questions or problems. Nice.

So, I forget about BT and continue normal life. One day I get a call from BT, someone new. He tells me that I have to approve a disconnection otherwise the next disconnection period will be in more than 1 month time. :s I ignore the call and ring Patty and tell her the story. She said it was a mistake. She was dealing with my case and that my lines will be repaired in 1 and 2 weeks.

On the specified date my telephone line starts to work. Yahoo! Good. Then I just need to wait another week for broadband. I think I was too optimistic. I get another call from BT. Someone told me that my line will take a few weeks to be repaired. And I say thank you for the information. I ring Patty (and use the line that apparently wasn't working!) and she says, see these people are in call centres in India. They don't read all the information. I am dealing with your case don't worry. And I ask, so then why do these people keep on calling me, giving me the wrong information??? Misleading me!!! She just says, do not trust them. Just talk to me :s
Waiting, waiting, a week after that I didn't have broadband. So I ring Patty and asked her what was happening. She says she just placed an order for my broadband, that it will take another week. (too late!!!) Ok I say.

The day after that: my telephone line stops working, again! I ring Patty and she says there isn't a problem. She asks me to check my plug, cable, handset. I do everything plus bringing another handset and nothing worked. I ring again and say, it isn't working. They say they will send a technician, but if the problem was on my side, that is, I did something wrong, used the wrong equipment they will charge me £160!!!! At that point I got a text from BT saying:

Fault investigation underway on ***mynumber***. We will update you when we have more information. If internet access is possible go to www.bt.com/fault.

I was sure it wasn't my problem. So I say send the technician. They book one for me to come in 2 days. Next day, I get this text:

BT Fault Update for ***mynumber***. We are aware of your fault and aim to address in by (date:tomorrow 17:00). We will advise if we need to visit your premises.

and the technician comes after lunch time (this is weird, he comes earlier than specified!) he checks everything again. And yes, there was no problem in the inside. He goes outside to check the cables and comes 3o mins after. He says, it's fixed. I tried to use the telephone and it worked! :) and then he says, try your broadband, and yes IT WORKED it F**** WORKED!!!!! :)

And of course I got another text:

BT Update ***mynumber*** Your Fault has been fixed, sorry for any inconvenience. Please contact us within 48 hours. If you need further assistance.

And now I am just sitting here, using BT broadband to write this post and wondering what will be the next episode in this saga.
Should I ring Patty and tell her that my broadband is working 4 days before the date she told me?
Should I go for another broadband provider?

----------------------------------------
If you are wondering. For all calls I made to BT I used my mobile phone. BT's number I called were 0800 numbers which are supposed to be free if you are calling from a landline but they charge you if you are using a mobile!!! For each call I was left on hold many times, I think the longest call was 30 mins. So now I am not looking forward to receiving my mobile bill.

Writing

2008-06-11T12:30:00.013Z

I am reviewing my "To Do" list. I have some interesting things to do. Apart from developing this virtual community for PhDs I have to write some papers. This is what I got in my list:

1. A Chapter in a book titled: Systems Thinking and E-Participation: ICT in the Governance of Society -- the chapter will go in the "Current Trends on e-government and social networking based on ICT" section of the book. Actually I have to write an abstract to be accepted first! I know very little about e-goverment, I know about software, social software and software development! But this book could be perfect for me. The editors of the book want to focus on the both sides of the e-goverment coin: the goverment and the citizens (i.e. the people). So here is where I come, I am going to write a chapter on virtual communities, how they are created, how they evolve, what happens there, etc. Hopefully my experience at participating in several online forums, weblogs, etc will help. Also, although not directly relevant, I could draw on my experience in the project I am working in at the moment: designing a virtual community for educational purposes.

2. This is a paper I am going to write with my boss. It will draw on our experience and the data we got from our last project: E-learning and E-Mentoring to improve skills of Unemployed Women. It's going to be something like: Adding a Structuration Dimension to e-learning and e-mentoring. I used Structuration Theory in my PhD thesis, and my boss is doing the same. So we thought that using it to explain some of the issues in that project could be a good idea. We actually would like to see if e-mentoring really exists. Most of the mentoring activities that our project participants performed were done through other media, so there is was no e in mentoring. The question I am thinking at the moment would be something like Can Social Software (or Virtual Communities) be used for mentoring purposes? We'll have to investigate the mentoring process in detail ... We are still brainstorming....

3. A Project Report to be published in the Research Memorandum Series of the School. Of course it will be based on my experiences at designing and implementing the Virtual Graduate School. Perhaps I could adapt some of my posts in this blog .....

hmmm What else could I write about?
-----------
The other day I asked a friend of mine to draw a picture representing research experiments with students. This is what she gave me. I have posted it in a blog article next to a video about a marketing experiment.

Some thoughts about blogs

2008-04-23T20:32:00.015Z

As I've mentioned a couple of times before, I am working on this project that involves the creation of an online environment for PhD students and young researchers. The purpose of the online environment would be to help them learn how to do research by looking at what other people are doing and going through and by making them share their own experiences as well.

I have recorded a good number of video clips and collected other kind of material as well. Now I am uploading that material in the blogger tool in Sakai. I have an idea about what I would like this site to look like, but I am having some problems at achieving that.

Idea: create articles or posts containing video clips or PPT, etc. (I wrote about this idea in another post, now I am actually doing it!) Each article will address a particular issue related to research in general or the PhD degree in particular. I have organised all the videos, etc I have got under general topics (as I mentionend in my previous post) I have drawn links between general topics so I have got a kind of network of topics. Starting from one topic the idea is to create an article for that topic and embed the video, audio, or PPT and write an introductory text. In addition to this I will add a section called Related Articles where I am going to list three or four other articles with related topics (as shown in my network of topics). Finally I would like to upload all that information on behalf of the person who did the video, or wrote the PPT, etc.

The final result, I hope, will be a network of articles addressing research issues, interconnected between them by simple links to other articles. As each article will be own by different people this will help the site to create a sense of community where more than one person (i.e. me) is working on uploading material. Hopefully in the future, after I open the site to everyone in the school, other people will like to comment on the articles and perhaps write their own articles.

Reality: I have managed to work around some problems but I have three new problems now. First some old problems. I filmed the video clips using a mini DV camera. I moved the DV content into the computer and created WMV files. I learned how to embed these files into posts in the blogger tool. But I kept on having problems with the security of the site. Videos will not show if I set up the settings of the WMV to private within the sites. I reported the problem to our Sakai team and after a few weeks they re-installed? an editor that included the option to upload Flash videos. So I bought a Flash video maker.... I bought Adobe Flash C3 Professional. I learned how to convert the WMV into Flash files, add a skin and upload the files into Sakai. Then I had also problems with relative URLs so I had to set all the Flash files to search for their skin within a specific URL in Sakai. Now all flash videos work. (unless someone changes the location of the skin!!!)
Problems I have now are:

Posts in the blogger tool in Sakai do not have permalinks, and that drives me crazy!!! Because of this I've been unable to include links to other posts in a post. I had designed a sort of box in every post called "Related articles" and in there I have written a list of articles we suggest the student or researcher can read. I just need to add links to that list but I have no individual links for the posts, actually all the URLs I get for every post in the blog and for the list of articles are the same! I have sent a request to fix this, lets see what happens.
I asked the Sakai people to give me grants to upload information on behalf of other members of the site and they said No :( buuaaaaa I will have to think on what I can do to sort this out. Help!!!
There is no option for moderating comments. If someone posts a comment I cannot remove it or move it to another post. Also all comments are ordered in the order they were posted, so the first comment goes on top and the last one is at the end. The user has to scroll down to see the last comment. I was thinking that it could be a better idea to have them the other way around, so the last comment will always come on top. I think that would be more useful because people will always see new things in the top of the screen and they will not need to scroll down to see "if" someone has added something to the discussion.

Conclusion: I need a beer!

Footnote: "You never know how important something (or someone) is until you lose it" ... Everyone has a life lesson to learn

El día empieza iremos hacia el sur
qué caro está el peaje, qué caro está
el Perú

Staring at my whiteboard

2008-03-28T12:08:00.011Z

My mind is not working today. Actually it has been on a strike for a few days now. It must be the easter holidays. :)

I am trying to take a step forward in the project I am working in. So far I have recorded a few video clips from staff and students in the school. Yeah I think I have a good number now. I have done some myself. The videos are short, an average of 5 minutes each. I am also getting other kind of material, like for example a PowerPoint presentation an ex-PhD student sent me, or an essay a second year student is writing. I have also been working on Sakai. I focused my exploration on the blogger feature, but also on the wiki, forum, podcast and resources tools. As I think those will hold the core of the material I am collecting. Of course I will also use the schedule, annoucements and messaging tools, but I think those will form part of the peripheral of the site.

I feel like stuck now. I sort of guess what I should do next but do not know how to do it. I think my next step should be organising all the material I've got so far and try to build a map of themes. This map would help me to:

1. Know the gaps I need to fill regarding areas of research in the school I need to cover
2. Create sort of groups of themes to which the video clips and other material can be classified
3. Then I can use these groups to create a series of blog posts within one or more sites in Sakai.
(I am not sure yet if I will need more than one site in Sakai. I can probably have 2 sites, for example, and name these sites as my two highest level groups of themes. If I have more groups at the highest level I will need more sites).
4. Relate or draw links between groups of material. I could then use these links to connect material between them. For example I can say "If you want to know more see this other podcast ....".
There might be other benefits of drawing a map but at the moment my brain is just starting to warm up. Maybe 20% functional. I have written a list of themes on my whiteboard (see picture) and I hope I can get ideas about how to organise them soon. Sometimes staring at the whiteboard helps, so that is what I've been doing this morning, before I decided to write this post :)

The blogger feature in Sakai, allows each member of the site (that will be staff and students in the school) to create their own "blog". So a site can have as many blogs as there are members in the site. Each "blog" will hold a list of posts. A post is basically an article containing text, pictures, embeded files, like videos or PDFs, etc. When a member access the blogger tool s/he sees a list of all the posts uploaded by everyone in the site. There are ways of filtering this buy author though.( Each site member could have their own PhD/Research diary in their blog as someone proposed in a comment in my previous post.)

Because I am the only one working on this project everything I will upload will come under my name. I have filmed the videos, edited them, I am editing PowerPoints, etc. I will write and upload instructions and introductory texts to each material. Will organise them and make connections between them. But in reality the owner of the "message" withing each material is every single person who has volunteered to help me. So I think I should publish their material under their names. What do you think? I am not sure though about how to do that. Would I require access to everyone's Sakai account?

Having each material under different names will help the site to build a sense of community. New comers will see that other people have posted things and would think about uploading more material themselves (hopefully!). Some members could ask questions in their blogs or in the forums (as someone else commented in my previous post) and other members could create posts to answer those questions.

What I am doing now is just building the foundations of a site that should start feeding itself with the material that staff and students will upload in the future.

hmmm I think this site will need one or more moderators in the future, just to keep it organised.

I am also thinking on a couple of suggestions that a friend of mine made. He said it could be useful to use the google search engine within the site. That can help students to find the material they are looking for. I am not sure about using the actual "google" search engine. Sakai is a password protected environment and all its content should be kept confidential. (or could I embed a google search engine in Sakai?) The blogger in Sakai comes with a very basic search option which searches within all posts in all blogs in the site. I hope that should be enough. Only problem I find is that there will be other material posted in the forums for example and that search engine woudln't find them. One would have to go to the forum search engine to look for things in the forums... and so on.

My friend also suggested using tags in "del.icio.us" or "technorati" but again I am not sure because of the confidenciality and security issues. The blogger in Sakai allows the creation of "keywords" for each post, so I guess I can use them. I could use the theme groups' names as keywords for example. Finally my friend suggested RSS feeds. Some students could use RSS feeds to keep them updated on new posts or comments on posts within the VGS site. I use RSS feeds in my cellphone to read the news sometimes. I use the RSS option in google sidebar to keep me updated with posts in some blogs, on Hi5 and on Facebook. I like them. Some people may not.

Now I will go back to staring at my whiteboard.

Embeding Knowledge in an Online Community

2008-03-05T16:47:00.024Z

I've been relearning a lot of stuff these days. In the project I am working now I need to collect a lot of information from researchers working in the University. I've been filming some of them. Video clips of no more than 5 minutes which I save as WMV files. I have also got PowerPoint and Word files. All that information will be uploaded in a virtual research/learning community I am designing in Sakai.

The name of this community is Virtual Graduate School and its purpose is to help PhD students and young researchers learn how to do research. We will populate the site with information about research in general and about the research that the staff and students of the school are doing. We want to do this by adding a human/personal touch to the site. The site won't replace books and journal articles. Those are available in libraries and on the web for researchers to be read. What is not there, or at least is not that visible, is information about the process of research. How people come up with ideas, how they make their choices, mistakes, rights and wrongs, etc. I call these aspects the human side of research. When you go to a seminar, or read an article, you are told all the good stuff, the final research questions/hypotheses, the methodology and the results. Then don't tell you why and how they came up with those ideas, and what problems they found on the way. This is the gap that the Virtual Graduate School is trying to fill. Of course it will also cover all the formal aspects of research.

The question I've been working in the last month is on how I can do this. First thing that came to my mind was to show "real, life cases". And it occurred to me that video taping people talking about different aspects of their research was a good idea. Some other people are writing short essays or creating PowerPoint presentations for the project. The next step was to think on how I could show or display that information in a site like Sakai (which is the site that this university uses as a virtual learning environment). I decided to try the blogger tool to create Posts containing the videos, PowerPoint, etc. and a short description of the topic presented plus an invitation for discussion. What I want is to make the site (visually) attractive so people will come and visit it, and also thought provoking so people can start a discussion. Discussion helps people learn, so that would be one of the objectives of this project as well.

Click on picture to see a bigger version.

Now on to the technical side (Sakai is still being tested by the University's computer centre and I am still learning how to use it.)

As I previously said, I am creating sort of articles (posts) contaning text and other "objects". The blogger in Sakai accepts html code so I am using the "object" and "embed" commands to embed videos. See first picture, it is an article with 3 video clips. This is just an example, the videos are real, but the text has been copied from a random website. My idea is to make members of the site watch the video and read the related written content which provides contextual information like, introduction of the presenter, a bit of background of topic discussed and then a set of questions which I hope will encourage people to participate with their comments. This is the code I am using:

<object width="320" height="285" align="right" type="application/x-oleobject" standby="Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components..." codebase="https://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=5,1,52,701" classid="CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95" id="mediaPlayer">
<param value="https://video.wmv" name="fileName" />
<param value="true" name="animationatStart" />
<param value="true" name="transparentatStart" />
<param value="0" name="autoStart" />
<param value="true" name="showControls" />
<param value="true" name="loop" />
<embed width="320" height="285" loop="true" designtimesp="5311" autostart="0" src="https://video.wmv" videoborder3d="-1" showstatusbar="-1" showdisplay="0" showtracker="-1" showcontrols="true" bgcolor="darkblue" autosize="-1" displaysize="4" name="mediaPlayer" id="mediaPlayer" pluginspage="http://microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/en/download/" type="application/x-mplayer2" />
</object>

For PowerPoint and Word documents I thought on converting them to PDF and then embed the PDF into the blog. See second picture. This is the code I am using:

<embed width="576" height="443" src="https://file.pdf" type="application/pdf" />

The menu and toolbars are hidden within the original PDF file. (Go to File-Document Properties and click on the "Initial View" tab)

The advantage is that the presentation comes in a small portion of the site, allowing for an introduction and some other descriptions to be put beside it. However, the presentation is not that small that it cannot be read. The scroll bar remains so the reader con change "slide/page" easily. Also, the reader can have the chance to review some of the comments already made below the article without having to scroll down so much.

Click on picture to see a bigger version.

Another advantage is that I can do this without any other tool than the standard set I get in a University's machine. I was thinking on converting videos and files to flash format but I don't have flash converter/creator. I will have to buy one. And also I am not sure about how much time it would take and how beneficial it would be.

Learning to take pictures

2008-02-01T14:23:00.001Z

I got a Nikon D40 with standard 18-55 f3.5-5.6 lens from work and I am supposed to take "good"pictures with it. This is my first experience with a DSLR camera. I have had cameras before but all of them have been point-and-shot. That is: I never bothered about the settings!

Now I have to learn.

So I've been trying to take some pictures, with different settings of aperture, exposure compensation and shutter speed. Here you have some of them.

Playing with the aperture size (the f-number):

Changing the exposure compensation feature from positive to negative,

Using slow shutter speed, moving camera to follow object and keeping camera still while object moves.

I clearly need to practice. If the weather improves this weekend I will try to take some shots outdoor. Any particular tips you would like to share with me?

Help!

My Eye Operation

2007-10-02T18:38:00.001Z

Note: this story beats the I cut my finger story I wrote last year.

A month ago I had an eye operation. It was the first time and hopefully the last one too. Here I'm gonna relate you, briefly, all the incidents that happened that day and the days after. But first, I have to say that if you are under 15 you have to be accompanied by an adult to read this blog. :)

The reason for having this surgery was a pterygium in my right eye that was bothering me for over a year. I thought of having this done in Lima with laser. But being so far I decided to go to the NHS here in Britain. As usual I first went to my GP who, to my surprise, referred me immediately to an eye doctor. This eye doctor referred me again to another eye doctor expert in the frontal part of the eye. This last doctor said I could have the operation and it would be ambulatory (sort of like going to the dentist!). He booked me for the 3rd of September and asked me if I wanted general or local anesthetic. I said general of course!

On the 3rd of September Rodrigo and I got to the reception of the Eye Hospital and I was kindly received by a nice group of nurses. One of them was worried that I didn't speak English. Hehehe I said don't worry. A second nurse asked me if I could have local instead of general anesthetic. I asked why. She said because it is safer, and "our big lift isn't working so we cannot take you to the operating theater". (Bullsh....!) She said it was going to be quicker and would be able to go home in a few hours. I accepted.

The nurse walked us to a big room where I was assigned a bed. I changed to a white gown... and waited. In the mean time nurses came many times to offer us tea and biscuits, of course Rodrigo was delighted. When the time of the operation came a nurse came to collect me. We took the lift (????) and got into a sort of reception room of the operating room. There I met a nice nurse (he was rather camp!) He explained what was going to happen and told me jokes and made me relax. Then the anesthetist came and gave two injections very close to the eye. Looked scary but they weren't painful. Just a tiny prick. After 10 mins my eye went numb. The same feeling you have when you get an anesthetic at the dentist. I couldn't open my eye. In fact half of my face felt like a huge water melon. They took me into the operating room and put things to cover my face. The doctor put a metallic thing to open my eye and began to operate. You may be wondering if I could see. And the answer is YES. Although everything was blurred I could tell the doctor and nurses from the ceiling. I could see the needles, the scissors and other thingies... and I could hear the noises they made. The operation lasted about one hour. My neck went stiff and was hurting... Basically what the doctor did was remove the pterygium, then take a piece of tissue from another part of the eye to cover the hole left by the pterygium. When he finished he put bandage lens to cover my eye (like a contact lens but bigger and rectangular) and a patch on my eye. He gave instructions to the nurse to remove the patch in 1hr. I was taken to another room to recover. One hour later I walked and took the lift to the room, where my bed was.

Rodrigo was there waiting for me :) I felt numb but Ok. No pain yet. I laid on the bed and fell asleep for 20 mins. Rodrigo took a picture of me. Then I woke up and sat on a chair. Rodrigo took pictures of me. The nurse came to remove the patch... that was scary. Rodrigo couldn't take any picture :P. The nurse took the patch off my eye and asked me to open my eye!!!! Of course I couldn't. That is the weirdest sensation ever. It was awful. I opened my eye and I saw double. I could feel the bandage lens, and my eye began to water. The nurse gave me 3 drops and said I should use them every 2 hrs! Except at night time..... And if I felt pain I should have paracetamol. Rodrigo then took me home and gave me food :D I was really hungry and eating distracted my attention from my eye to my stomach. I went to bed and fell asleep.
I woke up at 02:30 with a lot of pain in the eye... I went to the living room, took 2 paracetamol and waited. I walked around the furniture for 3 hours. The pain didn't go. I sat in the sofa and thankfully I fell asleep for 1 hour. Woke up again with pain. This whole loop of trying to sleep, walking around things and pain lasted the whole day to the extent that Rodrigo had to ring the hospital. They gave me another appointment for 17:00.
We went to the hospital and saw another doctor.... well... Rodrigo saw him because I couldn't. I had my eyes closed. My right eye had been hurting and watering the whole day. And the doctor says "please open your eye" hehehehehe I tried but couldn't. I tried harder and I think I could open it a bit but not enough. So the doctor takes some magic drops and gave me one. In a second or two the pain disappeared!!! Why did the doctor not give me those drops instead of freaking paracetamol!!!!!!

Anyway I was afraid that my eye was infected but it wasn't. It was healing Ok according to the doctor. I asked him if he could give me stronger painkillers and he said well, you don't want ulcers, do you? ahhhhhhhhhhh

Well, those drops stopped the pain for the rest of the day and night. Next day I had no pain, just some discomfort in the eye, which lasted a few more days, until the doctor removed the bandage lens a week after.

I must say this: I was impressed by the service in the Eye Hospital and NHS. The nurses and doctors are first class.

What about software? hmmm... everytime I've been to the eye clinic (not the eye hospital) to see the doctor for check ups, the receptionist enters my name in the computer then she asks me my address and she says ok, go to the waiting room, blah blah, .... When I leave I go to the receptionist I give her the instructions from my doctor, she enters something in the computer and then she takes a yellow paper and writes the date for my next appointment.
Also, they had these TV/Internet screens by each bed. They had a metallic arm which allowed you to move the screen where you wanted. Only thing was that you needed your credit card to use it. :-/

Computer Agents

2007-07-30T16:46:00.002Z

I am writing a paper on software development and structuration theory which has actually been accepted in the Journal of Systems Research and Behavioral Science (I am working on corrections now). The paper is based on my PhD thesis' contribution to knowledge (it sounds important but it isn't :P). To put it in short, simple terms, in my paper I explain how I developed a model of social issues in software development.

More in detail (read this if you have insomnia)

The model is situated within a theoretical framework of structuration of technology (you'll need to read Giddens and Orlikowski to understand this) and was generated from data I gathered from virtual communities of software developers (people like you who spend their time reading and posting in blogs and forums :P).

My model describes how developers' understanding of new situations (like new assignments) is dependent on their current mental structures, that is their past experiences and knowledge of certain practices. Giddens calls them social structures but because structures exist in the memory of people (and they come to life through human activity and interaction) I call them mental structures or preconceptions. So, preconceptions determine the way developers address new situations. That is, developers act on the social structures known to them to evaluate, design and implement software.

However, as new assignments possess new challenges (not every project is the same and neither is every developer), developers adapt their preconceptions to develop new software. This is a cyclic process as new situations will form part of developers' future preconceptions. Preconceptions and new situations carry out a number of human and social issues that the developers' have to deal with and address when they develop software. During my fieldwork I found out that the main sources of issues for developers where their own development environment, the practices or methodologies they had (or were forced) to use and their client organisations (we all have hated one or two users or maybe more?).

(Insomnia bit over)

Now, I submitted the paper and got positive feedback from the examiner. However I got one recommendation which I am dealing with at the moment. The examiner suggested I should address the issue of partitioning the software development task between human and computer-based agents. YES computer-based agents. Something like AI.

Ok if you don’t know what I mean by computer-based agents here you have an example. If you have ever been to amazon, you may have noticed the personalised suggestions you get there. That is a computer-based agent which tracks your preferences and purchases and by comparing other people’s preferences and purchases produces a list of suggestions. Although they are only pieces of software, to some people they may appear as humans. My examiner thinks we could produce computer-based agents to develop software.

I realise that by doing a PhD in management I have turned to the light side of the force. In my doctorate I study people producing software, and ignored the possibility that there can also be software producing more software. Software reproduction. Of course that would be another PhD and I am not interested. But, I wonder, how would software developers’ lives be if they had to deal with AI issues as well? Emotionless, unambiguous agents, but perhaps unpredictable like humans. Who knows???

Technology of the future: The Wee-dar

2007-07-23T16:56:00.001Z

We went to Leeds last weekend. We had a great night out with our friends: lunch at a Portuguese, Transformers (yes, with Optimus Prime and the gang! not my cup of tea, but what can I do if I go out with big children!), Guinness Red (less bitter than the original), then dinner at La Tasca (acceptable tapas and red wine, good music and excellent environment).

When we were walking to the car park, we witnessed an incident. All of a sudden, out of the blue, about 10 police officers appeared and ran towards a small crowd of drunks (which were not us of course). They arrested a guy and tried to contain the small crowd that was gathering there. In seconds 3 or 4 police patrols and vans came with more officers!!! Seriously, it looked like a movie. We walked by and stopped to talk to other lurkers. A man who had been there since the beginning told us that the police arrested a guy who had been weeing in the street...

I've never seen such a display of force to arrest a wee-r. I feel protected now. I don't mind terrorists and floods as long as I am free from the wee-rs.

Anyhow, I was wondering what kind of system the police have to detect wee-rs so quickly. Do you think it is cctv? It may involve the use of advanced video and audio equipment as well as a powerful smeller. It must be a network that covers the whole city centre. Or perhaps it was one of the Transformers (one with a huge nose, i.e. wee-dar?). oh what a weekend!

The Aztecs, Bucephalus and Solzhenitsyn

2007-07-02T09:18:00.004Z

I went to the pub last night with my husband and a friend. There we met a guy who asked us to look after his dog - Jack - while he went to the toilet. The guy, Mark, seemed nice, and the dog was very cute so we said yes, no problem. When Mark came from the toilet we gave him Jack back and continued our conversation. We were talking about the America cup and Venezuela. All of a sudden Mark came to our table and joined our conversation. He told me you look like a mexican indian! :s I said nothing.... and he said yes really you look like an Aztec, and I couldn't avoid laughing. I said I am not from Mexico. And he didn't listen. He kept on talking about the Aztecs. He said he saw a TV show about the Aztecs recently. He said something about the "last aztec" who was living in London :s He then asked me if I knew about Moctezuma. And I said just a bit, he was an Aztec king who was defeated by the Spanish. And he said you should know more of your history! Oh my God I am not Mexican!

Well, Mark continued with his tale about the Aztecs, and then he changed the topic to his favourite movie: ¡Viva Zapata! Again he asked us if we knew about it. I said oh yes the leader of the Mexican revolution. My husband said something about Marlon Brandon (in Viva Zapata and the Godfather) and Mark bought it. Mark liked Zapata's horse and he asked us if we liked it too. We said yes his famous white horse. And then my husband said: like Alexander's the great horse. And then the guy got more excited. Oh yes Bucephalus I love Bucephalus how wonderful horse... and Alexander the great... I love him! He told us stories about Bucephalus and got even more excited...

After a while, I don't know how, we ended up talking about Russian literature. My friend happened to know a book that Mark had read: The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn was a russian dissident and in his book he denounces the structure of repression of the soviet state. Systematic abuse by Lenin and Stalin. Awful stories about prisoners in concentration camps, etc. Apparently that book was a bit depressing, but of course Mark loved it... My friend and Mark discussed the book for a while until Mark got a bit emotional. I could see his eyes turning red... and it wasn't the effects of the pint of lager he was drinking!

It was late (and Jack was getting very bored and impatient) so we decided to go home. We said bye to Mark and he asked us to say hi to him next time we see him. He said he might not remember us but that we should remind him of our interesting conversation.

Unfortunately, Mark did not know anything about software development, otherwise we could've had some fun discussing windows vista, agile methodologies, and the new iPhone!!!! (which by the way is internet enabled, has an amazing user interface, and a multi-touch screen... just beautiful) ... I'm such a nerd!

¡Viva México cabrones!

Cherie Blair y sus campañas anti-esclavitud

2007-06-20T13:32:00.001Z

Hace unas semanas Cherie Booth, mas conocida como Cherie Blair vino a la universidad de Hull a dar una presentación . Su seminario fue parte de una conferencia a cerca de la esclavitud. Resulta que el primer tio que armó una campaña anti-esclavitud y finalmente logró abolirla, William Wilberforce, nació en estas inóspitas tierras de Hull. Y este año se cumplen 200 años desde la abolición,

La charla estuvo muy interesante y entretenida. La primera parte de la presentación se enfocó en la historia de la esclavitud.... claro la tía tiene mucho material, porque los ingleses fueron expertos en ese arte.... luego pasó a formas de esclavitud modernas, es decir como se ha transformado la esclavitud en nuestros tiempos (tráfico de niños o de mujeres, etc.) y luego todos los intentos del mundo "civilizado" para desaparecer la esclavitud de la faz de la tierra.

La presentacion y el teatro estuvieron impresionantes. Habian algunas personalidades locales en el público (nadie que uds. conozcan). El teatro es el salón mas grande de la escuela de negocios. Con super tres pantallas gigantes. Por ahi he visto a uno que otro profesor dar clase en esta aula con un micrófono inalámbrico de esos que se ponen en la cabeza, a lo Britney Spears.

Luego de la presentación, el público, incluyendo Cherie, se fue a la cafetería de la escuela. Yo no fui porque me vine a bloggear. Me cuentaron por ahí que por ahí vino una estudiante de la India a decirle que su charla le habia hecho recordar a los esclavos que tenia en su casa --- what!!!!

¿Y qué tiene que ver todo esto con Software o desarrollo de Software? pues casi nada, solo que la presentacion la hicieron en PowerPoint, jejejejeje.

¡¡Lluvia de millones!!

2007-06-15T09:40:00.001Z

¿Cómo se dice lluvia en árabe?
Alomejó nos mojamos.

¿Cómo se dice lluvia en alemán?
Gotascaen

¿Y lluvia en zulu?
Novamoamojá

jejejeje... qué monse...

Ha estado lloviendo desde ayer en la mañana y hoy la cosa se puso mas fuerte. Mi calle está inundada, y ¡tuvimos que nadar para llegar al auto! Me pegué una super bañada... pero igual vine a trabajar.... "responsabilidad ante todo".

Nos han avisado a todos por correo que grabemos nuestro trabajo en la computadora seguido, porque puede ser que se nos venga una falla eléctrica general en todo el campus,... claro, por la lluvia....

Chequeen el video...

Esto me hace acordar de aquella canción que dice así:

♫ Que llueva, que llueva,
la bruja está en la cueva,
los pajaritos cantan,
las nubes se levantan,
¡que si!
¡que no!
que caiga un chaparrón,
con azúcar y turrón,
que rompa los cristales de la estación,
y los tuyos si, y los míos no. ♫

(Chata, esto no tiene nada que ver contigo, no te sientas aludida ¡ah!
mmm, quizás debería traer al Danicito aquí a ver si le gusta esta ducha gigante jejeje)

What do I know about e-learning?

2007-04-24T16:22:00.003Z

Very little but here you go.

Today I was talking to my boss about websites, google and discussion forums, and my weblog came into the conversation somewhere. I realised I hadn't posted anything since February! not because I had nothing to say but because I forgot.

I am gonna update you on my latest activities. Last week I attended a conference in Hawaii!!!
But hey! Don't get too excited I didn't go to Hawaii, it was an online conference and I only needed my laptop to attend the seminars. The name of the conference is Technology, Colleges and Community and it is designed for university and college practitioners. 99.99% of the presentations were focused on teaching and learning, topics which are not in my field of expertise (if I have one). I decided to attend the conference for three reasons:
1. I'd never been to an online conference before. I was interested in seeing how they worked, specially the software tools, chatrooms, webinars, etc.
2. Some of the seminars where about the use of social software (which is a topic that fascinates me) in teaching.
3. The project I am working on is focused on e-mentoring and e-learning. The online community I am administrating supports students learning by providing a place for discussion and with relevant reading material. I was interested in knowing what other people are doing in similar situations and maybe get new ideas for our project.

So, what did I learn in this conference?

I found it interesting to see how academics reinvent software tools and make them work for their needs. Most of the presentations I attended focused on the use of social software, such as weblogs and wikis in online courses. I enjoyed one about using Google Notes, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets for collaborative work. So simple but still very few people use tools like these.

In one seminar the presenter explained how she used blogs and wikis within the blackboard environment. So in some instances, students were asked to write personal journals (weblogs) and in some others students were asked to produce a group report in a wiki. Some of the weblogs were public so the other students could read them and comment on them. To make their weblog public students had to be very confident on what they were writing and not be afraid of criticism. Of course the teacher had access to all of them.

In another seminar the presenter showed some data from a study he was doing about assessing online discussions. From the 50 (I think) online courses he studied most of them were using discussion boards as a way of assessing students learning. Students were asked to contribute at different moments in the course and with a minimum number of posts. The designers of the online courses stated that they encouraged discussions in class, because they are a way of motivating students to think, reflect on their ideas, articulate and share their ideas. Someone said this: "Discussion is where class happens!". I like it. If you don't make your students interact online then the online course would look like a correspondence course!

The most entertaining seminar for me was this one about using anime (Japanese cartoons) to teach Japanese. The guy, who said he liked paperless media, made his students write subtitles or captions for the anime series with a special software. He also used wikis and bulletin boards to make his students work in groups.

In our project's virtual community tool students participate and discuss about the topics they are assigned. Some of these topics are assessed activities so it is compulsory for them to post at least one contribution in those threads. However, I've noticed that they participate with the same enthusiasm in the non-assessed activities. Since the beginning of the course I've seen an improvement in quality in content of their online interactions. They know they can take their time to think and design their contribution. Also, students are more confident at using the software tool, they respond to each other posts, they are able to attach extra documentation or refer to external websites. Basically, what I am seeing there is the formation of a virtual learning community, and I feel very excited about that.

By the way, the software we used to attend the webinars is called Elluminate. Here you have a screenshot (click on the picture for a larger version). I attended the seminars from home, using a slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-w dial up connection, and had very little problems. (I experienced some delay problems in the anime presentation, the audio was faster than the actual presentation, so it felt unsynchronized). The PowerPoint presentation is shown in the main screen in the right-hand side. If the presenter opened a website in a browser, the browser will appear on top of (inside) the Elluminate screen. The list of participants is shown in the top left-hand side and below it there is a chat room. Whenever we wanted to ask a question we could raise our hands by clicking on the "raise your hand" button. The presenter would see that and "give us" the microphone. If we didn't have a microphone we could use the chat room. In all the seminars I attended I noticed that discussions in the chat room ran in parallel with the actual presentation. Sometimes the presenter would interrupt his/her presentation to make a comment on something that had been said in the chat room. Seminars only lasted 45min each and at the end we could express our gratitude by "applauding", cool!

Matching Software

2007-02-12T17:38:00.002Z

Last year, just before christmas, I entertained myself programming a small application in Visual Basic for Ms Access 2002. I developed a matching software to pair mentors and students in our project... (see 2 - 3 posts below)

For our project we are asking mentors and students to complete an online questionnaire about their experience and values (which I designed in our online community tool). The data from the questionnaire (tab-delimited files) are imported into the matching software. The application then calculates a matching mark for all the mentor-mentee combinations. The more similar values and experience mentor and student have, the higher the marks. Marks are shown in the grid (click picture to see a larger version).

The next step in the process is manual. My colleague and I decide which mentor goes with which student by clicking on the marks. The software highlights the mentor and student so they cannot be chosen again. (Only one studefor each mentor and one mentor for each student.) Of course we will choose the highest marks possible. We are doing this bit manually to avoid having the last pairs getting the worst marks. So by choosing ourselves the pairs we will try to balance the scale and be fair. The list of pairs chosen is shown in the bottom of the screen.

The whole thing looks simple. The only thing though was the $£%@# grid. I had to draw it! 25x25 = 625 boxes :( one by one!! I had all the resulting matching marks in an array and needed something to display them. The only thing that occurred to me was that grid.... I asked some "experts" (Pastelito, Tiki, JLo¼...) in visual basic, .net, java, etc. how I could draw 625 boxes in one go but got no answer...

The software works so I don't mind the time I spent in each box :P but if you happen to know a shortcut or a better way for doing this feel free to contribute in this blog. If you have no clue, just tell me whatever you are thinking....

-----------
cuando le pregunte a la Chata lo de la grilla me dijo "desconozco joven" :D

2007-01-30T11:33:00.001Z

Hace tiempo que debí poner esta vaina aqui:

Este es el correo electrónico que me mandó mi examinador de tésis cuando aprobó las correcciones finales. Luego de esto... se me quitó el dolor de cabeza que tenia :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecilia.

I have now had the opportunity to review your thesis amendments, and am happy to confirm that you have met the requirements of the examiners, and so will be awarded the degree of PhD.

I will contact the relevant people in the Research Office and Graduate School to ensure that the necessary paperwork is completed.

Hearty congratulations from me on your success, which is well deserved given the comprehensive nature of your research, and welcome to the club, Dr Loureiro Koechlin!

Cheers,
Steve.

Professor Steve Clarke
Professor of Information Systems
Business School
The University of Hull
Hull HU6 7RX
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¿Qué opinan? ¿Me dejo llamar Dra. Loureiro o mejor prefieren Dra. Corazón? :D

Software Development for E-Mentoring

2006-12-14T14:38:00.004Z

To develop software for human systems (as opposed to machines, e.g. software to control a production line) one has to understand the nature of those human systems. Unlike machines, which behave predictably, are stable and unambiguous, people are unpredictable, unstable, ambiguous, inconsistent, moody and different (you expect two Nokia 73 cellphones look and behave the same, however even twin brothers will have different personalities). These human characteristics shape organisational environments where you find a diversity of people working under the same roof. This is also true for social software - the kind of software that facilitates social interactions over the internet, for example online communities like Hi5. Thousands if not millions of people will use such application and interact with each other in unimaginable ways.

As I mentioned in my previous post I am working on designing the structure of an online community software (I am not programming the software though. I am trying to do my best at customising the tools that I was given). So I have a task of designing software for a human process called e-mentoring. To do this I have been reading about e-mentoring (very little yet). Why? Because I need to understand what people DO and NEED to do E-mentoring.

What I have found is that e-mentors and mentees need to perform the following activities:

Communicate with each other
Collaborate - work on something together
Build a relationship between them - empathise?
Networking - look beyond the mentor-mentee relationship, build a community of practice?

From the above I gather that my job - and the job of a software developer who wants to design software for e-mentoring or similar activities - is to provide tools that allow people to perform those activities. In addition I think that the software should include features that encourage people to participate online and provide confidentiality, security and works!.

In my nice diagram (I use MS Visio by the way :P) I am showing a schema of the above. My interest of course is on the right hand side of this diagram. However, it is impossible to put software development in a bubble, without considering the system which is going to use the software. For developers this implies an understanding of the human and social aspects of the e-mentoring process (different from the technical aspects); and of course the ability to transform this understanding in working software. You will know that your online application has been a success if: (1) Mentors and Mentees were able to connect and achieve the mentoring goals (2) A community of practice is created from these interactions ???

Click on the image to see it full size

E-mentoring and Online Communities

2006-12-13T18:10:00.003Z

What is e-mentoring?

Mentoring is a process where an experienced individual helps another less experienced individual to identify and achieve goals. For example within an organisational environment you can have a manager helping a subordinate to improve his/her professional skills. Mentoring provides mentees with personal growth and development; and mentors with the experience of helping someone while performing their jobs. E-mentoring is doing this but over CMC (computer mediated communication). Maybe without mentor and mentee meeting in person! Cool!

To perform e-mentoring we need a “place” for people to meet online, perhaps we need an online community. An online community is a space where members can communicate and collaborate. In e-mentoring terms this means that participants can:

(Communicate) Exchange ideas - problems - give advice - provide information
(Collaborate) Do things online - for example: mentors helping mentees with writing their CVs

I am working in a research project that will provide e-mentoring support to unemployed women. They will be e-mentored by other more experienced women who are currently working at a senior management level. I am the geek member of the team :-) Among other things, I am in charge of designing the structure of an online community software to fit our e-mentoring needs. It is a web based application provided by a third party. I was given administrative rights, woooooohahaha. The application allows customisation of menu, creation of user accounts, roles for users, creation of resource (files) folders, discussion boards, chat rooms and questionnaires.

Because this is a research project I have to be very conscious about the software features I am choosing. I need to justify the use of each option in the software and monitor its use (for reporting purposes). I am also aware that I have to be flexible because things may need to be changed during the duration of the e-mentoring process. Therefore, I will have to check the use of the online community, respond to user feedbacks as quickly as possible and amend the application if possible.

Now, I know there is a contradiction between doing e-mentoring and doing it in an online community. E-mentoring is mostly a pair activity, it is private and confidential: an interaction between mentor and mentee. An online community is a place where you expect more than 2 people (hence the term community) to interact or socialise in an environment to which all members have access. So interactions are public to online members.

How do you reconcile e-mentoring with online communities?

Well, I think e-mentoring has two aspects. One is the one I mentioned above: pair meetings. The other one is community support. By community support I mean a group of people (other mentors and other mentees) who are going through similar experiences and who can gain from sharing their experiences with their peers. For example, mentors can receive guidance from more experienced mentors; mentors can discuss common problems in a chat room, etc. This can facilitate the creation and development of communities of practice in different fields of expertise.

From what I have mentioned, my approach to designing the structure of this e-mentoring site is, first to provide separate discussion areas for both mentors and mentees (community support) and a common area for private pair meeting.

Also, there are some tools that could be used to encourage people participate in the community. For example to provide online material on e-mentoring literature to guide mentors, to assign mentors and mentees some online tasks they can do together to encourage pair meetings, and to keep them informed of the online interactions by other members of the community via “digest” e-mails (summaries). I think these features will encourage people to go into the online community and participate.

If this works the online community will be a success. However this does not mean that the e-mentoring will work. For e-mentoring to work I think, we need the online community to work of course, but also, we need the pair to empathise: like each other and work together; and finally we need the mentee’s goal to be achieved or at least we need a mentor and mentee to be happy with the work done.

Can e-mentoring work if the online community doesn’t work? It could. Maybe if pairs choose a separate online media to meet (like MSN), but that has to be done on mutual agreement, and pairs will miss all the online support given by the community.

Implications for Software Development? A lot, but I will discuss them on a separate post.

I’m off.

A touch of Coke ® and Cafeine

2006-11-24T13:09:00.006Z

You Know You're Addicted to Coding When...

Triple espresso's start tasting bland

You have nightmares about COBOL and ADA.

Instead of using MS Word, you type your essay for school in HTML using NotePad.
School? What's that?

You laugh at movies that show programmers at work.

You walk outside and wonder why the sun doesn't make a lens-flare in your eye....

You get withdrawal symptoms if you're away from a computer for more than 3 hours

(Lines_of_Code) / (Hours_of_Sleep) < (Number_of_Energy_Drinks_Consumed)

You're pressing CTRL+S every 5 minutes, in every application..

You end each line you type with ";", even plain english ones

You code your own support software for the digital camera you just bought

Your 4 year old son has seen you login and out of Windows and Linux so much that he can do it himself.

You have more groceries inside your keyboard than in your fridge.

Stereotypes

2006-11-06T09:04:00.002Z

I hope this does not bore you too badly, but it really helps me exercise my brain and is also part of my therapy. :)

One of the most interesting things I came across during my fieldwork is the issue about how developers see or portray themselves. The typical stereotype of developers is that one of low interpersonal skills, lack of verbosity... inarticulate techies with the verbal communication skills of a mime... geeks interested in computers and code and living semi-autistic lives. I know many developers who fit this description (I won't mention names :p I'm a nice person). However I also know developers who are quite the opposite. Actually I think I belong to this second group :D... just kidding, (I think I have something of both, whether good or bad I tend to keep my feelings to myself.) More communicative and sociable developers are usually the ones who get to deal with users because they are able to speak their (any) language and then articulate technology and software needs if not programme them. Anyway... my point is that although there exists a stereotype of a developer (the autistic mime) in fact there are different kinds of people working in the field with different skills who are able to specialise in the different aspects of the process.

I did my research on the internet. I collected data from online forums and weblogs where software development is discussed. I.e. where developers - autistic mimes and the others - can have their say. Taking in mind what I said above I was trying to decide whether this stereotype is in fact reflected or manifested in the online world. Some people would say that there are not enough tools in the online media to verify this. The reason is simple. We can only see the contributions of people who "communicate" their ideas online. There is no way for us to know who is online just reading but not communicating. We call people who don't participate lurkers... so the question is are lurkers autistic mimes?

From my experience as an online participant and as a software developer I would say that the answer is yes and no. YES they are online autistic mimes, cos in the online world they don't speak to the others and they don't interact/socialise with the others. And NO because being an online lurker does not mean that you lack communication and interpersonal skills off line. So this means that there are communicative developers who somehow don't feel confident at writing posts online, so it's sociable offline, not interested in online media or lurkers online (Chata, 2006).

Seeing this from a different perspective, Are autistic mimes always lurkers? hmmm I have read a respectable amount of literature (more than 2 papers :D) about CMC (computer mediated communication) and online pragmatics (which studies the ways in which meaning is conveyed through online media). Ok, you don't have to read this literature to know that online communication could be anonymous or that in fact in most types of CMC people can use false names or nicknames. However what this literature does is help you to understand that a consequence of this anonymity is that participants in CMC are likely to be more self-disclosed than in face-to-face conversations as "there is very little chance of anyone ever linking them with their statements" (Parrish, 2002). Also the fact that other people are not physically present helps the online participant to relax and convey their ideas clearer, especially if their written speech is better than their oral one (Beto, 2006). What this tells me is that there may be developers who are not able to communicate face-to-face but who have no problems at expressing their ideas online. For example by discussing topics in online forums or what is more likely, by projecting their real selfs through their weblogs (Chata, 2006). So here we have autistic mimes off line turned into communicative and sociable entities online.

Conclusion: perhaps what we need in the development field is to adapt the environment to the needs, characteristics and skills of developers so they can do a better job. For example one time technical support was about to install a network point in the toilets to help a developer - who was spending most of the time there - do his job. (this is a true story)
now with wifi there is no need for such thing!

So to turn our autistic mimes into sociable persons online we'll probably need to let them become virtual entities and reconnect to the matrix...

ZZZzzzzzzzzz I'm tired.

----------------------------
Parrish, R., (2002), 'Conversation analysis of internet chat rooms' < http://www.polisci.wisc.edu/~rdparrish/Chat%20Rooms%20for%20Web%20Site.htm >
Beto (2006) MSN conversation with Beto on a sleepless Friday night... talking about transcendental issues. Thanks Beto!!
Chata (2006) MSN conversation with Viviana (a.k.a Chata) talking about food, friends, life and weblogs. Chata you are the best!

My VIVA experience

2006-11-01T09:00:00.004Z

Sit down because this one is huge...

The PhD oral exam, also known as Viva Voce or just VIVA is one of the most exciting events at the end of your PhD studies. After submitting your thesis (that blue covered bulk of more than 350 pages containing more than 100,000 words of theoretical regurgitation+some interesting conclusions+some
diagrams/tables/pictures+acknowledgments+++) you have to wait for your VIVA. While you wait you don't want to see your thesis... It took you years, blood and tears and you don't want to find any typo or mayor error. So, you leave it aside for a while to allow it to dry off (from the blood and tears). In the mean time, you go home, see your family and friends, enjoy the nice weather, the food and parties. You also look for jobs, and if you are lucky you get one.

Some people (most of them already doctors) recommended me to not over prepare. I was told that I had to read my thesis the week before and that I should enjoy the process (that last bit was my husband's idea... hehehe I just wanted to get it done with.) Ok, so the week before you read your thesis... but the week before that one and the one before before that one... you do nothing. In some cases you want to have a mock viva, so you ask your supervisor to arrange one for you. I had mine two weeks before my VIVA and didn't prepare for it. I just went there with my happy face and had a 80 min question/answer session with J a lecturer who kindly offered to read my thesis and act as a mock examiner. The session went Ok. I was surprised of how confident I felt, and of how quickly I was able to answer the questions (hello!!! it took me years, blood and tears, so I knew the answers). Anyway, the mock VIVA was fine and then I forgot about my thesis for the rest of the week.

The week before my VIVA I started a rather boring routine. I'd go to my office early in the morning, read my e-mails, do only what was urgent (i.e.nothing) and go to the school's coffee shop with a copy of my thesis, a pencil, my cell phone and my headphones. I'd seat there for the whole day reading my thesis. ZZZZZZzzzzzz. What made my life less miserable where my friends. I was lucky to have so many that they would come in turns and distract me from my thesis (yeah!) offering me support, coffees and apple juice (thanks Andrew!). To be honest I didn't do much work until the Friday before my VIVA (my VIVA was the Monday after). That Friday I read the last 3 chapters and felt that it looked like a real thesis and that there was something worth there. Not that I didn't think it was worth it, but then I really felt it. That Friday night I also went dancing, drunk a few beers and went to bed late. I spent Saturday and Sunday doing things, keeping my self busy.

Monday morning... my VIVA was at 10:30 so I had half of the morning for me. I woke up at 6:30 and went running for 30mins. (I hurt my foot a bit but it wasn't that painful.) I showered, put on my suit (yes, I looked like a CEO) had a nice breakfast and went to Uni. Then, my usual routine, checked my e-mails, and then went to the coffee shop. There I met Guja, then Andrew, then Yi, then Inga, then, then... I had to go to the meeting room. I brought with me a copy of my thesis, and my data (about 5Kg).

The meeting room was a small room with a big table and 6 chairs. When I got there, both, the internal and the external examiners were there with my supervisor. I introduced myself to the examiners and then the external examiner, who was chairing the session, started the exam.

First question: what is the argument of your thesis?
answer: skip this is if you don't care about software development... my thesis looks at how human and social issues in business organisational contexts and development environments affect software developers thinking process and how this thinking process shapes the software they produce.

So the argument of my thesis is that human and social aspects play a significant role in shaping developers work, beliefs, behaviour, interactions and working practices, and that that in turn affects the nature and perhaps the quality of the software they develop.

Developers act first based on their preconceptions of the characteristics of the organisations and people they are working for (and with) and the qualities of the development practices they know or have used. These preconceptions are background knowledge about the human and social nature of organisational environments (who use software) and the development environments (where software is produced). Background knowledge also involves developers' beliefs about how development practices provide them with enough tools to address human and social issues. Preconceptions therefore shape developers' views on new assignments, for example developing new software for a new organisation. The picture that developers build of their new target organisation and the software that is needed is first based on their preconceptions particularly their human and social aspects. In my thesis I modeled this in a recursive way as the pictures that developers build of their new assignments (organisations, people and software) will become preconceptions and influence their future assignments.

So how did I end up saying that all these preconceptions + new knowledge of human and social issues affect the quality of software? Easy... 1st. from the literature, one of the most known causes of software failure is the neglect of human and social aspects (read Warne(2003)*). 2nd. perhaps a bit of common sense... if you are developing software which are going to be used by people, you need to know the users. Human beings are unpredictable, nonlinear and ambiguos. People could hold secret agendas or have separate goals. People could easily change their minds about the software and decide to subvert it or just not use it. I think we all have seen users saying they need A one day and the next day they will tell you the never said A and that they are wating for B... and that you are already late!!. If you are not aware of these issues your software will be a disaster. 3rd. As a developer you should know that what is more difficult for you is not to learn how to design or programme software but to work with your colleagues, in a particular environment, understand your users, agree with your manager and not hate the DBA. If you are working in an unfriendly environment then your software will also be unfriendly.
--- end of answer ---

Ok... enough of this ... back to the story...

so I had like 30 or so questions like that (don't really remember I didn't count them)

After 1:30hr the external and the internal agreed that that was it. They asked my supervisor and me to go and they told us that they were going to call us in 30 mins to discuss their decision. (When I went out I found a note and flowers for me left by my husband out in the corridor... he is so lovely:)) My supervisor and I went to her office and we played with our new toys, my new cell phone Ericsson K800i and her O2 PDA. 50 mins later we were called back to the meeting room. I saw the internal examiner had a sheet of paper hand written in both sides. He started by saying there were some ammendments they would like me to do in my thesis. So we went through all the points they wanted me to change (7 in total) and at the end the examiners said I had passed (of course only if I did those corrections).

I went out of the room and said thanks and bye to the examiners. They were going out for lunch with my supervisor. They invited me but I denied the offer as I was really exahusted and just wanted to see my husband.

Now... I should end the story here because I am tired, I want my dinner and I don't want to bore you more.

Any questions???

*Warne, L., (2003), 'Conflict and Politics and Information Systems Failure: A challenge for Information Systems Professionals and Researchers', in Clarke, S., Coakes, E., Hunter, G. M. and Wenn, A. (eds.), Socio-technical and human cognition elements of information systems, Hershey, Pa., Idea Group

Cameramania

2006-10-25T16:53:00.002Z

Hi there, I passed my PhD exam the other day and as a present my friends gave me a voucher for Currys (.... always lowering prices hehehe),

although I dont' like curry that much - if you eat one you end up smelling like the cooker!
(just kidding) -

I am really exited about this...

Now... I have a cell phone... Sony Ericsson K800i, it comes with an excellent camera Cyber-shot 3.2 Mega Pixels!!!!

Yesterday I took this picture with my K800i:

Can you see the man sitting on the balcony??? Can you recognise the shape of a human being there?????

Of course you can't!!!!

Well, there was a man there reading his newspaper... I tried to get a good shot from where I was.... about 100mts, but I couldn't.
pd: just in case you were wondering why I took a picture of a man sitting on a balcony... no comments.

I know I am being picky and that a 3.2 MgP camera is more than excellent for a cell phone anyway... but I sometimes I want to take better quality pictures from longer distances.

Conclusion: I NEED a new digital camera with a higher resolution, more effective and output pixels ... I guess I'll have to read a bit about sensor design, interpolation algorithm, lenses, focal length, focus distance, aperture, scene contrast, and stuff... but who cares if the camera looks nice and takes descent pictures??

Reflection: following the advice of some friends, monsters, freaks and geeks I have decided to not go for a (semi) pro camera... - they say a pro is too heavy. And actually that is a good point because some times you want to take spontaneous pictures and people don't want. I have more chances with a smaller camera! I hate when they make me wait to pose in an unnatural way! Or when they say I don't want the tree behind me, or I don't want cars in my photo or lets wait for these (thousands of) people to go. I rather have more natural pictures. People, cars and trees are part of 21st century landscapes.

Well, I just like to buy the PENTAX OPTIO T10

What DO You THINK???????

----------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE:

I have already bought a camera.
Pentax Optio L20
7.0 effective Megapixels
3x optical zoom
4x digital zooming
2.5'' non-glare LCD monitor
16 shooting modes and 15 playback modes
23MB of built-in memory + 1GB Memory Stick

It is beautiful and slick. It fits into the palm of the hand and its mine!!!

Before... when I was normal

2006-09-22T17:56:00.002Z

Once upon a time... I was a systems analyst and project manager. I had designed and implemented client/server applications, written all SQL you could think about in DB2 and Oracle, written Cobol code (arrrrggggggg) and had fights with the people in production and the DBA (everyone hates DBAs!). I was a friend of my colleagues and most of my users, and we used to go out often to drink, to drink or to drink.

A perfect life. I had one dream though. This client/server thingy was getting boring so I looked for others things to do and I found Business Intelligence, Data warehousing and OLAP. I proposed my boss to design a BI system for the university so I could play with all these nice graphic tools (much nicer than microfocus!). See picture: Screenshot of PowerPlay v5.21 by Cognos. (A rather old version but it is the only one I have. Also you may note that I use Windows 98, cos it's the only O.S that my 64Mb RAM Laptop can use :( ... I need a new laptop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Back to the story. I woke from my dream and dropped my job. I came to the UK and studied a PhD. Now I don't develop software anymore and don't play with nice tools. Instead I write things like:

"The interpretive epistemology addresses the world from "the point of view of the people studied" (Hammersley, 1992). Beliefs about the external world being a "product of the mind" (Williams and May, 1996) play an important role. Since the world is constructed in peoples' consciousness, including researchers' minds, the concern is on the "meanings that people give to their environment, not the environment itself" (May, 1997)."

------------------------------

My only concern is that all of the above was only a product of my mind, constructed in my consciousness... hmmm, don't mind me, I'm in some crazy mood so I write crazy things ...

SQL 4U

2006-09-05T16:10:00.000Z

A friend of mine sent me this SQL Select clause.
(The name of DB, fields and parameters have been changed)

Enjoy!

SELECT  A.AA_SEMS,
A.NU_SEMS,
A.NU_SEC_SEMS,
A.CO_DCTE_PRIN,
A.CO_SEC,
(CASE WHEN A.FG_mtr_GPO_SEC = '0'
THEN A. QT_VAC_DISP
ELSE B.QT_VAC - B.QT_ALUM_mtr
END)  AS VAC_DISP,
B.NU_GPO_SEC,
SUBSTR( VALUE(D.NO_PAT_PERS,' ') || ' ' ||
VALUE(D.NO_MAT_PERS,' ') || ' ' ||
VALUE(D.NO_NOM_PERS,' '),1,45)

FROM  (SELECT A.AA_SEMS, A.NU_SEMS, A.NU_SEC_SEMS,
A.CO_DCTE_PRIN,
A.CO_SEC, A.CO_CUR,
A.FG_mtr_GPO_SEC,
A.FG_GPO_SEC,
(B.QT_VAC-B.QT_ALUM_mtr) AS QT_VAC_DISP,
A.FG_CTL_VAC_SEC,
A.QT_VAC_mtr,
A.QT_ALUM_mtr_SEC,
A.CO_DEPC_ADM_SEC
FROM XXXXX.SECC  A
INNER JOIN XXXXX.VACT_SECC B ON
A.AA_SEMS  = B.AA_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEMS  = B.NU_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS  = B.NU_SEC_SEMS  AND
A.CO_CUR  = B.CO_CUR  AND
A.CO_SEC  = B.CO_SEC  AND
A.FG_CTL_VAC_SEC = '1'   AND
A.AA_SEMS  = :prm_nAaSEMS  AND
A.NU_SEMS  = :prm_nNuSEMS  AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS  = :prm_nNuSecSEMS  AND
A.CO_CUR  = :prm_nCoCUR  AND
B.CO_ESPC   = :prm_nCoEspc AND
A.FG_ESTD_SEC  = '0'   AND
A.FG_ESTD_PROG_SEC = '1'  AND
A.FG_SEC_INGR  = '0'  AND
A.FG_BLOQ_mtr = '0'  AND
A.CO_CUR_REF  IS NULL  AND
A.CO_SEC_REF  IS NULL

UNION

SELECT AA_SEMS,  NU_SEMS, NU_SEC_SEMS,
CO_DCTE_PRIN,
CO_SEC,CO_CUR,
FG_mtr_GPO_SEC,
FG_GPO_SEC,
(QT_VAC_mtr-QT_ALUM_mtr) AS QT_VAC_DISP,
FG_CTL_VAC_SEC,
QT_VAC_mtr,
QT_ALUM_mtr_SEC,
CO_DEPC_ADM_SEC
FROM XXXXX.SECC
WHERE FG_CTL_VAC_SEC = '0'  AND
AA_SEMS   = :prm_nAaSEMS  AND
NU_SEMS   = :prm_nNuSEMS   AND
NU_SEC_SEMS  = :prm_nNuSecSEMS  AND
CO_CUR  = :prm_nCoCUR  AND
FG_ESTD_SEC  = '0'   AND
FG_ESTD_PROG_SEC = '1'   AND
FG_SEC_INGR  = '0'  AND
FG_BLOQ_mtr  = '0'  AND
CO_CUR_REF   IS NULL  AND
CO_SEC_REF   IS NULL   )  A


inner join XXXXX.ESPC e on
e.co_espc  = :prm_nCoEspc

inner join XXXXX.CURRI e0 on
e0.co_espc  = :prm_nCoEspc and
e0.co_CUR  = a.co_CUR and
(e0.AA_SEMS_INI_VIG*10+e0.NU_SEMS_INI_VIG
<= :prm_nAaSEMS * 10 + :prm_nNuSEMS ) AND  ((e0.AA_SEMS_FIN_VIG*10+e0.NU_SEMS_FIN_VIG  >= :prm_nAaSEMS * 10 + :prm_nNuSEMS ) OR
(e0.AA_SEMS_FIN_VIG is NULL AND
e0.NU_SEMS_FIN_VIG is NULL))   and
e0.nu_niv_CUR  = a.co_SEC/100

inner join XXXXX.DEPD e1 on
e1.co_depc  = a.co_depc_adm_SECn and
(e1.co_depc_sup  = e.co_depc or
a.co_depc_adm_SEC = XXXXX )


LEFT OUTER JOIN XXXXX.GRUPO_SECC B ON
A.AA_SEMS  = B.AA_SEMS AND
A.NU_SEMS  = B.NU_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS  = B.NU_SEC_SEMS  AND
A.CO_CUR  = B.CO_CUR  AND
A.CO_SEC  = B.CO_SEC  AND
A.FG_mtr_GPO_SEC = '1'   AND
B.FG_ESTD_GPO_SEC  = '1'  AND
A.FG_GPO_SEC  = '1'

LEFT OUTER JOIN XXXXX.TRAB C ON
A.CO_DCTE_PRIN  = C.CO_TRAB

LEFT OUTER JOIN XXXXX.PERS D ON
C.CO_PERS  = D.CO_PERS


UNION

SELECT A.AA_SEMS,
A.NU_SEMS,
A.NU_SEC_SEMS,
A.CO_DCTE_PRIN,
A.CO_SEC,
(CASE WHEN A.FG_mtr_GPO_SEC = '0'
THEN A. QT_VAC_DISP
ELSE B.QT_VAC - B.QT_ALUM_mtr
END)  AS VAC_DISP,
B.NU_GPO_SEC,
SUBSTR( VALUE(D.NO_PAT_PERS,' ') || ' ' ||
VALUE(D.NO_MAT_PERS,' ') || ' ' ||
VALUE(D.NO_NOM_PERS,' '),1,45)

FROM  (SELECT  B.AA_SEMS,B.NU_SEMS, B.NU_SEC_SEMS,
B.CO_DCTE_PRIN,
A.CO_SEC, A.CO_CUR,
B.CO_SEC AS CO_SEC_REF,
B.CO_CUR AS CO_CUR_REF,
B.FG_mtr_GPO_SEC,
B.FG_GPO_SEC,
(C.QT_VAC - C.QT_ALUM_mtr) AS QT_VAC_DISP,
B.FG_CTL_VAC_SEC,
C.QT_VAC,
C.QT_ALUM_mtr  AS QT_ALUM_mtr_SEC,
A.CO_DEPC_ADM_SEC
FROM XXXXX.SECC  A

INNER JOIN XXXXX.SECC  B ON
A.AA_SEMS  = :prm_nAaSEMS  AND
A.NU_SEMS  = :prm_nNuSEMS  AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS  = :prm_nNuSecSEMS  AND
A.CO_CUR  = :prm_nCoCUR  AND
A.CO_CUR_REF   IS NOT NULL  AND
A.CO_SEC_REF   IS NOT NULL  AND
A.AA_SEMS   = B.AA_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEMS   = B.NU_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS   = B.NU_SEC_SEMS  AND
B.CO_CUR   = A.CO_CUR_REF AND
B.CO_SEC   = A.CO_SEC_REF   AND
B.FG_ESTD_SEC  ='0'    AND
B.FG_ESTD_PROG_SEC  = '1'   AND
B.FG_SEC_INGR   = '0'   AND
B.FG_BLOQ_mtr  = '0'   AND
B.FG_CTL_VAC_SEC = '1'

INNER JOIN XXXXX.VACT_SECC C ON
A.AA_SEMS  = C.AA_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEMS  = C.NU_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS  = C.NU_SEC_SEMS AND
b.CO_CUR  = C.CO_CUR  AND
b.CO_SEC  = C.CO_SEC  AND
C.CO_ESPC  = :prm_nCoEspc

UNION

SELECT   B.AA_SEMS,B.NU_SEMS,B.NU_SEC_SEMS,
B.CO_DCTE_PRIN,
A.CO_SEC,A.CO_CUR,
B.CO_SEC AS CO_SEC_REF,
B.CO_CUR AS CO_CUR_REF,
B.FG_mtr_GPO_SEC,
B.FG_GPO_SEC,
(B.QT_VAC_mtr - B.QT_ALUM_mtr) AS QT_VAC_DISP,
B.FG_CTL_VAC_SEC,
B.QT_VAC_mtr,
B.QT_ALUM_mtr AS QT_ALUM_mtr_SEC,
A.CO_DEPC_ADM_SEC
FROM XXXXX.SECC A
INNER JOIN XXXXX.SECC B ON
A.AA_SEMS  = :prm_nAaSEMS AND
A.NU_SEMS  = :prm_nNuSEMS AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS  = :prm_nNuSecSEMS AND
A.CO_CUR  = :prm_nCoCUR AND
A.CO_CUR_REF   IS NOT NULL AND
A.CO_SEC_REF   IS NOT NULL AND
A.AA_SEMS  = B.AA_SEMS AND
A.NU_SEMS  = B.NU_SEMS AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS  = B.NU_SEC_SEMS AND
B.CO_CUR  = A.CO_CUR_REF AND
B.CO_SEC  = A.CO_SEC_REF AND
B.FG_ESTD_SEC  = '0'   AND
B.FG_ESTD_PROG_SEC = '1'  AND
B.FG_SEC_INGR  = '0'  AND
B.FG_BLOQ_mtr = '0'  AND
B.FG_CTL_VAC_SEC = '0'    ) A


inner join XXXXX.ESPC e on
e.co_espc = :prm_nCoEspc

inner join XXXXX.CURRI e0 on
e0.co_espc = :prm_nCoEspc  and
e0.co_CUR = a.co_CUR  and
(e0.AA_SEMS_INI_VIG*10+e0.NU_SEMS_INI_VIG
<= :prm_nAaSEMS * 10 + :prm_nNuSEMS ) AND  ((e0.AA_SEMS_FIN_VIG*10+e0.NU_SEMS_FIN_VIG  >= :prm_nAaSEMS * 10 + :prm_nNuSEMS ) OR
(e0.AA_SEMS_FIN_VIG is NULL AND
e0.NU_SEMS_FIN_VIG is NULL))   and
e0.nu_niv_CUR = a.co_SEC/100

inner join XXXXX.DEPD e1 on
e1.co_depc = a.co_depc_adm_SEC and
(e1.co_depc_sup  = e.co_depc or
a.co_depc_adm_SEC = XXXXX )


LEFT OUTER JOIN XXXXX.GRUPO_SECC B ON
A.AA_SEMS  = B.AA_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEMS  = B.NU_SEMS  AND
A.NU_SEC_SEMS  = B.NU_SEC_SEMS  AND
A.CO_CUR_REF  = B.CO_CUR  AND
A.CO_SEC_REF  = B.CO_SEC  AND
A.FG_mtr_GPO_SEC  = '1'   AND
B.Fg_Estd_Gpo_SEC  = '1'  AND
A.FG_GPO_SEC  = '1'

LEFT OUTER JOIN XXXXX.TRAB C ON
A.CO_DCTE_PRIN = C.CO_TRAB

LEFT OUTER JOIN XXXXX.PERS D ON
C.CO_PERS = D.CO_PERS

Now, after having read this,
don't you think this is much better than writing boring essays???

Dell's Laptop Batery Recall

2006-08-15T21:45:00.000Z

From www.theinquirer.net

AN INQUIRER READER attending a conference in Japan was sat just feet away from a laptop computer that suddenly exploded into flames, in what could have been a deadly accident.
Gaston, our astonished reader reports: "The damn thing was on fire and produced several explosions for more than five minutes".
Should you witness such an event, his advice is, "Don't try anything courageous/stupid, stay away, away, away!"

"For the record, this is a Dell machine," notes Gaston. "It is only a matter of time until such an incident breaks out on a plane," he suggests.
Our witness managed to catch all the action in these amazing pictures.
"Fire extinguishers leave a mess on your suit and belongings; pack your stuff (if you can) and leave, leave, leave!" he advises.
We don't have any further details of the model of the computer in question. In light of the evidence, however, we'd suggest you avoid actually using a laptop on your lap. Ouch.

--------------------

Dell has issued a Laptop Batery Recall for all the computers that shipped between the 1st of April 2004 and 18th of July of this year. The models affected are: Latitude, Inspiron, Precision, and ...

the XPS ... noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Laptop or Desktop?

2006-08-14T10:11:00.001Z

Forget about the digital camera, if you haven't bought it yet.
Now I have put my eyes on a Dell XPS M2010.

It's got an impressive design
20.1" high definition widescreen (1680x1050)
12ms grey-to-grey response time
Intel Core Duo T2600 processor - 2.16 GHz (optimized for multi-threaded applications and multitasking)
Integrated 1.3 megapixel camera
Array microphones
8 integrated speakers and subwoofer
Detachable Bluetooth keyboard and mouse
Remote control
Dual DVI out (digital visual interface)
4GB RAM
Two 120 GB hard drives
Portfolio design with integrated carry handle

The XPS M2010 is a hybrid of a desktop and a laptop. It's semi-portable, a bit heavy to carry around (over 8kg) for long periods of time but there is no problem with asking your husband or boyfriend to carry it for you ;).
Some people say it's too expensive and impractical for a laptop - but I don't care.

Although the XPS M2010 is regarded as a gaming and entertainment computer thanks to its duo processor, I guess it could make a software developer's live much easier and more fun because of its multitasking capacity. Like for example: running several projects in Ms Visual Studio .net, running an Oracle client, compiling your applications, testing them in your IIS, read your e-mails, read your RSS feeds, chat through 1, 2 or more instant messaging gateways, play your favourite music, play your videos, play an online game, etc, etc, etc.

Update: I no longer like this laptop.
-----

IIS Internet Information Service

I want a digital camera!

2006-07-26T15:55:00.002Z

If anyone out there is willing to give me a gift of motivation... I would like a CANON 350D

Canon EOS350Kit Digital SLR Camera Kit
8 million pixels with CMOS sensor
3 frames per second up to 14 shots
1.8" LCD
Separate RAW/JPEG image recording
Digic II Processor
E-TTL II flash system 7 point auto focus
LEXAR IGB COMPACT FLASH CARD
Lowepro REZO 140 Camera Case

plus a CANON EF90-300MM NON USM Zoom Lens (and a tripod if possible)

3 years 10 months

2006-07-21T09:38:00.001Z

Hey! I finished my thesis. It's in the bindery now. Will be submitted next tuesday. Yahooooo!!!

Now, it is not as nice as it sounds,
My brain is not working, I am anxious, everyone I know is busy, as I was a few days ago!
I feel like what am I going to do now?
Still need to write my abstract, prepare and wait for my oral exam, and possibly do some changes in the thesis afterwards.

At the moment I am in a Limbo in a state of oblivion. Not a student (my status is as a retainer anyway), unemployed, no money, etc.

naah... just joking, hehehehehehehe... got ya! :p

For those of you who have already gone through this, what is your advice?

-------------------------------------

Einstein did not formulate the theory of relativity in his PhD

Another Story

2006-07-17T10:27:00.001Z

Years ago I designed and implemented a windows client/server-based university registration system. The system was a bit complicated as the registration process required the student to do it personally, queue according a priority based on their grades and choose modules and timetables before all the limited places ran out. (It was like a race for places.) The system would also check online whether the student could take a module depending on the student having passed the pre-requisites. There were also millions of other controls which I can't remember now.

We used Centura Builder-former GUPTA- which used a so called object oriented language: SAL (Scalable Application Language) and IBM's DB2. Although we started using Oracle, someone decided to switch to DB2 instead when we were in the middle of the development! I'm not sure that that was a wise decision as Centura hadn't been been fully tested with DB2. It had inbuilt drivers for Oracle but not for DB2, so we had to use the generic ODBC drivers which didn't have the same performance (well only at the beginning because then the DBA managed to fix the problem). We also used Micro Focus Cobol (which also claimed to have object oriented features) for batch processes. I hated Cobol. Although it wasn't difficult, it was so old-fashioned. The functions that we really used (and really needed) were the basic standard Cobol as it was done in ancient times. Never used object oriented functions. We had to use an editor to type the code and then run a D.O.S. batch to compile the application. Also when we ran the program an awful D.O.S. command window will appear showing nothing! Centura Builder was a bit nicer. It had an attractive IDE, a coding assistant and would compile and run in secs. My problem with Centura though was the fallacy of object orientation. All analysts had taken a OMT course to learn how to design object oriented applications which, they said, could easily be converted into code. OMT would also help us to standardise our designs. Basically we learned to model business rules with UML. After the course I had an idea of what class, object, method, inheritance, message, encapsulation, polymorphism, class and sequence diagrams, etc., were. We would have classes like "student" and "academic record" and methods like "show available modules" and "register". However, when we tried to implement those classes in Centura we couldn't do it in a straight forward way. Centura worked with classes like form, table, list, combobox, etc. all of which were visual classes. There was a way to implement functional classes but it wasn't as friendlier as we would've liked. At the end we had to invent a solution so we could use both OMT and Centura together. We created funtional classes in Centura (containing business rules) which were invoked by visual classes (no business rules here) which in turn where the ones that the users interacted with. This could sound easy, but it wasn't a natural way to work with Centura. After a few months of trying to do this, almost everyone desisted. No one bothered to use UML and code the business rules in functional classes. People did what they thought was more productive: coded as the programming language and time allowed them. The same happened with Micro Focus Cobol. For us it wasn't compatible with UML.

Never again did we use UML to design applications...
hmmm maybe sometimes to show the big boss what we were doing.

Disclaimer: I know I am very outdated in technology possibly antedeluvian. I've been doing a "reading and writing thousands of words in MS Word" job for 4 years! Sometimes I would draw a diagram or two in Visio. I am so outdated I have forgotten how to setup my computer!!

BTW I finished my thesis. I still need to write an abstract and print it out though :/

Old Stories Never Die

2006-06-30T11:22:00.001Z

I learned to programme just by chance. I did my first degree in Industrial Engineering but always liked computers. At work I was in charge of the computer inventories and repairs. I also liked to install and uninstall software and to run computer workshops (also play tetris and the prince of persia). I was really enthusiastic. Seeing that, some of my colleagues suggested I should learn to programme and move to the analysis and development department. I always refused cos I wasn't a geek. I said I'd never do that.

Never say never, that's what they say.

One day I was forced to move to another department (and got a new NASTY boss (bitch!)). She decided I had to fix a library system and implement it in a few weeks. The system was implemented in DBASE (this was more than 10 years ago!). She had bought it for $***** and needed it to be operative ASAP to justify the bill. For that she didn't give a desk and computer, nor did she allow me to use a whiteboard.

I learned a bit of DBASE and read the code. I realised then that the library system was a fake. It was originally a system for a video rent store and the programmer had done a few changes so it looked like a library system (something like replacing the words "Video" with "Book" and replacing "Client" with "Student"). The system was supposed to run in a Novell Network but that application was a standalone. On top of that I never managed to run the application without crashing it.

I wrote a report noting all the flaws in the system and that I would not recommend to fix it but to write a new one from scratch. I gave the report to the tyrant... sorry my boss. She went nuts and raised her voice. Called me incompetent and other things. I felt so bad because I didn't understand her attitude at all. However as there was no one else willing to do fixing she let me start it again.

That is how I learned to programme. We chose to use Foxpro v 2.5 (like DBASE but much better) because it was the only thing we had available at that time. It had the language and the database in one place so it wasn't that hard to learn. I was assigned 2 apprentices who also didn't know Foxpro. So we learned it together.

My team and I decided that we needed to meet with the people from the library to see what they needed. Of course my boss didn't agree with that. (why should you talk to them? You must not waste your time. Time is expensive.) I met the libary director and make good friends with her. She welcomed me and my team and also gave us some computers and printers all connected to a Novell network. (don't ask me the version because I don't remember.) We also met all the library staff who were very nice and aproachable. To be honest, although I had been a user of the library I did not know much about how they did things in there. We sort of established a base camp in the library and visited them very often. We did learn a lot! (we borrowed books for unlimited periods of time, etc, etc.) (I guess what we did was a kind of ethnography1 because we spent several days there seeing students borrowing books and stuff, and sometimes helping the staff to sort out problems, ¡habla Beto!). It took us a few months (more than we thought) to finish the application and make the library staff actually use it (that was tough!). But it was worth it.

So why am I telling you this?
I guess because I hear so many stories about nasty managers and about not needing to meet your users/customers/clients whatever you call them. And I just wanted to share my own story.
But maybe the real reason is because I am bored and hopelessly stuck with my thesis (not stuck as in "stuck in the mud" but as in "lazy to think"). Distracting my mind for a while helps to keep my sanity intact.

(Saquen su línea.)

-------
1 Ethnography is a research method grounded in the interpretive paradigm. It demands first hand involvement with the subjects of study in the same social world where they interact. (Marshall and Rossman, 1989, p.106))

My finger on the NHS

2006-06-18T17:42:00.002Z

The other day I cut my left thumb when I was trying to open a fruit can. Ooouuch!! It did really hurt. Ooouuch!! Ooouuch!! Ooouuch!! I thought it wasn't a big deal, just wash my hands, suck my finger and that would do it. To my surprise I could not make it stop bleeding. I saw my finger and realised that it was a really nasty cut that went from one side of the finger to the other. I tried for 1 hr to make the bleeding stop in vain. I poured Pisco (42° alcohol spirit) over the cut to disinfect it and then put a piece of cotton and applied some pressure on it. It did not work. (A little piece of advice: I would recommend you to not waste your pisco in such things. Never never never NEVER. Use it wisely. DRINK IT!)

Well, after a while my husband and I decided to go to the NHS centre opposite our place. (It was a Saturday so we knew that my GP's was closed.) At the NHS centre a guy told us that we had to ring the call centre before they could do something. So we did that. Actually my husband did it because I was busy with blood in my finger. He talked to someone on the phone. Gave this person my details. This person then faxed my details to the lady (receptionist) who was in front of me. Absurd! No wonder why the NHS is in trouble...
The receptionist got my details printed on a paper and asked me:

Receptionist: so, what is your problem?
I: I cut my finger with a fruit can and I can't make it stop bleeding.
Receptionist: Ok, go to the waiting room and a doctor will see you in a sec.

After 10 minutes a doctor came and asked me to follow him. "Good!" I though. "After all the NHS is not that bad, this will be over soon."
I went into the doctor's office and sat on a chair. (See diagram). The interview went like this:

Doctor: What happend?
I: I cut my finger with a fruit can and I can't make it stop bleeding.
Doctor: When was that?
I: about an hour ago

I then showed him my finger which I had wrapped with cotton and band aid. I thought he was going to see it but instead he said:

Doctor: can you uncover your finger?
I: (shocked because he wouldn't touch my finger) Ok (I unwrapped all the stuff I had on my finger)
Doctor: hmmm
I: (Looking at him) How does it look doctor?
Doctor: I think you should go to the Hospital. We can't help you here. You may need stitches and we don't have the implements. Can you go there?
I: (shocked again because it was more serious than I thought) I guess so. I mean I have to. Haven't I?
Doctor: Yes. I am sorry we can't be of more help.
I: no worries. Thanks anyway.

My husband and I went home and called a cab. 20 mins later we were in the casualty department. We went to see the receptionist:

Receptionist: What is your name?
I: (I gave her my name)
Receptionist: (with a big question mark in her face) sorry?
I: (I spelled my name, then I spelled it again and then..., I spelled it again.)
Receptionist: your address?
I: (I gave her my address)
Receptionist: your telephone?
I: (I gave her my telephone number)
Receptionist: who is your GP?
I: Dr. XXXX
Receptionist: what is your problem?
I: I cut my finger with a fruit can and I can't make it stop bleeding.
Receptionist: Ok, go to the waiting room and someone will see you soon.

My husband and I went to the waiting room and sat next to a drunk guy who smelled like hell. We couldn't stand it so we moved, closer to the TV. They were showing the Portugal v Iran football match. The match finished and we were still waiting... Nothing interesting on TV, nothing interesting to read... boring! At that moment I realised that my finger had stopped bleeding and I wondered if I could go home. But then I remembered what the doctor said about needing stitches. So I stayed. (Good I stayed, because a while after my finger was bleeding again.)

2hrs 15mins later, a nurse called me. Her name was T'Pol (not real name of course) and told me that I could see a doctor if I did not want her to see me. I said I didn't think I needed a doctor so we went to her office.

T'Pol: How do I pronounce your name?
I: (I said it veeeeeery slowly)
TPol: Where are you from?
I: South America
T'Pol: you speak spanish, don't you? My husband is learning spanish. He wants to go to Spain on holiday to practice his spanish, but I want to go to Croacia instead.
I: Oh! (:/)
T'Pol: but I think you speak a different spanish from the spanish spanish, don't you?
I: not really, just different accents. (actually we speak better spanish than the spanish but I didn't want to go there)
T'Pol: the other day we met some mexican guys and they were teaching us some words.
I: oh (:/) (thinking: yeah, chilli con carne, tortillas, quesadillas and tequila)
T'Pol: well, lets start this, tell me what happened? (she grabbed a form and a pen and started writing)
I: I cut my finger with a fruit can and I can't make it stop bleeding.
T'Pol: when did that happpen?
I: 4-5 hours ago.
T'Pol: are you taking any medication?
I: No
T'Pol: are you alergic to any medicine?
I: No (thinking: only the NHS waiting room)
T'Pol: hmmm, show me your finger.

She put on rubber gloves and touched my finger!
(I guess nurses are allowed to touch fingers... hmmm, I don't know... )

My finger was all covered in blood but it had stoped bleeding. T'Pol examined the cut, made me move my finger and asked me if I could feel something when she touched it. I did what she said and said I could feel her finger. She then said that I didn't need stitches, in fact she wouldn't recommend stitches in any case as she thought that part of the finger had sensitve skin. T'Pol proceeded to clean the cut, then applied paper stitches and put a huge bandage on my finger. She said I had to keep it clean and dry for 5 days.

T'Pol: is that Ok?
I: Yes (moving my finger and seeing that the bandage wasn't uncomfortable)
T'Pol: you can go now
I: Thank you T'Pol, Bye (thinking: I'm freeeeeeeeee to do what I want any old time, yes, Yes, YES, YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS)

I met my husband in the waiting room and we left.

Later that evening we met some friends and one of them asked me "what happened to your finger?" and I said: "I cut my finger with a fruit can and I couldn't make it stop bleeding....."

Last Update: My Finger 23 June

Mis aventuras en el Doctorado

2006-06-13T09:14:00.002Z

Despues de casi 4 años de estar haciendo este doctorado al fin veo la luz al final del tunel. Todavía esta muy chiquita pero al menos la veo. Hace 3 semanas que le entrege el borrador de mi tesis a mi supervisora, ver foto, y me sentí muy aliviada.

Borrador de mi tesis, impreso a espacio sencillo y por los dos lados de la hoja para ahorrar papel, el anillo me lo choree de otra tesis.

Mi supervisora me devolvió el borrador con las correcciones la semana pasada. Me dijo que en general estaba bien y que solo habian correcciones menores. -pucha en realidad me relleno la tesis de comentarios, ni una hoja se salvó - espero completarlas en 2 semanas más.

Algunos de los comentarios que me hicieron k... de risa:

I'd be inclined to ban you from using the word "this" (or their or them)
Need to note that your perception was common place (not just you being stupid!!)
Another very long intense paragraph --> ¡¡no sabe lo que me costó!!!
Relate is a rather weak word in this context --> (de repente si la pongo en bold mmm)

Si alguna vez se deciden a hacer un doctorado piensenlo MUY BIEN. Es una experiencia enriquecedora, aprendes un huevo, si lo haces en Inglaterra aprendes a escribir en ingles, puedes viajar por Europa, etc. PERO ¡¡dura mas de 3 años !!! ¡¡tu vida social se va al car... !!! los unicos amigos que conservas son los que pones al costado en tu ventana. Ellos no se van simplemente porque no pueden moverse. (Los pueden conseguir en las cajas de cereal).

De izquierda a derecha, fila de arriba, ahi tienen a Mojo jo-jo, mi des-estresador en forma de cerebro, Dee Dee, Buttercup, Grim, un puto oso que no se como se llama, fila 2, un oso de peluche, una serpiente, dos muñecas chinas, un pulpo en una barca, una estrella en una barca, un tigre, un caracol en una barca, un lagarto en su carro verde, un oso en su carro amarillo y Sponge Bob en una barca. (Tengo mas pero no entraron en la foto- cortesía de Coco Pops)

Otra cosa es que luego de tantos años de estar estudiando ahora me toca pensar en que voy a hacer despues. Yo quisiera buscar un trabajo de consultora de software. Pero estoy recontra-super-archi desactualizada. ¡¡Estoy estudiando desde el 2000!! (MBA y Doctorado). Y solo toco la computadora para escribir en Word, mandar correos-e en Outlook, hacer dibujitos en PowerPoint y Webbear en la internet con Firefox, ... ahhh y escuchar música. Así que creo que me tocará tomar algunos cursos de programacion para Dummies.

mmm, a ver.... pensando en voz alta.... las áreas de consultoría que me interesarían son desarrollo en Web definitivamente de software social. Me parece una área que tiene mucho potencial y mucha demanda. Si quieren saber algo de software social chequeen esta entrada mía de hace meses: http://clk0.blogspot.com/2005/05/social-software-in-business.html
(tienes que saber inglich, ahh, y no esperes el super artículo, solo unas gárgaras de Listerine con algunas ideas que se me ocurrieron).

Foros en línea, weblogs, wikis, MSN, Skype, etc., son software social. Tu groupware, tu workflow son también software social (aunque usados en ambientes organizacionales, relativamente pequeños en comparación con la totalidad de la web). Sitios como MySpace.com, Youtube.com, iFilm.com, Flickr, etc., también. Son estos últimos los tipos de sitios web que me están llamando la atención últimamente (no solo porque son un vacilón, sino por su naturaleza (en castellano, por lo que son detrás de todo el vacilón), no solo por las opciones-software que ofrecen, sino por las comunidades que se crean alrededor) . Hasta ahora me ha parecido que su exito es producto de la pura purita suerte. Alguien tiene una idea y la suelta en la internet. Si le va bien, pues que bien. Si no, la descarta y continúa con la siguiente. Quizas yo pueda hacer algo allí y tener algo de suerte.

Se aceptan sugerencias.

CMC

2006-03-22T10:43:00.003Z

Introduction

Electronic conversation has been possible since the creation of computer networks. The invention of the Internet has boosted its popularity to the extent that nowadays millions of people use CMC[1] to communicate. From a linguistic perspective, we can see that new forms of interaction are being developed, some adapted from writing, and face-to-face conversations; while some are being created especially for electronic environments (Greenfield and Subrahmanyam, 2003). Researchers are being encouraged to find out how people communicate and develop relationships through the internet. In this regard some people see CMC as an “impersonal medium” (Parks, 1996, 2) and a “socially-impoverished domain” (Baym, 1995, 26) as none of the linguistic strategies used are as efficient in conveying meaning as in written or oral speech. In contrast with this, others see online participants adjusting themselves to the limitations of the written environment and looking for “conversational coherence”(Greenfield and Subrahmanyam, 2003, 728). Although the latter perspectives recognise CMC as a useful tool they do not explain how people adapt to it. What is needed then is an insight into these settings to explain how understanding is possible and to see how other social practices interact with language. Numerous linguistic studies have used the concept of speech community to identify its members and the language they speak. This approach, however, has been limited to linguistic variables. In this essay the concept of Communities of Practice is explored as an alternative to study online-conversations as it may give the tools to understand how the online-linguistic strategies are developed in a process of negotiation among the members of the community. Before this, the limitations of CMC will be reviewed.

CMC and its limitations

CMC is “a hybrid form of interaction” or “written conversation” (Marcoccia, 2004, 2). CMC could be considered as a new kind of register[2], which possesses characteristics of both written and spoken speech. These characteristics appear in different degrees depending on the online setting that is being used (i.e.: e-mail, chat rooms, etc.). Although CMC possesses advantages like reduction of time and financial constraints and the loss of geographical boundaries (Folkman Curasi(2001, 367); Parrish (2002, 3); Sweet (2001, 2)), its limitations, especially the linguistic ones, contribute to the lack of understanding of this media. Some limitations are:

The lack of visual and social cues, often present in face-to-face conversations limits the interpretation of texts to the written statements (Sweet, 2001, 40). “Cues signal the nature of the context”, they give the participants an idea of who and where are the others, their characteristics and the relationships between them(Jacobson, 1996, 463) . In CMC indications about the participants’ physical appearance, age, gender, position and the physical appearance of the setting are lost(Sproull and Kiesler, 1986, 1497). Visual signals like nods from an addressee to indicate understanding, agreement or disagreement are also missing.

Problems with conversation structure. Online conversations follow different ordering rules than in normal conversations. In face-to-face conversations, people negotiate their turns with cues, showing the others when they can have control of the floor[3]. Turns are also organised by adjacency pairs which are logical sequences that people expect to be followed (e.g. a question followed by an answer). In CMC many people can be typing at the same time and not see the new messages that are arriving. Their messages are posted in the order in which the server receives them (this depends on speed and broadband). Additionally, there could be several parallel conversations taking place at the same time (Parrish, 2002, 10). The result is several threads of conversations overlapping with each other. The overlap causes that turn, which should have followed another one, to appear after several lines. In between there can be turns from other people participating in the same conversation or in others. It is difficult then for the inexperienced, to deduce to which conversation a particular turn belongs and what its place (order) in that conversation is. Although this phenomenon appears more often in synchronous conversation it is also true for asynchronous conversations. Replies of e-mails can carry copies of the previous turns which are not necessarily in order.

Interaction is slower than speech, even in situations like chat rooms. Typing and reading are slower than speaking and hearing. Messages are “complete and unidirectional” (Crystal, 2001, 30). Other participants have to wait until we send them. There is no simultaneous feedback (Crystal, 2001, 30). A “speaker” does not know if the “listeners” are following what is being said until a reply is sent. The consequences of this are the mentioned problems with conversation structure and hence the difficulty in following a thread of conversation.

After reviewing these limitations, it becomes unclear how people manage to communicate and perform activities online. As a result, some questions arise: how do participants understand each other? How do online conversations convey comprehension? How can goals be achieved and relationships developed in online environments? Certainly, the answer is not restricted to linguistic terms. There are other factors playing a role in the construction of linguistic forms within online environments, as for example, the personal interests of each individual, personal backgrounds, IT literacy, age, etc. So far, the studies guided by the traditional approach: speech communities have been limited to linguistic interactions. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2000) in their paper on language, gender and power propose the use of a new theoretical framework to analysing language: Communities of Practice. It allows the connection of different theoretical abstractions, social and linguistic (e.g. gender and language) that can give a wider perspective. Following this trend, this essay discusses the usefulness of this concept in the study of online conversations.

The old and new perspectives

Let’s compare both perspectives before. A speech community is defined “by participation in a shared set of norms” (Labov, 1972, 121), being these norms mostly related to language use. It has proved to be “a productive and useful tool for research into the orderly heterogeneity of language in its social setting.”(Holmes and Meyerhoff, 1999, 173) The problem is, however, that it does not direct “attention to what people are doing as they engage with one another” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1999, 190). For example, it does not take into account the intentions or purposes of an online conversation. It also assumes that the speech population is heterogeneous and focuses only on the language use of central members (e.g. people who speak Standard English).

Community of Practice (CofP) is a concept developed by Lave and Wegner (1991) as part of a “Social Theory of Learning” (Holmes and Meyerhoff, 1999, 174). A CofP is defined by membership and by the practice in which members are engaged (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2000, 490). The purpose of its introduction to a theory of learning was to explore the concept of learning as a social process. Members of a CofP learn while they perform community activities and while they negotiate the way those activities are to be performed. As language is also a “social practice” (Bucholtz, 1999, 210) we can presume that members also acquire “sociolinguistic competence” (Holmes and Meyerhoff, 1999, 174) as they practice. Unlike speech community, these definitions alone may give us the opportunity to link language use with other social practices. In the case of online communities these could be, helping others and solving conflicts. Holmes and Meyerhoff (1999) mention three dimensions of a CofP:

Mutual Engagement: quantity and quality of interaction, it is the “basis for the relationships that make the CofP possible”.
Joint Enterprise: a process of negotiating practices and goals.
Shared Repertoire: of resources for negotiating meaning, this includes linguistic resources.

There are two more features of CofP which are worth to mention. CofP recognises diversity and conflict among its members. There are core members who are totally engaged with community’s practices and peripheral members who are in the process of becoming full members(Holmes and Meyerhoff, 1999, 174). Finally, it recognises ambiguity in its practices as a “condition of negotiability”. Members do not always interpret meanings in the same way. Therefore social processes become difficult to handle but “dynamic, always open-ended and generative of new meaning” (Wenger, 2003, 84).

Conclusion: Communities of Practice and online conversations

As CofP acknowledges differences within communities it could be a useful tool to explain how the different linguistic styles of the online members blend to create a style for the whole community. Mutual engagement allows members to learn the linguistic repertoire and to participate in the negotiation of new ways of expressing themselves. The concept of joint negotiation could help to explain how such new ways of chatting with multiple, parallel, overlapping and slow conversations and a lack of visual cues, is not wrong but different; as it was negotiated by its members. CofP’s acknowledgement of ambiguity in community practices and their processes of negotiation could explain how people understand each other and develop relationships and therefore could clarify how meaning is conveyed in online conversations. A perspective like this would respond to movements which try to redesign online conversations so that they look more like oral conversations. See Smith et al (2000) paper on Conversation Trees and Threaded chats. It is an attempt to design a chat program that supports the “turn-taking structure of human conversation” that does not result as expected.

[1] Computer-mediated communication and online conversation will be used indistinctively.

[2] A register is a variation of language used in a specific kind of situation or in other words “a description of the linguistic forms which generally occur in a particular situation” (Thomas, 1995, 174)

[3] The right to speak

Importance of communication in SW Development

2005-07-28T16:19:00.005Z

I’ve been reading about structuration theory from Giddens (The constitution of society, 1984). This theory tries to describe and explain the nature of social phenomena, like human actions and interactions. I came across two interesting concepts: practical and discursive consciousness. Practical Consciousness is the ability to act according to one’s stock of knowledge (to act in a knowledgeable way) and Discursive Consciousness is the capacity of articulating one’s knowledge (expressing what we know). I find these ideas very informative at explaining some communication issues in software development. Being able to perform actions does not mean that one can describe them. The ability to articulate ideas is a higher level skill that needs reflection from users and developers. I can relate this concept to two aspects of software development.

First, from my readings in online forums I see that developers do not follow formal methodologies. They use what they call “common sense” and perform the activities the way they think is best. That is, they can act in a knowledgeable way (Practical consciousness). However, few of them will admit that they follow any methodology at all. I say that whatever you are doing, if your actions are based on your knowledge about the situation and software tools and if you have organised these actions in a sensible fashion, then you are following a methodology. The problem as I see it is that (most) developers are incapable of expressing and more importantly justifying their selection of practices in a rational way other than “it is common sense”. Applying some reflection on their jobs could help developers to explain why and where they think the practices work better and thus help their colleagues and justify their actions with management.

I can also relate these concepts to Ethnography (a method developed by anthropologists used to observe people performing their everyday activities). The acknowledgement of a difference between practical and discursive consciousness could justify developers working with users and the use of ethnographic methods in ISD. Asking users about what they do would not be enough (as we are not sure about their discursive consciousness). Rather observing people performing their activities as they normally do would add more value to the gathering of requirements.

London Blasts

2005-07-08T15:20:00.000Z

It is interesting to see how the news about the london attacks are being spread in weblogs, wikis, flickr, etc. Many victims and witnesses have been posting their pictures and personal accounts on the web. I am amazed by the speed and variety of information that we can get now. Appart from the official sources, BBC, Reuters, etc. which are more cautious at releasing information, now we can have a look at more personal and maybe realistic accounts from people who were there.

10 years ago, this wouldn't have happened like this. I think that the web and social software, as instatiations of the globalization phenomenon, are not only helping us to communicate better but to create awareness in the civilized world. We are more united by the web now, and I hope we can do better and stop war and terrorism.

Have a look at:
http://flickr.com/groups/74918957@N00/pool/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/verseguru/24243212/

2005-06-01T16:52:00.001Z

George G. was a trainee who was brought into a diagnostic prgramming group with all signs pointing to an outstanding programming career. He had just received a Master's degree in Mathematics with honors, and only two of the other seven team members had even gone to a university. The team was working on a real-time diagnistics for a military computer, and George was assigned to write the diagnostics for the high-speed drum, which was a critical part of the system. Although this was his first real program, he developed an ingenious scheme in which the program wrote all ones on the drum and then, by analysing the patterns of zeros read back, could indicate the exact circuit that was failing.

George received high praise for this work, praise that he didn't need because he was fully aware of how superior it was to the unimaginative work of his fellows. Indeed, George lost no opportunity of telling them about their shortcommings, as reflected in the clumsiness of their program when compared with the grace of this. In a very short time, a serious crisis was brewing in the team, and several members began to look for a way to push George out - while several others, of a different bent, began to seek new positions for themselves. Then fate intervened in the form of a visit from some military brass to inspect the new hardware.

Great preparations were made for the inspection, but when the brass arrived, the computer could not be made to function. The diagnostics had all been run successfully, but the other software would not work at all. The diagnostics were rerun, but again they worked and the regular programs did not. At this point, the military was getting rather petulant, and management was growing furious. Then, somebody chanced to walk behind the main frame and noticed a cable lying loose. When he casually inquired what it was, the problem was solved. The drum had not been connected to the system!

The drum was hooked on, and the military was soothed with a fine demonstration and a lunch well oiled with marinis. Long after they were gone, however, the programmers on the team were still getting theirs back at George. He had failed to take into acount the behavior of the drum interface when the drum was not on-line. The system was designed to give an interrupt if an unattached device was selected, but George had masked that off. If the interrupt was masked, a write was sumply ignored and a read produced a string for all ones. Thus, George's marvelous program had a simply indicated that all was well with the drum, even though it was not even attached.

It was a blunder that any programmer could make, and it was easily patched up. Not so George's ego, for the other programmers took every possible opportunity to rib him. Perhaps if he hadn't claimed such infallibility, his fall from the heights might not have hurt so much; but as it was, George couldn't take it. After two weeks, he simply failed to show up on Monday morning, and that was the last time anyone ever heard of George G."

From "The psychology of computer programming" (1971) by Weinberg, G. M

I have met some Georges at work ... what about you?

Dealing with users.

2005-05-13T17:05:00.002Z

Most developers state that it is very difficult to communicate and work with users who do not know what they need. We always complain about users who specify mutually exclusive requirements, change their minds everyday or argue among themselves. We would prefer to work with people who can present clear and detailed requirements... oh yes, that would be heaven. mmmh, However, I think I'm not being fair with users. Some of them really do know their business and are aware of the technical implications of software design. Sometimes the problem is not the user but the developer. Sometimes we underestimate our users and assume that they know nothing and simply need to accept what we are going to develop for them. The problem is that we *don't listen* to them. And if users are not listening to us, meetings become conversations between deaf. This is the worst way to start a software development project.

I was wondering if there were some guidelines on how to deal with/understand users. So far I've read ideas about putting yourself on user's shoes or learning user's language. But, how do you do that? Maybe, if we sorted this communication problem out, we could reduce the level of complexity of software development. Any ideas?

What is complex in SW development

2005-05-12T00:25:00.002Z

I found this definition of complex in the dictionary: " ...having parts so interconnected as to make the whole perplexing." Complex is related to complicated, which "stresses elaborate relationship of parts." Anyway, for me, a situation (a problem, a business setting, users, etc.) is complex (in the context of software development) when it is not that clear to the developers' eyes and when it cannot be modeled and transformed into unambiguous programming code. There are many things that can make a business situation complex for developers, and I am of the opinion that most of these things are human and social in nature. The technical aspects of businesses are in a way less complex as there is help from formal methods (e.g. software engineering) that have been proved in the field many times.

So, what are the things that make developers rant? Well, I have a short list of things may be familiar to you:

- Excessive and unnecessary control of information. As developers we build a mental picture of the business processes the software is going to serve. This picture is often different from the one users who like to control everything have. For developers that extra control is not part of the "real process" and only adds more complexity to it.
- Users working in different ways and expecting different things from the same system.
- In social processes many outputs can come from one input.
- Free social interactions, users who do not follow formal procedures but who use their brain to decide what to do on each situation.
- Covert channels, informal activities --> things that users do in real life but which are very different from what's in business documentation (i.e. business rules)

I am not saying that if we changed these things, organisations will be clearer to developers' eyes (mmmh, possibly but that isn't my point). I think that there are reasons for them to exist, otherwise the organisations themselves wouldn't exist. What I am saying is that we need to find a way to deal with complexity in organisations, and so far, we are not doing that well.

Design of Social Software

2005-05-10T17:02:00.001Z

How do you design social software?
Do you interview users, draw uml diagrams and then create prototypes?
As the user of Social Software is the group and not the individual, How do you account for group interactions and group goals?

So far what I've read in forums is that someone has an idea, any idea... takes the risk and develops it. The software is thrown out to the market and people wait to see what happens. Somehow the software is successful, thousands of people are using it and are sending feedback to the creators. Here we have a decisive point in which the creators decide on the future of their yet successful software. If they want to continue in the market they have to listen to user feedback and alter the software to improve the most wanted features and fix or remove the least wanted. At the end, the software is being used by millions of people, it allows them to communicate as they wish and to create a social network that accounts for their goals as individuals and as a group.

Seems nice and easy, but yet.... this looks like an accident, a fluke, really good luck.

If I wanted to create a business application, something that allows people to work and interact... I would really want to use some ideas from social software. (For me social software is every software used by people.) The problem is that, as this is a relatively new field, there is very little on this yet. ... and I am still wondering about how to adapt software development practices so they take into account the social aspects of the business settings in which the software is going to be used?

Social Software in Business environments

2005-05-06T18:22:00.001Z

Social software is software that enables and/or encourages social behaviour of certain type. It is both, an old and a new concept. Social software has been around the software development field for decades but known by different names, like groupware or CSCW. (You can learn more about the history of Social Software in Christopher Allen's excellent article Tracing the evolution of social software.) Social software is new in the sense that it is an attempt (the first?) to recognise the social aspects of software. So far software and software development have been guided purely by mechanistic perspectives. I don't think this is completely wrong because software is also 0s and 1s in computer chips. However, there is also another side of software which has been neglected, the human and social one. Software is part of our daily lifes, we read our e-mail every day, we read the newspaper online everymorning, we buy online, cellular phones, play station, etc. ... and in business settings it is part of our jobs. Software plays an important role at supporting the social interactions in organisations. Regardless of the type of application, payroll, ERP, workflow, groupware, e-mail or online forum, there are always *people* using the software and possibly interacting through them.

For me, when software developers develop business applications they need to consider two aspects of their users, the user as an individual and the user as a group. So far the user as an individual has been addressed in the guidelines for usability. There are very well known and proven practices that allow developers to create userfriendly, intuitive and attractive applications, that users will be willing to use. However, I haven't seen guidelines for *group-sability* so far. I think that the emergence of social software as a new field would bring more development in this area.

Off the top of my head--> I am not sure if prototyping would be useful for *groups-ability* as it is for usability design. It is easy to sit with a user and design a screen in front of him/her and see whether s/he thinks it is easy to use or not. However, how could we *see* the social interactions happening when a group of people is using a software? I think Ethnography could give us some answers in this regard... (but off course who's gonna pay for an ethnographer to be observing people for weeks or even months while you could be delivering software and charging for it?) Probably an adaptation of ethnographic practices could help, some sort of ethnography which is led by feedback from users.

Adaptability in Software Development

2005-05-04T12:58:00.003Z

Adaptability in the Software Development process and in Software itself is one of the main concerns of my research. From my readings about theories of organisations I gather that as time passes modern organisations look for more inventive ways to compete in the market. As this happens, the software that are being used in the organisations become outdated because the organisation needs are changing constantly. So my question is, what could we do to keep the software development machine aligned with the organisation's evolution? I think that an exploration of the concept of adaptation within the context of software development would be useful to find the answer. From my readings in forums I gathered the following ideas:

In relation to adaptability of developers and the development process:

1. The process of evolution in software development practices follows this pattern: Experience --> Reflection --> Adaptation
2. Iterative and incremental processes are designed to allow adaptation.
3. Involving clients/users in developers work helps the process of alignment.
4. There is no single methodology that works in every situation. Developers have to adapt known methods to the problem situation and their clients' working styles.
5. Developers need to change their "attitude" towards development. Accepting that change is inevitable and that requirements will change many times during a project may help developers to adapt easily.
6. If developers thought about software as a service provided by people and not as a product, it could be easier for them to think about adapting software (i.e. their service) to evolving organisations.

In relation to adaptability of business settings and clients/users:

1. Users can adapt better (to technology) when they have already experienced change. After one successful experience further changes are easier to take as people are more receptive to them.
2.The level of adaptability of users to software and of software to the business situation could be improved if users had the facility of maintaining/changing/adapting their software to their needs. (An utopian idea at the moment but may be possible in the future.)
3. Organisation's culture can allow or impede technology change. New, agile methods for developing software are more difficult to be adopted in companies with endure strict and heavy processes.

In relation to the adaptability of the software itself:

1. Software should not last forever.
2. Software adaptability depends on the level of dependence of the organisation on the software. If the software is a core part of the business processes then it is more likely that it will be evolve with the organisation. However if the software is just a support tool then it is less likely that it will be adapted to changes.

Marking

2005-04-25T14:17:00.000Z

I've been marking assignments for a week now. This is so mindnumbing... I will never be a lecturer!

Philosophy of the Agile Software Development Methodologies

2005-04-08T18:50:00.002Z

In recent years many agile methodologies have been created to respond to the weaknesses of the traditional or waterfall life cycle methodologies.

The main philosophical underpining of the agile methodologies is to walk beside organisation's evolution. As modern organizations evolve and adapt to their environments rapidly so should software development.

Traditional development methodologies (waterfall lifecycle) were created upon the assumption that requirements never change. Software were created based on a snapshot of the organization's situation. Projects (price, time and design) were planned in advance and any deviation from them were considered a mistake which had to be corrected.

Agile methodologies are based on the assumption that organisations, users, and their requirements change. Agile methodologies are designed to adapt to changes: they are selfadaptive. To achieve that, users and developers work together and expect change all the time. Requirements, specs and code are reviewed constatly and changed when necessary. The aim is for a good quality software that meets the needs of the clients and not for meeting the deadlines and not running over the budget.

Today I've been reading blogs and forums about agile methodologies. So far this is what I've been able to gather:

1. Agile methodolgies prefer "Responding to custumer feedback" strategies reather than "Planning ahead" ones.
2. Agile methodologies are suitable for Incrementalists/realists kinds of developers. Incrementalists like to split software in bits and develop the most important bits first. They have an idea about what is achievable in real life in a certain period of time.
Traditional methodologies prefer Completionists or idealists because they can see the "big picture" (but fail at implementing because they have to account for every single detail in the design). In traditional methodologies every step has to be finished before attempting the next one.
3. Agile methodologies require more flexible customers capable of dealing with "uncertainty". Customers will receive the software in bits and will not have an idea about how the final will look like until the end of the project. They will give feedback to developers constantly and will work with them to decide on the course of actions.
On the other hand some developers say that agile methodologies are more "predictable". This is because it is more probable with agile that the final result will meet the customer needs. With waterfall one cannot predict if the final product will meet customer expectations, especially because the specifications are written so much in advance. One learns new and important things as one progresses in the programming.
4. Agile (XP), is not a cheaper alternative to waterfall. It was created to provide 100% customer satisfaction, that is, the customers gets what s/he wants. The final product is "good enough" to satisfy users.
5. Applications developed with agile approaches are more flexible and less resistant to change because of the constant additions and refactions during development time.
On the other hand because of constant change there is code in the applications that is no longer being used but rarely removed.
6. Agile works best in corporate solutions or business applications with big databases, where users can be consulted as opposed to shrinkwrap applications which can be more generic and where there are no users to talk to.
7. Agile are better fitted to ill-defined problems.
8. In agile methodologies design and coding are merged.
9. Most agile methodologies don't address maintenance which according to some (Boehm) is 80% of the SDLC.
10. There are two types of documentation, documentation for now (first development) and documentation for later (maintenance). IMO some agile methodologies like XP consider only the first type and neglet the other.
11. Most used techniques in agile methodologies -> pair programming, refactoring, test driven development, nunit testing... By the way, pair programming is the most mentioned by advocates and retractors. Some developers feel their productivity increases when they work in pairs, some others find it difficult to work with other people.

La vida de un asistente de catedra en Hull

2005-04-08T16:09:00.000Z

Hace un rato escribi un mini ensayo a cerca de algo que me pasó hoy en la mañana. Resumiendo, algunos estudiantes me agotaron la paciencia + terminé cansadísima después de la clase e incapaz de pensar hoy en la tarde. Tengo mucho trabajo que hacer en mi doctorado y me da colera no poder avanzar. Justo en este momento estoy analizando datos, pero mi cerebro no me da. Decidi borrar el ensayo, siguiendo el consejo de un viejo.... amigo. (mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo). Parece que el ensayo estaba un poco... fuerte. Ejem.... la vaca no se acuerda cuando fue ternera. Cuando era estudiante de pregrado o maestría me parecia muy fácil quejarme de los profesores y de los tabajos (que en realidad son un chancay de a 20 comparado con el doctorado). Ahora que me toca enseñar ya se lo que se sufre para hacer que un estudiante aprenda, sobre todo los que no estan motivados (y tambien los brutos).
Ya se que la audiencia de mi blog es 1 o 2 personas, pero aún asi decidi borrar la entrada anterior... no vaya a ser que en algunos años me haga famosa y alguien me lo saque en cara. :p

Me voy, creo que ya me esta entrando la inspiración.

DSS

2005-04-06T15:01:00.002Z

I started my PhD thinking on Decision Support Systems (DSS). I’d been working on one in my previous job. Having found so many difficulties while gathering information (interviewing people and reading documentation), and designing the system, I thought that it was a good idea to investigate better development practices to do this. My initial work was on describing the kind of settings I had found during my years as a developer. To do this I first identified the problematic factors that made analysis and design so complex. This is what I found:

• There was a great variety of activities. Those varied from academic related issues, like module planning and student complaints to administrative issues such as budget preparation and marketing promotions. There were a number of people who combined their academic and administrative functions in an unclear fashion.

• Users performed similar processes in different ways among the university areas. The personal styles that dominated shaped the development of the processes.

• Processes changed through time specially when the authorities of the university were replaced.

• A decision making process may be initiated by any member of the administrative or academic staff in the university or by students.

• The nature of the problem and the working styles influenced the way people would carry out the decision making.

• Most of the processes involved flow of a huge variety of documentation like reports with information extracted from the databases (tables, charts) but also of documents containing unstructured information such as texts with decision makers’ opinions and decisions.

• Users worked alone, in groups or in multiple groups depending on the convenience and availability of the interested.

• The university board and other committees meetings were, in some cases, the last stage in the process. However, most of the hard work was performed before they met.

• There was a requirement of recording all the data resulting from the decision making processes that were carried out at the highest levels of the university, as it was specified in the university regulations. However, this need was also perceived in most of the medium level staff as they believed that this information may facilitate their work in the future.

• Information was required in most of the stages of a process.

well well well I got bored..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

To be continued…

Why this blog?

2005-04-06T00:34:00.000Z

I’ve done software development most of my professional life. Now I am doing a PhD in the same topic. It is a challenge, but it is also rewarding. When I started I had no clue about how to develop an idea worthy for a PhD nor did I have a clue about how to investigate it. Thankfully, I found my way through it. I decided to study the social aspects of business organisations that affect the process of software development. To do this I designed a qualitative research. As I am very fond of internet and computers (and not so much of libraries, books and essays), I planned an online ethnography on software developers, where I could chat with peers about their problems at work. Now, I have finished my fieldwork and I am doing data analysis. I guess that it will take me two months or so to finish it. After that I will start to write my thesis.

I will use this blog to tell you about my life as a PhD student, to comment on my findings about complexities in software development and to share my experiences at doing online ethnography.

2005-04-04T15:57:00.000Z

Hoy, 04 de abril de 2005, día memorable, en el cual inicio un blog memorable, (ejem, ...eso espero)
Today, 4th of April 2005, I start this (I hope) memorable blog.