Today, I had an idea for coordinating the art and pictures we hang on our walls at home: a “direction room”. The essence of it is that we hang a picture on a wall oriented towards the direction where the subject of that picture is or was. This layers into the decoration of the room a sense of orientation augmented by representing the location of the subject – metadata of that subject.
Some people say “next-gen” referencing a specific, named, defined, or bounded Generation. Other people say “next-gen” to describe something they think is on the cutting edge, representative of what is to come.
I stumbled upon the observations above while reading this HBR artilce: http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/03/twitter_sxsw_and_building_a_21.html. It is an author-cum-interviewer humbling himself before the audience, whose power he realized after underwhelming them with his interview of Evan Williams, @ev, Twitter Founder.
Haque says, “That’s how next-gen organizations take on the challenge…” It seems you could interpret this as Haque declaring there is a Generation for Organizations – either somewhat here, on the cusp, which he defines here; or, already defined. Alternatively, you could interpret this as Haque putting chrome finish on another part of the vehicle he’s driving to make a point. I think he means it casually, but he might be using the latter, buzz-word, form.
Just like neuroscientists learn from studying brains that “don’t work like others”, so to speak, I learn from studying statements that don’t work like the others. This isn’t simply picking on a buzz-word used by an HBR author. It is the prelude to the curiosity of what I wondered next. Read More
There’s a mind game like to play: I weave extra hints or messages or humor or sometimes oblique concepts into the statements I make; and, then, see who picks up on them. You score points by volleying a similar extra layer of meaning. Style points are awarded for the flavor of the volley: Is it thematically, stylistically, or structurally similar? Does it extend, engage the woven thread? Did it oppose or mock it? Did it trump or topple the original?
It’s always been odd to go through the day rarely meeting other people who play the game. Much less, finding people who are interested in it. Sometimes those who play a little will catch on and go a few rounds with you. Sometimes you meet players who are too different in style, structure, content for it to be a complete game.
This is my favorite sport. And, yet, there’s no league for it. It’s all pick-up games. In some places, you get labeled a witch for talking and thinking with such powerful cleverness.
* I borrow Stephen Jay Gould‘s biology term “spandrels” for it’s ingenuity and uniqueness. Read More
The heuristic nature of algorithms under development
In the unofficial top-ten list of a good user experience gone wrong is the variant of: “Yeah, but Amazon is stupid because I bought a children’s puzzle once two years ago, and they keep recommending children’s puzzles to me. I’m never gonna buy another one, but they keep asking me about them!”
The second most common algorithm, if you will
Amazon uses algorithms (Wikipedia, Wolfram) to process what you do while on their site and then predict, anticipate, or guess what you would do next. But, this is created by humans and subject to human error*. And, as I understand it, they adjust, adapt, revise, and tweak the algorithm over time.
(*) This is what I mean by the “heuristic nature” of algorithms. While this algorithm is an enviable personalization tool and/or recommendation engine, it clearly produces spurious and annoying results. Heuristics (Wikipedia article) are “rules of thumb”, as opposed to mathematical equations which we optimize.
A flavor-of-the-month heuristic
This flavor-of-the-month is brought to you by Twitter-meets-marketing. Rather, it’s brought to you by people who blindly pursue a broad idea in a way that wastes their time more than it wastes others.
Today, I twice tweeted about “diet”, more specifically, tweeted about planning our family diet for the week ahead:
http://twitter.com/jayamorgan/status/18801092461
http://twitter.com/jayamorgan/status/18800989687
And, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but spurious and annoying new followers who focus on diets and dieting. After two tweets in which I mention diet, fools rush in.
Admittedly, I am connected to people who discuss food-related topics – more specifically, people who discuss natural and local foods. But, that’s clearly not about diets or dieting. And, my history of tweets rarely (if ever) mention diets.
This isn’t the first time a rare keyword like “diet” has set off a flurry of spurious new followers. And, I hear about this from other twitterers.
I presume these people use search-based tools to monitor tweets using keywords of interest to them. I wonder how this will play out. Will they stop the idiocy of following anyone who tweets their keywords? (After all, it’s common that these people are following upwards of 10k people, which is an absurd number of people to follow with anything resembling attentiveness or care.) Who is making tools for these fools? I presume that just as their are horrible websites and poor technology everywhere to be found, that there are tools enabling the bad habit of following a person after they tweet your keyword once.