I’m generally quite interested in systems, both computer/network and human. Human systems are fascinating since many behaviors are predictable yet people are creative. Getting them together to do great things is especially exciting and I don’t think the technology paradigm shift of the information age is limited to just gadgetry. Change is happening in all facets of people interacting.

To celebrate this I’ve embedded a couple of great presentations below.

This first embed is a short video I originally saw on Robert Scoble’s blog. It’s about a study that found what we thought motivates people at work actually isn’t what motivates people at work (at least for tasks that take cognitive ability):

The second is an internal presentation from Netflix. It’s about their values and culture as a company. It shows a non traditional way of getting the best out of employees:

On my way out to work the other day I grabbed some fingernail clippers for the five block walk. I needed to cut the claws but was running behind schedule and didn’t have time to sit back slicing them on the porch. So I figured why not kill two birds with one stone. As I was walking and snipping, I had a few thoughts about multitasking:

1) Doing two (or more) things AT THE SAME TIME.

Many people incorrectly identify fast movers as multitaskers, but if you look closely you’ll see they’re not doing two things at once. Instead they’re doing a little bit of a thing, then doing a little bit of another thing, then a little bit of another thing, and then maybe a little bit of the first thing. This is not true multitasking. It’s more like rapid small bite unitasking. When I was walking to work and cutting my fingernails I noticed I was truly multitasking: legs moving while clipper clipping, body getting closer to the office, fingernails getting shorter: at the same time.

2) Get two things done at once: slower.

It took longer to cut my fingernails while walking than had I cut them sitting on my porch. I also had to walk slower than usual in order to not fall on my face. The question about multitasking efficiency is: would I have gotten to work in the same amount of time had I cut my fingernails first then walked? And the answer is… No. Both activities take about five minutes. In sequence both would have taken 10 minutes. Doing them simultaneously took 7 minutes.

3) Quality goes down, but it’s good enough.

I didn’t do as good a job cutting my fingernails while walking, but I got them cut, and they look just fine thank you very much. I also got to the office.

4) The risks are greater.

The likelihood of tripping and falling is greater. The likelihood of snipping a hole in my skin while checking both ways before crossing the street is greater. This time… I succeeded.

5) Requires a larger burst of energy.

Sitting on the porch cutting my fingernails takes X energy. Walking to work takes Y energy. Doing both at once takes X+Y energy. You do the math. There’s also extra energy required to monitor the success of multitasked activities. In my case, I noticed my eyes were getting tired from constantly switching between the ground in front of my feet, other people and large metal objects on the road, and the placement of the clippers on my fingernail.

6) True multitasking takes skill, and wisdom.

Many people multitask because they have little self control and patience. They’ll be doing a thing, then another thing comes along and they can’t contain themself from doing it too. But, they may not even be truly multitasking. They might just be jumping from rapid small bite to rapid small bite. True multitasking can save time, but the risks and quality are matters to take into account. And while in the same amount of time it can accomplish more, it also costs more energy. Uncontrolled multitasking can be risky and yield low quality results. Smart multitasking, with the right variables and in the right context, can save you three minutes on your walk to work.

If you can keep up with the pace here are some dramatic stats about social media:

I took this picture of a picture hanging on the wall of our office at SERRC. I’m not sure who is in it, or when it was taken, but you can tell from the technology present that it was probably early ’80s. As a guy who works with all flavors of technology and people, and the intersection thereof, this image struck me as timeless.

Traditional methods for distributing and making money from creative content are struggling to adjust in this impending information age. Larry Lessig (a personal hero of mine) refers to our new culture as a “read/write” one, where members remix the world around them to create new expression. The “closed” business practice of the past are not only ineffective but hampering the creative expressions of today (and tomorrow).

Lessig (who pioneered Creative Commons content licensing) spoke at the TEDxNYED conference. His talk about fair use, openness, and the roles played by industry and government  (about 20 minutes long) is well worth the time:

Here’s a collection of fairly profound stats from a presentation given recently by social media guru Louis Gray. These select items show those of us in education where businesses are focusing their attention and the skills needed by modern graduates.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to get to facilitate a fascinating discussion during ASTE 2010. I’d prepared an hour worth of presentation, but halfway through the questions from participants were so interesting we spent most of the time discussing the issues rather than listening to the presenter (me).

We talked about a number of elements including the paradigm shift we’re currently in the middle of, how the fundamental way that knowledge is managed is changing, and how businesses are using social media to maintain customer relationships. And chiefly, we discussed the hurdles our schools are facing when integrating social media into the classroom in an attempt to better prepare students for the “real” world they’re about to enter.

The slides below provide visual support for the discussion. This talk also borrows heavily from Larry’s Lessig’s TED talk “How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law” (embedded below).

And here’s the TED talk by Larry Lessig:

Here’s a Wordle made from the ASTE 2010 preconference and conference sectional descriptions, the ASTE webpage, and keynote/speaker biographies. [Click to enlarge].

Are you a Buzzer or not? Please answer this one question informal poll asking if you’re disabling Buzz in your Gmail account, or if you’re going to leave it enabled:

With the release of Google Buzz, there’s oodles of speculation at what Google is aiming for. Facebook’s popularity is soaring, and now they’ve announced they’ll be launching a webmail product to compete with Gmail. So, is Google threatened by Facebook? Heck yea!

The social media wars are heating up! Google already has a humongous user base, and Buzz automatically links into existing Gmail contacts, giving people an instant social network. How well the mass of non-tech Gmail users will take to Buzz remains to be seen, they might find it one to many improvements to an already great product. And whether or not those who’ve already invested time and sweat into Twitter and Facebook will consider switching? Only time will tell… but it’s bound to be an exciting 2010.

Today I was fortunate enough to get to address the entire Hoonah middle and highschool student body. I talked to them a bit about Online Success.

My main effort was to impress upon them that this stuff known as Web 2.0 can actually be more than just fun and games. And that they have a choice… they can choose to spend their time learning how to use it for academic gain, or they can just fritter it away. Indeed, in a few years many of the businesses they think they may want to work for will be hiring and valuing those employees who understand how to professionally nurture customer relationships and knowledge sharing in social media environment.

We talked about being safe online as well as thinking twice before posting things that might make them look bad.

I also tried to explain just how much of an opportunity they have in front of them. I reminded them just how lucky they are to go to a school where the administration understands the importance of the modern web and makes sure students and teachers have access to it (yes, Facebook is open on their network!).

Here are the slides I used for part of my time with them. The real substance of our talk was in the conversation, but you might be able to use the presentation as a jumping off point in your school or environment.

Here in Alaska, Apple’s “genius” model for repairs is broken for two reasons. First because we’re not just rural, we’re expansive and rural. We don’t have simple mountain ranges, we have mountain fields. When you get to the top you don’t look down into the valley, you look across to the next mountain, and the ones behind it.

There are two Apple Stores in Alaska. The Mac Haus and the Alaska Mac Store. Both have shops in Anchorage and Fairbanks. If you don’t live in the big city, you can’t drive your broken Mac into an Apple Store. You have to ship it. In our case, the nearest qualified Apple repair center is, as the crow flies, 600 miles away.

The second problem with the Genius Model is this whole notion of a “genius”. I’ve been to Apple stores in Seattle, London, San Franciso and I’ve talked with the staff. Many of them are truly well versed in Apple’s products and troubleshooting. In Alaska? Not so much. In fact the most knowledgeable Apple experts I’ve met in Alaska work in schools.

In mid-August of this year one of our six month old Apple 24″ LED displays up and died. It simply wouldn’t power on.

Over the years we’ve sent in plenty of Apple laptops for repair. This is generally a painless process. You call them up, they do some troubleshooting over the phone, when they deem it needs repair they send you a box. Shipping is prepaid. You slap the laptop in the box, put it in the mail, and a couple weeks later it comes back fixed. No muss, no fuss, no extra cost to the consumer.

With anything other than laptops, this is not the case.

It took me two hours on the phone with Apple just to get to the point where I knew where the monitor needed to go. At first they gave me the address of a local store. So I called the store and they told me they didn’t service Apple products. I called Apple back and they told me that no, in fact that local store was indeed a service center. I called the local store back, and they reassured me in terse terms that they did not fix Apple stuff, only sold it. So, back on the phone with Apple, they gave me a list of the nearest service centers. Coincidentally, this was the same list I found when I searched Google. The Apple rep on the phone couldn’t give me much more help, so I selected one service center at random.

We didn’t have the original box the monitor came in, so I asked Apple to send us out a box for it. They couldn’t do this. I called foul and stamped my feet, reminding them how much business our agency’s recommendations drive their way. They claimed it was impossible to send out a box, something about China, production, and blah blah. I gave up and packaged the monitor myself, carefully.

The Apple tech on the phone wasn’t able to set up any sort of RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) with the repair center, or pave the way for me at all. It was up to me to make all arrangements. Once I got them on the phone, the Alaska Mac Store gave me their shipping address and told me to leave a note in the box so they would know who sent it. With most RMA’s, there’s a form you print out, with an assigned number on it for tracking the repair. In this case, nothing of the sort, just the pink Post-It note I affixed to the monitor.

So I shipped it out, with insurance, to the tune of $60. Since I’m a busy guy, it was easily forgotten. Three weeks later I had a voicemail from the Alaska Mac Store. They had a monitor with our name on it, and wanted to know what to do with it. Apparently my original phone call with them wasn’t logged or shared with their repair staff. So I called them back and answered their question: “please fix it”. A couple weeks later I received a call that it needed a new logic board, which Apple was sending up. A couple weeks after that they left me another voicemail, the monitor was fixed, and how did I want to pay for return shipping. I returned the call and gave them a credit card number over the phone to pay $42 for return shipping. Another week later the monitor arrived, in perfect working order.

Leaving the coordination in the hands of the customer is a disappointing contrast to other warranty repair options with other companies I’ve worked with. In this day and age, I’ve just come to expect more, especially from a company like Apple whose brand tends to set the bar higher.

My advice if you’re in rural Alaska? Don’t buy Apple iMacs or big Apple monitors unless you’re comfortable with the idea of shipping them out for repair yourself. Instead stick with MacBooks, or the Mac Mini which can be easily shipped. For monitors go with standard flat screen options from “normal” vendors. Or, if you really want that Apple Cinema display, remember to keep the box and packing materials for at least as long as the warranty.