Invitation to Participate

I am starting into my dissertation research, which will explore the different ways that people who are involved in the design, development and deployment of API-based software think and talk about these sorts of systems. The end goal will be to move toward a common language/mental model that can be used by multiple stakeholders who… [Read more…]

Short vs. Long-Term Morality in Democratic Discourse

In democratic discourse, is it morally acceptable for a person to violate their moral code in the short-term to avoid a longer-term ill, and where is the threshold that makes acceptable? I had a conversation yesterday with a friend about this, and after some thought, i have what i think is an acceptable answer. To… [Read more…]

Formal vs. Informal Learning

I have been a spectator in a number of drawn out discussions and debates over the last year in which learning and development, education and business folks have come together in an effort to define and determine the differential value of “formal” and “informal” learning. (for a more theoretical opinion on these debates, see this)  I have remained… [Read more…]

A Poem for a Poet

This week we lost a dear friend Ann Walton back in Wayland, Mass.  She had been a childhood neighbor of my wife and a very close friend of the family for decades.  I only met her in the last couple of years, but we forged an instant deep connection.  One piece of this connection was… [Read more…]

Fluency and Card Games

Last night i was reading Pierre Bourdieu’s Outline of a Theory of Practice, and happened upon his very effective use of a card game as a metaphor to explain the very complicated sociology of a Kabyle marriage process.  I think the metaphor might be a helpful way to explain some of the things SociaLens found in… [Read more…]

Twitter, Power and Fluency

Robert Gibbs recently used Twitter to give a shout out to a local bike store.  Here is the original tweet, which reads: #FF @CraigatFEMA so you know the latest @RevCycles a great bike store & special thanks to Ken and others there for helping me with my bike This has been spun as an abuse… [Read more…]

Easy?

I just posted the following comment to a post by Guy Kawasaki on his blog about the premise that people favor cognitive fluency – the idea that people prefer things that are easy to think about compared to those that are not. Here was my comment: “I presume you may want to include a chapter… [Read more…]

Hitler and Electric Speed

I just read an article on Salon magazine about the fact that Constantin Films, the producer of the original the 2004 filmDer Untergang which has become the spoofed series of YouTube viral videos, has begun pulling the videos off of YouTube.  Without knowing the whole rationale behind their decision, i’m guessing this is a big… [Read more…]

Dissertation Research Method (overview)

Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn – Telegraph

Richard Wiseman Published: 12:01AM GMT 09 Jan 2003 A decade ago, I set out to investigate luck. I wanted to examine the impact on people’s lives of chance opportunities, lucky breaks and being in the right place at the right time. After many experiments, I believe that I now understand why some people are luckier… [Read more…]