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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.

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Tuesday, March 8, 2005

An Austin Geek's Guide to Getting Over Yourself at SxSW

The unofficial geek guide to getting over yourself at SxSW Interactive 2005

Here's how you can tell if you have not had the full SxSWi experience:

You find yourself back in your hotel room for the rest of the night right after the last panel of the day.

You haven't shaken hands with people who look and act nothing like you

You haven't had dinner with complete strangers.

You've stuck only to your clique of people that you see daily back at your hometown.

You haven't attended the EFF / EFF-Austin / Creative Commons Party on Monday night (free drinks! free food! live music! delicious food! (I should know, I'm responsible for getting it))

You left Austin without fifty business cards of new contacts you expect to email at somepoint soon.

You left Austin without the intention of calling 3 new contacts to meet up within 2 weeks of getting home

You haven't crashed every clique you see

You aren't smiling and smiling BIG

You are talking more than listening,

You haven't had a conversation or at least said "hi" to me, David Nunez.

You don't have an orange, happy face sticker on your badge.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 7:39 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Collaboration, Productivity, Technology

'Hackers' Not the Biggest Security Risk

Un-Spinning the ChoicePoint Scandal

Many of the popular news media have got the most recent ChoicePoint scandal all wrong.

The following are a few headlines (culled from Google News) of stories regarding this issue, including the other similar past incidents now surfacing:
Hackers crack ChoicePoint (The Glove and Mail/AP, Feb. 16, 2005, reg. req'd)
Californians warned that hackers may have stolen their data (USA Today/AP, Feb. 16, 2005)
Report: SoCal thieves stole ChoicePoint records years ago (SignOnSanDiego.com/AP, Mar. 2, 2005)

The persons, admittedly criminals, who gained access to "critical personal data" on hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens did not steal the data--ChoicePoint sold it to them.

Although 'hackers' rightfully got the publicity at T-Mobile, the bigger problem is a system that confers us no rights over our own information, no penalties for companies that fail to protect it, no required disclosure when our info is purloined, and therefore no incentive at all for companies to do the right thing. It's unlikely this is going to change until there is a scandal that directly affects lawmakers. It's too bad our representative republic is so poor at representing our interests.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 6:50 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Privacy

Before - After Whiteboard Image

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 3:02 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Technology

Whiteboard Photo Capture Software

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 2:27 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Productivity, Technology

Too Many Words?

Too Many Words

[...] before you write something, ask yourself "What could I do in a visual form (photo, illustration, cartoon, whatever) that would make this point?" and see if you can do it. If you don't know a graphics program, start learning. It's the 21st century, and I believe that skill with visual/graphic tools (you don't have to be a designer!) should be right up there with typing and writing. Just something everyone knows how to do. (Virtually all kids in US schools are getting some training in some form of computer graphics.) Not everyone who writes on a blog is expected to be Hemmingway, and not everyone who creates pictures is expected to be Picasso. Keep thinking back of the napkin sketch. If you're not used to thinking in pictures, it might take a little practice, but before long, you'll wonder how you got along with only words. : )

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:58 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Collaboration, Learning

I'm Tracked Back, Jack

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:09 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Technology

Monday, March 7, 2005

Bullets -- the Leading Cause of Presentation Death

Thanks to Frank Patrick I’ve discovered an excellent source for improving my presentation skills — beyond bullets. Cliff Atkinson has a weblog full of helpful insight and how-tos, with a generous portion of data to backup his work. Having just completed an Edward Tufte seminar, I have an unkindly feeling toward powerpoint in general, and bullets in particular. Chris comes along with these research findings to support my bullet-induced nausea:

Why Board Members Should Ban Bullets

The boards of directors of every organization should immediately ban the use of bullet points on PowerPoint screens, if they accept these research findings:

Adding text to a screen in a multimedia presentation that is identical to the narration harms the ability of the audience to understand the information. Removing the text increases retention, or the ability to remember the information, by 28%. Even more significantly, removing the text increases transfer, or the ability to apply the information, by 79%.

This is according to research by the most prolific researcher in the field of educational psychology, Dr. Richard E. Mayer, in his book Multimedia Learning. If you're interested in the research behind the data, I highly recommend you buy a copy of his book.

In the comment thread there are a couple of dissenting opinions, but having sat through years of leaden, sleep-inducing, content-free, bullet-ridden presentations I cannot imagine anyone arguing that bullets are a useful tool for the general public. There are several other good posts on Cliff’s site, including this one on sending notes pages (a technique I hit on accidently a few weeks ago) and this one on using a structured story template to build effective presentations. Cliff also has a new book out, Beyond Bullet Points, that looks well worth reading.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 3:52 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Saturday, March 5, 2005

Largest Technolgy Boondoggle in Public Education History

Suburban Atlanta school district Cobb County Public Schools is gearing up to spend $70 million with Apple Computer to equip all middle and high school students and teachers with laptops.

The Cobb County Board of Education on Wednesday, Feb. 9th, heard details of an enterprising plan to prepare students to succeed in the 21st Century’s global information-based society, creating the largest one-to-one computer learning initiative in the United States. Superintendent Joseph Redden will begin contract negotiations with Apple to work out details of the Power To Learn program, which calls for the company to provide approximately 63,000 iBook G4 laptops for students and teachers in grades 6-12, plus a comprehensive package of training, technical support and server upgrades. The school board will consider the first phase of the plan in March.

Oh. My. God. What a boondoggle. This is tangible, measurable, palpable proof that people in Cobb County have more money than brains. Within less than two school years the majority of those laptops will be broken and useless. The ones given to teachers will be largely unused, except for simple gradebook programs. And the students still won’t know how to do basic life functions such as balance a checkbook. This is the sort of bureaucratic, politically-correct, insanity that drives me nuts. At least it’s not a federal program that we all have to pay for (though I’m sure at least some of the funds will come from Federal coffers eventually.)

Why, you may ask, does a techno-advocate like me go pale over such a grand infusion of technology? Because it’s being done by idiots who have no clue what’s really wrong with their school system.

"The Power To Learn program represents a tremendous step forward for education in Cobb County," said Superintendent Redden. "Our school board members have demonstrated that their vision of educational excellence goes beyond doing things the way they’ve always been done. Real leadership is about using the best technology available to help students learn in new and better ways."

No, that is not what leadership is about. I have two aunts who are public school teachers in southern California. Several years ago their district squandered $5-$6 million giving every teacher in the district a Dell laptop. Everyone thought this was grand. What a great idea. Wahoo! We’re a technically advanced school system. Unfortunately, they didn’t bother to provide the sort of intense training required to turn a bunch of middle-aged school teachers into effective technology users, much less technologically adept teachers. As a result, the school district has several thousand very expensive Dell-brand doorstops. And nothing, absolutely nothing, got better.

Cobb County is even worse. They’re giving the laptops to kids, fer pete’s sake. Just how long do they think one of those beautiful G4’s is gonna last in the hands of some 14-year-old? G4’s are not GameBoys. They don’t take to being dropped, banged, thumped, slammed, used as book props or whatever. This is so incredibly stupid I can barely imagine it. The same school officials that ban cell phones, pagers, GameBoys, etc (all of which, BTW, are computers) now wants to give the students laptops but has no idea what those laptops are really for.

Kids don’t need technology training. They have computer labs in my daughter’s school. You know what they’re teaching her to do? PowerPoint presentations! Teaching middle schoolers applications like M$Word and powerpoint and passing it off as 21^st century education ought to be punishable by a prison sentence. If you’re going to teach them anything, make it Quicken. The rest they’ll learn on their own given a little time to play around.

Enough whining. If the school district has $70 million to squander, here’s what they ought to do:

• Give $1 million to Anne Davis, probably the single smartest lady in greater Atlanta public education, and let her develop a technology curriculum that focuses on things that actually matter. Let Anne recruit a core of hand-picked champions from across the district to be trained in the value of technology, the reasons, the benefits, the core of things like P2P, blogs, IM, RSS, search, fact-checking, triangulation, VoIP, Skype, connectivity, etc. Make sure these people get it and, more importantly, have a burning desire to communicate it to the students.
• Set aside $10 million for intensive, 6-month training courses for the rest of the district’s teachers. A one-day class here and there isn’t going to cut it, but that’s all the morons in school administration think is necessary. They’re wrong. Dead wrong. You have to give these teachers time to absorb this stuff, wrangle with it, come up with their own questions, and then come back to get another dose of training. Then repeat. And make sure the courses are taught by peer-champions from step 1. No pointy-headed consultants.
• Set aside $1 million to create a permanent support structure. Not some anal-retentive help desk run by a bunch of geeks that work for a consulting company, but a teacher community – maybe a blogging/meetup-style community that spans the district, has funds for regular meetings, can offer classes for special training or do whatever the teachers and champions think should be done.
• We have $58 million left, what do we do with it? Oh, set aside $500,000 to buy laptop computers for the teachers, but make getting a laptop contingent on joining the community and completing the 6-month training course. If they don’t complete the course – no laptop.
• Spend $6 million to buff up the existing computer labs, maybe add some to schools that don’t have one or don’t have enough.

We still have $51.5 million. What are we going to do with all that money? What about adding more Algebra or Science teachers, putting art and music back into the curriculum, creating better after-school tutoring programs, or any of the thousands of things the typical public school needs? Anything except squander it on a boondoggle so some bureacrat can massage his ego.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 2:15 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Learning, Policy & Regulation, Technology

NFL: Atlanta Falcons Mortgage the Future

It’s silly season in the NFL — that time of year when free agents play musical chairs, coaches and GMs evaluate who they can keep and who they can’t, and the league generally resembles a game of Pick-Up Sticks. This Wednesday was the most expensive day in Dallas Cowboys’ history, as Jerry Jones wrote more than $20 million in checks to secure the services of a group of veterans he and Bill Parcells hope will drag the team out of the cellar. Maybe they’re right. At least they have hope. But here in Atlanta, we have a different problem.

The 2004 Atlanta Falcons were a very good team — just a player or two away from being real SuperBowl contenders. That means we’ll all have high expectations for 2005. After all, our new coach has a year under his belt, our star athlete has a full year under the new “system”, and everything should be rosy. Right?

Wrong.

Before the year was over Arthur Blank signed Michael Vick to a massive contract, a contract that hits the Falcons for more than $25 million in salary this year. That’s 31% of the TOTAL $82 million in team salary available for 2005. As a poor working stiff I’m obviously not qualified to give financial advice to a billionaire, but how can that possibly be a smart thing to do? Already the carnage has begun.

Ed Jasper and Cory Hall, key members of the league-leading defense, have been cut. The rest of the defensive backfield is on the unrestricted free agent market, and so are key specialists like speed returner Allen Rossum and kicker Jay Feely. The team can’t keep these guys because they’re still $16 million over the cap limit.(have a look at salary cap numbers here.)

The result of the Vick deal is the Falcons have two options:

• Decimate the team and get into salary cap compliance by cutting almost the entire starting defense and several key offensive players (like RB Dunn and TE Crumpler)
• Convince LOTS of key players to restructure their contracts, take less money, and generally suck it up so Michael Vick can be the highest paid player in the league. (BTW, this option spreads the load of all the current contracts well into the future, meaning there will be no room to bring on new players as the current stars age and retire.)

Michael Vick is a great talent, but God himself can’t play football with just a single player. Football takes 11 men on either side of the ball, and some of those players have to be really good (and thus paid well) if the team is going to succeed. 2005 isn’t likely to be a very good year for Atlanta, but there is an upside — 2006 season tickets should be a lot easier to get.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 10:41 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

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