Category: Personal

Thinking about information as we do food?

I’ve written a number of times here about information overload, information addiction and information management. Here are a few of the more popular ones:

In this TED talk JP Rangaswami thinks about the parallels between food cultivation, preparation and consumption and information cultivation, preparation and consumption:

JP Rangaswami: Information is food

Now there’s some food for thought!

Some ramblings that come to mind:

  • I too am someone who’s waist is larger than it should be because my food diet isn’t what it should be. I heavily suspect that my information diet is likewise on the over-eating side of things. There’s probably a more healthy information diet somewhere that I should be following.
  • Although, the thought that there may, one day, be the equivalent of the grapefruit diet for information workers makes me shudder.
  • I snack more when I work from home because the kitchen is very close. The information kitchen is getting close to being everywhere which is why we are finding it increasingly difficult to stop snacking.
  • I like the creative process of cooking, but I’m no master-chef. Pulling together different pieces of information to create something is really rewarding, but the things I see other people doing amazes me.
  • I quite like fish and chips, it’s not the most healthy food, but it’s very enjoyable. There are some people that I follow on twitter who are like fish and chips.
  • If exercise helps the body to burn food energy, what is it that helps the brain burn information energy?

How would you answer JP Rangaswami’s question: "If you began to think of all the information that you consume the way you think of food, what would you do differently?"

Getting back into the flow

Today is one of those days when I’m trying to get back into the flow of work after a week of holiday (yes, very nice thanks for asking).

Earlier in my career I worked on projects and getting back in to the flow was simpler – meet with the rest of the team working on the project, find out about progress, start my activities. These days my role requires me to oversee a number of different activities that are going at different paces, occurring in different locations and require a different level of involvement from me.

My normal routine in this situation is as follows:

  • Go through my inbox, filter items into ‘actioned’ or ‘to action’ folders taking note of any that may be urgent.
  • Do the same with my other data sources – corporate social network, feeds, etc. I’ll star items as I go through these lists for further reading or comment.
  • I remain in a form of radio-silence throughout this time so I can get through it uninterrupted
  • Eventually I’ll go online to the corporate instant messaging service and see what interruptions arrive
  • Check my voicemail
  • Review the items in my ‘to action’ folder and build a to-do list.
  • at some point I’ll have a call with other members of my team, but that’s normally precipitated by one of the items on my to-do list.

This time I’ve decided to perform this ritual in the office which has worked a treat because I’m the only one sat in my section. There is still some noise distraction so I am wearing the headphones:

The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS)

Are you addicted to Facebook? Do you know someone who you think is?

A group of scientists at the Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Norway have been developing a scale to measure levels of addiction:

Fountains AbbeyThe Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS).—This scale comprised 18
items, three for each of the six core features of addiction: salience, mood
modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse. Each item is
scored on a 5-point scale using anchors of 1: Very rarely and 5: Very often.
Higher scores indicate greater Facebook addiction.

The full report is here.

This scale is specifically aimed at measuring Facebook addiction as a special case inside the broader class of Internet addiction that others are also studying. They’re not using Facebook as a metaphor for all forms of social networking, they are directly looking at people who are addicted to Facebook. That’s a scary thought.

The Independent reported it this way:

It gets into your blood, consuming your thoughts and inducing panic attacks if the next fix is not in sight.

On a good day, it might offer a harmless escape from the troubles of the world.

But on a bad, it can turn into a monstrous distraction, rendering you unable to concentrate on work or studies.

The drug is Facebook, and if you fear you may be an addict, now is the time to find out.

Researchers tested a scientific scale on 423 students which measures how hooked users are.

They found women are more at risk of addiction because of the social nature of the site.

The Norwegian team found ambitious types are less likely to become addicted as they take advantage of the site for their own purposes, such as work and networking.

My favourite line from the study report is this one:

People scoring high on narcissism tend to be more active on social network sites, as social network sites provide an opportunity to present oneself in a favorable way in line with one’s ideal self.

Does this remind you of someone you know?

You Can Find Me Here: About.me

I’ve wanted for some time a place where I can link people to everything that I contribute to.

LismoreOne of the ways of doing this is to link everything to everything and to post updates in multiple places. This kind of works but is a bit clunky with current capabilities. When I post updates to this blog they are also posted onto Twitter and Facebook, but there are other things that I do that I don’t post either here, or on Twitter or Facebook. But how would anyone know what I do and don’t contribute to?

I’m currently using About.me for the purpose of linking people to the things that I am currently contributing to. At the top level it’s a really simple concept, I like to think of it as an online business card. What I mean by this is that it’s a single page that says something about who I am and gives information on how to get in contact. It doesn’t get a lot of visitors, but it gets enough for me to regard it as important, fortunately it barely takes any housekeeping.

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Blessings #185 – The Donors

I’m sat on a rather uncomfortable chair in a row of people waiting. It puzzles me why after thousands of years of making chairs we still don’t know how to make ones that are comfortable.

Derwentwater RocksIt’s Saturday lunchtime and the place is packed. We are in rows in one corner having booked ourselves in at the entrance.

There are young people some of them looking nervous, others looking a bit lost. There are older people mostly relaxed. It makes a change for the young to be the nervous ones.

Some of us are drinking water, others cheap squash out of large disposable plastic cups.

All of the usual waiting distractions are being employed: chattering, newspapers, out of date magazines, romantic novels, card games on mobile phones. Other’s have entered that semi-docile state that waiting induces.

It a large village hall where the decorations are looking a bit tired. Someone replaced the blinds at the windows in recent times, but didn’t bother to fill in the holes left by the ones they removed. There’s a stage and some spotlights that look like they were last used for some wonderfully under-produced and over-practiced amateur dramatics. There’s a certain comfort to these places. They’re all looked after by different groups of people and yet have the same feeling to them.

Occasionally a name is read out and one of our number leaves to another part of the hall. Others come to fill their place in the rows.

We’re all waiting for our journey into one of the little cloth cubicle for the initial interview and tests. It’s there that many of us will imagine the famous Hancock scene and repeat to ourselves the words “I don’t mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint? Why, that’s very nearly an armful!”.

The theme tune to Rocky is playing on the radio. It doesn’t seem appropriate for this crew of wonderfully ordinary Lancashire folk.

In the fullness of time each of us will make our way to the fancy new reclining chairs or one of the wartime metal beds and the machines that will be attached to our arms to take our pint.

We’ll finish our experience with a conversation over at the tea and coffee table. there we’ll book ourselves in for another appointment of the same and leave.

We are all here to give something of ourselves, but why? There’s no payment. We’re not doing it for the fun of it. Who would choose to have a needle stuck in there arm for fun on a Saturday lunchtime. There’s no law to tell us to do it.

Yet there are many reasons why we give.

I’m sure for some it’s personal; they give because someone they love has needed the services of the donors and they realise how important it is. Others, I suspect, give because of a sense of duty, back to Hancock “I came here in all good faith, to help my country.”

I don’t think it’s either of those things that draws me to this place. I think I give because I’m a member of a society, a community, a people, and I give for our collective good. I give out of a sense of serving the community. There may be a time when I need the community to look after me. I know that there are people who need my help now.

None of these people will receive public acclaim. They’re a quiet group on the whole the donors.

In my view it’s not the Gross Domestic Product of a nation that is the true measure of it’s worth. It’s these selfless servants who are the true measure of a society.

He sat down and summoned the Twelve. “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.”

Mark 9:35

"Be with your friends who are here"

There are a number of situations where I would quite like to do this:

Not taking myself so seriously

Notice anything interesting about the chart below? It’s a chart of the number of visitors to this site:

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Apart from a small general uplift in overall visitors across the period shown the most significant factor is the number of visitors on a Friday. I always get way more visitors on a Friday when I publish a Because it’s Friday blog which always reflects the lighter side of life. It’s a good job I’m not really writing for popular appeal Winking smile.

30 years of technology heritage

Today I read a news report on the BBC and decided to go out into the garage to commemorate the occasion.

In the stack of boxes out there one box has this visible on the side:

30 years of Spectrum

For those of you who’ve watched the news then you probably know that this is the side of the box for a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. This is, as the picture shows, the 48K version, before I go any further let’s just stop there and think about that, this machine had 48K of memory.

I did think about going the whole hog and plugging it in, but after considering all of the messing about with a television I decided against it, especially as I realised that I no longer had a tape player to allow me to load in any of the programs.

What I settled on was a bit of an unboxing, so here are the pictures:

30 years of Spectrum

30 years of Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum was my first experience of personal computing so hold a special place in my memory. It’s difficult to explain to a generation that has so much technology embedded in everything that they do how significant this little box is. But this box opened my eyes to a world of software possibilities. It’s the rise of software that has been the defining feature of the 30 years since the release of this box.

There were also some games on tape cassette. I don’t remember all of the games but I do know we spent hours playing pool and jetpack (the one in the glare at the bottom):

30 years of Spectrum

Yes this really was a lot of fun:

ZX Spectrum Pool

This little lot represents a significant investment from my paper-round money, birthday and Christmas presents. I think that’s one of the reasons why I can’t part with it all.

I wonder what another 30 years will bring?

Blessings #184 – A Day of Good Samaritans

We’ve recently returned from a few days in north-west Scotland, not right at the top this time, between Oban and Fort William in a place called Appin.Castle Stalker Bay

Next to Appin is one of the most famous views in Scotland, that of Castle Stalker (the picture isn’t the best at showing that castle we were taking sunset pictures). Beyond Castle Stalker is a place called Port Appin.

It’s called Port Appin because it’s the port on the mainland where goods travelled across to the island of Lismore. The whole areas is packed with history, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about in this post. Today the port is little more than a small jetty from where the small Lismore to Port Appin passenger ferry travels.

While on holiday we decided that it would be fun to hire some bikes in Port Appin, to get on the ferry to Lismore and to cycle on the island.

Hiring bikes was an experience in itself. As we drove into Port Appin there was a small sign saying "Bike Hire" pointing us down a street of houses. Ferry to LismoreAnother sign outside one of these houses saying "ring the bell at the back door" told us that we were in the right place. Sure enough, having rung the bell we were shown into a large a shed full of bikes for hire.

There were six of us and some were more seasoned cyclists than others. So it was with a certain level of excitement and trepidation that we cycles the short distance to the ferry.

There seems to be a law that wherever you go in the world the people running things are never the local people. Ferry to LismoreI’ve many examples of this, in this case the man taking the money on the ferry was from New Zealand. He lifted the bikes over the hand rail around the ferry and stacked them in the small area at the front. We made our way down into the wooden cabin where we paid the small fee for the crossing and got to know one of the locals who seemed to be on his way back from a shopping trip. Those few minutes spent chatting were lovely and soon we were on the other side. We had also managed to get the most important information – the location of the one and only cafe on the island.

Having been offloaded by our Kiwi friend we set off cycling along the side of the beach on the one and only road on the island. The sun was shining, the countryside was beautiful and the air was fresh.

Eventually the road left the shoreline and started to climb into the middle of Lismore. It was at this point that the chain on Sue’s bike started to slip making it difficult for her to climb. LismoreFor a number of reasons we decided that the best thing was for us to swap bikes. Both bikes had quick release bolts on the seats and mine would go low enough for Sue to ride it, and Sue’s would go high enough so off we set again.

Not much further along though I noticed that the peddle under my left foot was starting to wobble and the wobble was getting worse. I ignored it for a while, but eventually decided that I need to stop and have a look. As I stepped off the peddle and the crank arm that it was connect to fell off in my hands. I was stood looking at this bike wondering what I was going to do when another cyclist off the ferry stopped and offered assistance. He had a tool in his small bag on his bike and it enabled me to tighten the bolt a bit and go on my way. Good Samaritan #1.

It wasn’t long, though, before the bolt started working loose again. This time I’d made it as far as a farm. I went into the farmyard, found some people and asked if I could borrow a socket set. Without flinching the farmer went into one of the sheds, came out with a well used set of sockets and handed it to me. It was just what I need and got the bolt a lot tighter than the first time around. Good Samaritan #2.

Cycling to the cafe in the sunshine with clear skies and fabulous views of snow capped mountains was glorious. LismoreThe soup and cake at the cafe was pretty good to.

We’d cycled half way along the island by now and some of the group were getting to the point where they thought that back to the ferry was the right way to go. Emily and I decided that while they finished off there lunch we’d explore a little further. Unfortunately during this exploring the crank arm started working loose again, the bolt had been threaded at some point and there was no way it was going to stay fast.

We meandered back to the cafe picking up the rest of the group headed towards the ferry and the farm. This time the farmer wasn’t there, but his wife was. She’d been around the first time and I asked her if it was possible to borrow the socket set again. She told that if I knew where it was to help myself, which I did with a smile on my face. Good Samaritan #3.

LismoreThis time the threading had completely gone and there was no way that the bolt way staying in. In my youth I would have just scooted on the bike with one leg on the remaining peddle and my other foot pushing me along, but somewhere an the last 30 years I’ve lost that ability. I did, however, manage a reasonable method of walking up the hills and sailing freewheeling down them. After all we were on our way down to the ferry, so there was more decent than assent.

It was getting near to the time when the next ferry would be leaving and there was an hour between trips. Ferry to LismoreSome of the group went ahead to see how far it was and whether I would make it walking and freewheeling.

When they got there our friend from New Zealand told them not to worry and that the ferry would leave when I had arrived. Good Samaritan #4.

As we sat eating our meal that evening we all agreed it had been a brilliant day, a day of beauty, a day of sunshine, a day of nature, a day of history, a day of community. I sat and gave thanks for Good Samaritans.

Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?"

He answered, "What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?"

He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbour as well as you do yourself."

"Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you’ll live."

Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define ‘neighbour’?"

Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

"A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’

"What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbour to the man attacked by robbers?"

"The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded.

Jesus said, "Go and do the same."

Luke 10:25-37

Conversation, Connection, Communication, Rudeness, Isolation, Etiquette and Technology

This is probably more than one post, but all of the thoughts came at the same time and they kind of fit together so here they are as a single stream:

I have a rule, if I’m in a conversation with someone and they start to look at their mobile device or laptop I stop talking. I used to just sit there until the person came back, but after a couple of occasions where I’ve sat for a few minutes waiting for the person to come back I’ve modified my behaviour and I now leave. I give them a little while to come back, but if they have clearly left the conversation I will leave too.

Castle Stalker BayPreviously I’ve written about being In the same room, but not together when observing the interactions in my own family. At this year’s TED Sherry Turkle gave a talk on Connected, but alone? She has some very interesting, and worrying, things to say about our relationship with our devices:

Our little devices are so psychologically powerful that they don’t only change what we do, they change who we are.

She makes a much better job than I did of explaining the worry that I was expressing in my post Post 1000: Thinking about thinking, the brain and information addiction.

She goes on to say when talking about the way that we flit between being present and being somewhere else:

Across the generations I see that people can’t get enough of each other if, and only if, they can have each other at a distance in amounts they can control. I call it the goldilocks effect – not too close, not too far, just right.

In other words – we are desperate to connect but we want to do it on our own terms and in a way that provides immediate gratification.

Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?

If you watch the recent Project Glass video posted by Google you’ll notice many of these same characteristics in the interactions that they envisage. Notice how long it is before the person wearing the glasses interacts with a real person and how many opportunities he had to interact that were replaced by technology.

Project Glass: One day…

In a report from August 2011 Ofcom highlighted our changing attitude towards technology and, in particular smartphones:

I wasn’t sure about the statistic on usage in the toilet until the other day when I went into a toilet and noticed the gentleman (teenager) at the latrine next to me had one hand dealing with normal latrine activity while texting/tweeting with the other.

In a recent InformationWeek article Cindy Waxer describes 6 Ways To Beat IT Career Burnout and what’s #6:

6. Take a week off. Seriously.

"By off, I mean off," says Russell. No smartphone, no email, no telephone calls.

It’s been interesting over the last couple of week talking to colleagues returning from an Easter holiday break. Some of them have said something along the lines of "it was great i completely got away from it all" while others have said "I stayed on top of my email while I was away so the return was much easier". To the second set of individuals I’d like to ask the question – "what was the person you went on holiday with doing while you were staying on top?"

Most of my posts have a conclusion on them, but I’m struggling to work out what it should be on this post. We need to start to understand where we are letting the technology take us to, but what does that mean? We need to work out what our relationships are going to look like in the future, but how do we do that? We need to understand what the new etiquette is going to be, but how? I think, though, I’ll finish off with Sherry’s words "it’s time to talk".

"Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation." Mark Twain

Jimmy has returned

A few months ago we had to make the sad announcement that Jimmy was missing.

Today we are pleased to announce that Jimmy has been found Smile.

Although it’s been a long separation for him he doesn’t seem to have experienced any lasting damage and is currently enjoying being amongst the rest of the family again.

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