Graduation -- A Master's Degree Completion

A minor miracle has happened. I have survived graduate school.

What a complex and challenging two years it has been, learning concepts and frameworks that I never would have dreamed existed. The MSIM degree at the University of Washington's Information School has been a growing and learning experience. I've been exposed to people and ideas that have allowed me to see problems and the world from new perspectives and within many different contexts.

When I graduated from my undergraduate program at The American University, there was a certain way that I viewed the world, and my time there shaped my skills and abilities, including giving me a strong foundation in research. Shifting to the field of "information" has actually been a natural progression for me.

I've discovered I am an information gatherer.

Whether trying to build a case for a peace program in Kashmir or developing a content strategy for a company, having the right information is critical. I find it incredibly satisfying to solve problems using rigorous and robust information.

And I am looking forward to the next step of finding a career that isn't just a job, but will allow for finding engaging and dynamic solutions for how to connect people with the information they need.

Airplanes, Seattle, and Visualizing It All

This quarter I started a really fascinating independent study project with a Foster School of Business professor, Dr. Richard Nolan. I get to do some research for him on people, places, and time - all related to the aeronautic-powerhouse Boeing and its role in the Seattle/Puget Sound Area.

Specifics aside, I've really enjoyed learning about three specific things.

1) The idea of the "industry commons"
This is an idea that seems to in part come from the medieval practice of sharing a common space for the good of a community. Sharing resources and ideas in a collective space is a way for an industry to innovate and strengthen itself. There is the idea that the movement of tacit knowledge happens more readily in geographically bound spaces through more informal transfers - in short, similar people are drawn together in one place and share their knowledge with each other in non-professional settings such as in a bicycling lunch group. When an industry has certain geographic concentrations, there is a tendency to see others of the industry (individuals and companies) drawn to that location.

2) Visualization of non-linear information
This has been my biggest challenge. I have done a lot of research over the past 8 years or so, and yet this is the first time I have to "visualize" my findings. I can create lists and draw conclusions no problem - but finding a way to visually represent the data is quite a daunting task. I've taking classes with design elements, but this is actually having to create meaningful visuals. Today I discovered MindNode which will hopefully help me out as I map out pretty complex relationships between people, places, organizations, and time. Hopefully they'll turn into something interesting and clear at the end, because right now they're kind of confusing. The first draft is always the hardest, they say, and then the following iterations should hopefully become easier to improve.

3) Airplane and Seattle knowledge
This has been a side bonus of the project - I've been reading lots and lots for this, and I find myself discovering very interesting little facts and tidbits about Seattle and its history. I love it - I've been out here almost every year of my life before finally moving here in 2009, and this city continues to enchant me. Learning about the richness of its people and places has been wonderful.

The other thing is that I get to learn about airplanes - I retain less of the information but it's still a cool subject. I've always loved traveling, and now it is quite cool to know more about the giant beasts that get me from one place to another through seemingly impossible conditions.

PS: Don't research airplanes if you're nervous about them already.

Emerging Technologies - Connecting or Isolating?

There are some interesting conversations happen around the world about the role of social media and how human behavior is changing alongside the emergence of the newest ways of communication.

Recently on the Colbert Report, Sherry Turkle talked about her recent book "Alone Together". The thesis of her book is summed up by a recent by Paul Harris in an article in The Guardian: "technology is threatening to dominate our lives and make us less human. Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber-reality that is a poor imitation of the real world."

I think this is a fascinating hypothesis, worth conversation and further exploration. I seem to, by default, love the ease of communication and accessibility I have to friends around the world. When you have friends from Canada to England, Germany to Cambodia, and France to Honduras, it seems  somewhat miraculous to be able to email, call (with video), text, and instant message all of them for either free or very reasonable prices. Fifty years ago - heck, twenty five years ago - this kind of communication would have racked up a bill a mile long. But I take it for granted that I can instantly write an email to the child I sponsor in Honduras, then have a free video Skype call with my friend in Cambodia, and follow it up with sending a text for just a few cents to another friend in England.

Yet this access does make it difficult to keep up with everyone. I rarely sign into Skype these days, often because I find it more distracting that I can afford with work and school, or simply because I forget to. Emails that are easy to send sometimes take weeks for me to get around to finishing, and loiter in my drafts box for a while. There are so many ways to communicate these days, but I still have many days where I feel the lack of communication in my life. I still write hand-written letters every once in a while, simply because there is something incredibly special about sending and receiving "snail-mail".

But I'm not sure that we're being isolated because of this technology. I think it is a possible repercussion for some people, but I'm not sure it is a societal epidemic. The key point, though, that I take away from this book and the idea of "cyber-skepticism" is that it is good to be skeptical. Just because social patterns are forming does not mean those are necessarily positive steps forward. There is the cited story about the woman who left a Facebook suicide note, and her 1,048 "friends" on Facebook failed to take action to do something, or take it seriously. I think this is a tragic story where there was a disconnect between cyber-life and "real"-life, and should serve as a catalyst for self-examination as an internet society. At the end of the day, I think it isn't the technology we have to worry about - social media is only the tool, neutral without the people and actions behind it.

A Plethora of Words - An Update

I've started out this Winter quater term with a very full but wonderful plate. I have a fantastic internship with Annie Searle & Associates (ASA) as a research associate. I am able to research and write on risk and crisis management issues, something I am increasingly excited about as a career path, which has been an ongoing concern in my head. While I love what I'm learning at school, it has been difficult to not know exactly what I want to do after the degree. And so I'm quite pleased that I've found an area that I am interested that has a name and recognized professionals out there. Secondly, I'm working on my final-year Capstone project, the culminating part of the program. We are challenged to put our knowledge into practice, which is sometimes daunting but oh so exciting. This is also going to be implemented at ASA, which makes things a lot more enjoyable since I am settled there already.

I look forward to seeing some topical overlap in my information security class as well, which is focusing on risk management for the most part through an IT lens. And I must say, I have quite enjoyed our "Policy, Law and Ethics in Information" class so far. It reminds me of my undergrad days - getting to read and discuss Hobbes and Rawls is almost nostalgic. But the best thing really is that it is an application of knowledge from my BA degree into my master's work. That hasn't happen very often, so it is quite fun for me.

But people are fascinating regardless of context. I am doing an independent study with a professor over at the business school, and I am getting to track and map out the people over the years that have influenced Boeing and the Puget Sound area. It is fascinating to see how all the brilliant people came together, and how they seem to have drawn other smart people and the companies that want smart people to them.

All in all, quite an overwhelming plate. But it is all so good! I just have to be careful not to get sick off of all the lovely bounty of information before me. I am writing and reading so much these days I am a bit overwhelmed by even trying to keep up with the news some days. But words are powerful, and it seems that I have to take advantage of the opportunity to both consume and produce as many as I can.

The Beauty of Data Visualization (David McCandless TED talk)

I have to do a quick post about this TED talk from earlier this year. David McCandless talks about "The Beauty of Data Visualization". And it's beautiful. I've been digging around the newest website, "Information is Beautiful" having a lovely time examining all the truly lovely visualizations they've created.

I really do believe that pictures/visuals really are the next sets of vocabulary for communicating data. We have spent a lot of time in using words to describe data (and believe me, I love words), but there's so much power in a picture. And the visualization of data can give you an immediate grasping of context (accurate only if done right, of course) that words just can't quite capture.

For example, McCandless et al. produced a "Billion Dollar-o-Gram" in 2009 to give some context to those billions being thrown around. Go look at that for a second, and then come back after finding the cost to "Wall Street Revenue 2009", "Cost of Obesity Related Diseases", "Eradicate AIDS worldwide", and then "Worldwide cost of financial crisis".

McCandless talks about how the sometimes quoted "absolute figures" don't give you a whole picture - the relative presentation of data through visualization can give you a better view of the landscape. Visualization creates an information map for people to explore, and helps expose the hidden patterns among the data.

One comment he makes was interesting - he challenges the saying "data is the new oil" with a slight modification: "data is the new soil". It is this rich resource, and there is so much of it. We just have to figure out how to ask the right questions of it to get the answers.

"Let the dataset change your mindset" - the use of visualization is definitely a part of making sound decisions that can be backed up by data.

Information & Making Decisions

Decision making can be a difficult thing. Sometimes it's simple "I wouldn't be caught dead in those shoes", a decision made on strong personal preferences without much thought or information needed. My experiences over time have shaped my shoe taste, and I don't really need outside information to make my decision.

But the majority of the time, making a decision is not so simple - numerous variables can catch us up in a game of trying to calculate tradeoffs and possible outcomes and consequences. I find myself going over the same problem over and over, imaging all the various things that could go wrong if I make the "wrong" decision. Over-thinking an issue can get me into trouble.

And then there are the decisions we don't even realize are important until later, and we go through the phase of "if only I'd known when I was making that decision that I would end up here with this result, I would have chosen differently".

It's easy to find oneself feeling paralyzed in the face of making a decision that can have seemingly unending number of outcomes and consequences.

Good information can help the decision making process easier. If we know more, we can make more informed decisions. Part of what I want to do with my degree in this field called information management is help make information more accessible, understandable, and sustainable for decision making in organizations.

Whatever the heck that means in the real-world. Still working on figuring that part out.

Projects & Relative Problems

This seems very true some days:

(Picture from http://ninapaley.com/mimiandeunice/)

Whether at work or in one's personal life, it seems to be that by default we want to prioritize our own problems, and view them as more important and difficult than those faced by others. Our needs are at the center of how we see everything else. We can look back later and put a crisis or breakdown in perspective, but in the moment it's hard to have insight like that. But when it comes to the workplace, it can be costly to an organization for an individual to take this stance. In trying to mitigate projects and the inevitable conflicts that arise, this mentality is a particularly difficult challenge for someone like a business analyst or project manager.

Say, for example, I'm trying to get two different department heads to communicate with each other, and communicate to me, about priorities, problems they need fixed, and what their requirements are for a certain project. But if they can't come up with supporting data/information about why their needs are more important, all that happens is a back and forth of "My needs are more important than theirs because... because" and reasonings that have no data to back them up. If I can't get this information, I can't validate any decisions I make in terms of the project direction, nor can I make much (if any) progress.

Anyone in an organization that is tasked with coming up with requirements or needs must be able to not only articulate those needs, but have validating data to back up the reasoning behind those needs. We can't become personally attached to "having-our-way" when there's no data to back up why our way is "better", or why your problem is the most critical. We have to be able to tell someone or many someones why we choose to do something, and what value that decision adds to the project.

Getting that data can be tricky, full of politics and personal feelings, and sometimes it simply isn't going to happen. Information is not a straightforward topic, and it is really the people that make it a challenge and "interesting" in both good ways and bad. But it is worth the effort when you can stand in front of a group and present a solid project with an information foundation you can rely upon.

Why Are We Still So Paper-Based?

It continually amazes me how much paper my last job produced - I was working as a database coordinator for an academic department at the UW. Sounds like a pretty electronic-centric position, right?

Wrong.

I had a brown paper bag I used to collect mixed paper for recycling. I think I emptied it every other week. That doesn't seem too bad if you don't think too much about that. A supposedly paperless position, filling up a Safeway brown paper bag every two weeks!! Reports and presentations and notes, printouts and event planning materials.

Currently I'm interning with the university's information technology office, and it just baffles me. We print out so much electronically-based documents and artifacts. Everything from emails and reports and meeting handouts. While laptops are dominant, notes are still often taken with paper and pen. Though personally I'm thankful that what I'm doing now produces very little printed work, even though I find myself in the center of a paper-laden environment.

I think that this is partly a holdover of established working practices - it is only very relatively recently that we could make almost any document electronic. This is probably the core of the reason - people who have been working for the last 15 to 30 years are not likely to want to change how they've been doing things. In a world where technological innovations have ripped through our societies, radically changing and shifting established assumptions and practices, it is difficult to keep up with the latest anything, let alone quickly adapt.

This is not to say that there haven't been successful moves to reduce paper use - as part of a university -wide initiative, the office is required by state law to use 100% recycled paper, reduce paper use by 30% beginning July 2010, and to recycle all office paper. It seems as if there is steady support for it, but it certainly takes more than throwing away paper in a different box. Moving towards paperless or paper-scarce environments requires a shift in attitude, behavior, and an acceptance that it won't always be convenient or the same as it was before.

The Information Rambler

What do you do with information? How do you process it? What do you do with the overwhelming amount of it that bombards you almost every moment of every day.

Those are pretty serious questions. The implications of how a person, group, organization, society, nation answers that can have echoing answers with lasting repercussions.

Information can change national policy, the color you choose for your house window frames, or even what wine you chose to have for dinner.

I'm entering my second year of a master's program in "Information Management" at the University of Washington in the beautiful . The meaning of that in itself is a challenge to unravel, and yet a fascinating journey.

I'd like to document a few pieces of this experience, and put into words some of the thoughts I've been having about information. Might as well put it out into the teeming mass that is the interwebs.