Notes from the Field

iTunes turned 10 last month and now Linked in is celebrating 10 years.  Both services are seem to be an ubiquitous and integrated part of my personal and professional technology.  Getting the thank you message from LinkedIn reminded me that it must have been about 10 years ago that Friendster started charging for their social platform.  LinkedIn vs Friendster  = two different business trajectories.

The title alone should advance your game of buzzword bingo.  In the education space both MOOCs and Gamification are getting a lot of buzz.  However, I'm not sure if most that talk about it have taught or taken an open online course or have designed a game or applied gamification to their organizational objectives.

To better understand MOOCs, I decided to take a course on... wait for.... GAMIFICATION.  Turns out it's a great course "taught" by Kevin Werbach from Wharton. The course is delivered by Coursera.  I'm impressed with the content and the interface of the online course.  Frankly, it the course structure is that different from courses I worked on at Capella University ten years ago.  The key difference is that in the massively open structure, the instructor does not grade the student -- all grading is done by peers or algorithms on quizzes.   The video lectures are great but the homework is not challenging or rewarding. I give Professor Werbach credit to make himself available -- he holds periodic office hours via Google Hangouts

From a scale standpoint, you can have thousands of students in a course at one time.  Pretty cool!  I still feel that there's something missing by not having critiques or feedback from the professor.  I trust that the technology will get better that peer grading will improve.  Right now there's a fairly simple rubric and not much incentive for graders to put much effort in the critique.  In general, I believe that's because there's not much riding grades, as its not for credit.  There are options for a Statement of Accomplishment or Certificate, which represents the monetizaton play for Coursera.  If you didn't know, the courses are free. So if you have the time (see, nothings really free), I think MOOCs are a great way to get introductory/survey level knowledge in a content area.  As we better understand what the technology is to enable, we will have more powerful MOOCs.  In the meantime, I don't think they are replacing our confidence in traditional education and workforce certifications and degrees.  I don't deny that we continue to embrace ways to advance knowledge through "the guide on the side," there is still a role for the "sage on the stage."  More compelling than MOOCs may be what we learn from a "hole in the wall computer."

What are your thoughts on the future of MOOCs?

1.  Is this a Magistrate Court Subpoena or District Court Subpoena?  What are all the xxxxxxxxxxxxx doing almost blocking something out, but not quite.  Was this a fifth grade Junior Achievement project?  Wait, it’s not the same style as other things they spent more time to have blacked out.  Who was the winner that got a great deal on pre-printed forms?
2. Oh wait, now we’re blacking things out.  Check out the typing – are they using an IBM Selectric Typewriter? (Note: “The Drunk Undergrad” is my attempt to protect the guilty.)
3.  HEREOF FAIL NOT AT YOUR PERIL. WTF?!  Now I think I’m in trouble.   I was not familiar with the jargon, but a quick use of Google informed me that it means I’m at risk of contempt if I don’t show up.  Now remember, I didn't press charges, I've just been assigned a court date as a plaintiff.  So, The Drunk Undergrad continues to be a pain in the ass.
4.  OK, so who’s responsible for sending this? “Behold and witness the hand and seal” – that seems like Jules from Pulp Fiction is about to drop some serious shit on me…oh, wait it’s just the ramblings of an interim clerk.  What a letdown.  Not even a full-on clerk.  But, we can see this is not the clerk that was at the helm when Johnson County received a great deal on pre-printed forms.  What happened to that clerk.  Enough of that mystery, I still have to figure out what’s going on with this form and who’s responsible for this mess. Barbara Bigelow, you’ll help me out.
5. What’s up with your stamp Barbara J.? Is it in two parts? The Bigelow is second?  Ok, you’ll help me out if I have  a question, right?  Wait, are you a designee for yourself.  Confusion continues to rise.  I’m still hoping Barbara will be my point of contact – especially if she is using a signature and a stamp, and a seal.
6. Wait no,  It’s Abigayle Grimm…or is it Intern Abilgayle Grimm.  Intern is a weird name.  Again, not a lot of confidence that the attorney is an intern, or named INTERN, and the clerk is an interim. 
7. The fine print starts.  I begin to ignore as it has to deal with accessibility and does not apply to me.  I’m happy that the county makes these accommodations, and I’m strangely intrigued now by the bold print
8. Great, I better contact the disability coordinator about this HEREOF FAIL OR DIE A PAINDFUL DEATH statement.  Oh, OK, disability coordinators cannot provide legal advice.   Good to know, but I’m not confident that anyone listed on this subpoena, including me, can provide good advice.
9.  Holy crap, here’s the call to action.   Buried under the fine print. At this point, I’m convinced that Intern is Ms. Grimm’s first name. Why are they shouting and using all caps? Is it because they put the call to action so far down that nobody follows up.  Hmm, what if we bold it and put it in caps?  Sounds great, just make sure you print thousands of them.

CNN Money recently published a post regarding "the benefits of being stupid at work." The article highlights the work of Alvesson and Spicer (Journal of Management Studies, November 2012) as they introduce a "Stupidity-Based Theory of Organizations."   The researchers put forward the idea of "functional stupidity" in the organization.  Looking at their argument through the lenses of cultural communication, power, identity, and structuration, we can easily see why we have functionally stupid organizations.  Within those, functionally stupid individuals tend to do well and are promoted.  In other words DERP!

In a recent TEDx talk, Apala Lahiri Chavan from Human Factors International, lays out three laws for UX. It's an engaging and worthwhile talk.

When exploring the first law regarding the user's right to dignity, she implores UX  to go beyond demographic and psychographic elements and discusses the need to understand the values of the user.  I think cultural anthropologists and communication researchers would agree.  There is value in understanding where the user, as an individual, and as a member of community derives value.  Symobographic research is one way to get at the elements of meaning, motive, emotion, and identity to give deeper insights to help with brand and UX work.

You can see the Apala's entire talk on YouTube - https://youtu.be/MiwjplU6kAc .

Stephen Anderson (Seductive Interaction Design)  provides a great "hack" to improve your UX design work. Instead of leaving something at "I don't understand this." Reframe the issue to "Why isn't this shown in a way we can understand?"  

You can view his TEDx talk here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DahAiSRdJWI

Recently my family traveled to Disneyland and we had a great time.  It was such a great experience...or was it a great memory of the experience?  I gave a talk to our UX team at work about the experiences we had and how well Disney does their job across channels to provide a great experience...or a great memory.

One example that fascinated me was the fireworks at the end of each night.  The crowds gather on Main Street and watch the display, complete with perfectly timed music cues, before they conclude their time in the park.  Basically, Disney knows that waiting in lines for attractions is not a pleasant experience. However, the experience is reframed that night as each major attraction is celebrated in fireworks and music/audio cues. So while you may have been hot, risking sunburn, trying to entertain your kids prior to a major ride, you don't think about it that way when the attraction is celebrated in awe-inspiring sight and sound at the end of evening. You leave the park, happy and almost proud of your small part in that attraction.

As the UX team discussed this, a team member brought up Daniel Kahneman's TED talk.  From a behavioral economics perspective, Kahneman argues that key to experiences is the remembering self, not the experiencing self.  How you remember (or re-interpret and re-remember) your experience defines your experience.  An interesting way to think about the experiences you're designing and delivering. Kahneman also talks about the weight of he ending of an experience shaping how the "remembering self" thinks of the experience as good or bad.   I think it may challenge the adage "you only have one chance to make a first impression" and start thinking about all of the opportunities you have to create a great ending.

Think about a good experience that you've had recently and think about how it ended and how that shapes your attitude towards the experience.

1.  ROWE was about results first.  That’s a good thing.  It was a framework that drove, or should drive work, and respects the individual employee.  With the focus on results, all meetings were optional.  Imagine how much better you have to run a meeting so that you have a reputation for good meetings and good projects.
2.  I believe a lack of leadership and discipline had more to do with Best Buy’s downward trend then ROWE. Less than two years after the voluntary separation program, Best Buy had more staff on payroll.  What the what?!?!  You were trimming staff to save money.  Instead, they lost a lot of talent with the separation program, as many left with their package to start other careers.  To the directors and VPs who had 2-4 years’ worth of severance, they basically said “I believe in me more than I believe in Best Buy” and took their talents to their own startups or other organizations.  Best Buy  did the right thing by their employees, but I think they weren’t sure how to deal with the unintended consequences of talent (that had deep organizational knowledge, and current skills) leaving.
3. There were too many uncoordinated initiatives competing for resources.  Leadership needed to focus on channels and desired outcomes.  It seemed easy to label a priority.  It’s a lot harder to prioritize.  Also, during the turmoil and shifts of the marketplace over the past five years, BBY had three CEOs.  One retired, one fired for cause, and their current CEO.  
4. The home office/store (or blue shirt) relationship was strained.  Blue Shirts could never do ROWE.  “Hey, what can you tell me about this Sony Bravia?” I’d  like to sell you on it, but I’m going to a movie for a while.  I’ll be back whenever. Blue Shirts also had crappy access to corporate systems and technology.
5. Best Buy hit the wrong enemy target.  They did a great job targeting and beating Circuit City. But that may have been the wrong target.  Best Buy was late to the game when it came to e-commerce.  It should have been targeting Amazon.  Instead of a good bricks & clicks world, Best Buy became a shopping destination, but not a purchase destination.   The high margin items that helped Best Buy quickly became commodities – GPS Devices, HD TVs, etc.  You can buy a great, reliable flat screen TV at Target,  Wal*Mart, or Costco – why do you need Best Buy.  GPS is a standard party of your smartphone. Don’t have time to get to the store right now – Amazon is always open…and have it shipped to your door…through Prime, which includes free second day shipping and lots of content.
6. Related to the miss on e-commerce.  Many leaders at Best Buy would dismiss projects saying for that $$$ we could open X number of new stores.  Those stores are now an albatross around their neck which exacerbates their lack of nimbleness. It’s the employee costs at the store, the real estate at the store, the physical costs of that footprint, etc.  It’s hard to change when you always see yourself as a big box – a symbolic law of the hammer.  As a big box, they will always try to solve problems in big box ways.  Big box get bigger. BIG BOX SMASH!
7. In the wake of Yahoo & Best Buy’s changing of EE benefits, I think we have two struggling brands that have had leadership issues for the past few years.  The consumer doesn't really know what those brands stand for today or what value those brands generate. 
8. ROWE had results first.  That’s still a pretty good place to start.