UCSD: DSGN 90

Day Three: Soliciting Stories from Others. 

Any thoughts or reflections on yesterday or on trying to further improve your story? Anything that seems like an “insoluble” problem or dilemma that you want to share with the class?

Introduction: 15 minutes. 

Using stories for generating ideas for products. 

Wants and Needs. Cite George Furnas; we NEED oxygen but we WANT to avoid build up of Carbon Dioxide. We NEED healthy food but we WANT sugar. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246277995_Future_design_mindful_of_the_MoRAS

Go for needs whenever possible. Why? Your product or service will be more enduring. 

Examples. 

Drug Dealers get shot or jailed. 

Cigarette companies get sued, fined. 

Even the best buggy whip manufacturers are likely to go out of business. If you focus people’s attention too much on what they like and dislike about their current situation, they are likely to focus on their wants: “I want a lighter buggy whip.” “I want a buggy whip that makes a snappier sound.” “I want a buggy whip that motivates the horse without injuring it.” 

Don’t be fooled by the words that the user/client/stakeholder uses. They may say, “I need a lighter buggy whip.” They are still talking about their wants. Merely using the word “need” doesn’t make it so. 

Theory of Mind. How does this relate to storytelling? How does it relate to eliciting stories from others? Using elements of empathy. Variant on heuristic evaluation: Have evaluators “imagine” using the product or service from the perspective of others. 

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5591e171e4b040c8aa3e29dc/t/55c27b96e4b02253a66ec2eb/1438808982498/ZNon-EmpiricalUsabilityMethod-10-93-Desurvire+%26+J+Thomas.pdf

Guidelines for Interviewing (from Debbie Lawrence). 15 minutes

• Prepare ahead of time. You may want to find out a bit about them, their role, the situation, and prepare some questions you would like to have answered, not as a strict sequential questionnaire for the person you’re interviewing but to remind yourself.    

 

• Thank them for their time. Provide a “warm-up” period. 
  • Most people do not want to and will not launch into a story that is potentially embarrassing or reveals something negative about their company, a product they use, other people, etc. Of course, there are exceptions. 

 

• Tell something personal and revealing about yourself; perhaps tell a story that is a model of the kind of story you’re looking for.

 

• Observe an implicit contract of trust.O

 

• Provide a motivation for the story — why it’s important. 
  • Say how they, or their colleagues, or people like them, or society as a whole may benefit. 
• Accept the storyteller’s story and worldview.  Don’t resist the story.
  • Don’t problem solve for them. “Why didn’t you simply call the police?” “Why didn’t you read the manual first?” This approach can appear blaming, the word “simply” implies that this is the “obvious” solution. Let them tell the story with as few interruptions as possible. Later, if you want to probe for other actions that they considered, you might ask, “Let’s go back to the part where you broke the guitar over their head. Were there other actions you considered at the time?” 

 

• Reveal who you are, how the story will be used, potential audience and goals, answer questions.

Be honest. If they are exposing themselves, they should know before they tell their story. If true, say that stories will all be anonymized (and make it so.) And anonymized means more than simply changing the name! For instance, a long time colleague of mine at IBM Research was Cathy Wolfe who got ALS and continued to work a IBM Research. If I told about someone at IBM Research who worked in Human Computer Interaction research despite ALS, it wouldn’t be an effective anonymization to simply change her name to Carole Walcott. 

 

• Use questions to probe.  Sometimes, a totally “off the wall” question can create space for story to emerge.

This can be especially useful if it seems as though they have told the story many times before. They may be skipping over a recounting of their actual experience and instead recalling the story that they’ve already told. 

• Empower the storyteller — they are the expert in their experience!

Avoid statements that deny a person’s experience. “Surely, you didn’t really expect your brother to….” “But everyone knows that you can’t….” 

• Avoid threat; don’t appear as an expert yourself.

“I wondered about her actions because I’m kind of an amateur psychologist and so…” “OH, really? I’m getting my degree in cognitive psychology from UCSD in just a few months.” (This may seem like an attempt to find common ground and build rapport; it might work with some people, but others will read it as you trying to “one up” them and to question them on how much of a psychologist they really could be. 

• Listen with avid interest.

If possible, and if it doesn’t make the teller uncomfortable, it’s good to go with two interviewers and either record the interview or have another person take notes. When I was training as a Cognitive Behavior therapist, we recorded sessions as a matter of course. I explained what this was for (so I could review it and have my supervisory group review it for suggestions) and said, “Here’s the pause button. If you ever want to say anything and NOT have it recorded, feel free to just hit the pause button.  

• Thank them again.

Go over your notes immediately, especially if you have not recorded it. 

Small Group Exercise: 3-4 people in the group. Interview each other to gain story. One interviews. One Records. One or two provide feedback for the interviewer. 60 minutes.

Take a moment before beginning to think about some unusual experience, situation, part-time job, summer job, vacation, that you had. Try to recall something that could have gone better – a time you were frustrated, scared, angry, anxious, depressed. Then, use this as a suggestion for what the interviewer asks about. It does not have to be a life-changing experience! Just getting lost on campus, buying a video game and then be frustrated with it, or getting an unfair traffic ticket is enough. Let the interviewer ask you questions about your experience. The interviewers long-term goal is to uncover one or more needs that might be addressed by better design. Of course, you probably won’t get that far in a short interview, but keep that goal in mind. 

The Feedback structure should proceed as follows: 

• First, the Interviewer says one thing they liked about what they did in the interview and asks for feedback on how they could have done one thing better. 
• Second, the observers each say one thing they liked about what the interviewer did and one thing that they thought could be improved for next time. 
• Third, the interviewee says one thing that they liked about how the interviewer conducted the interview and provides one suggestion for improvement. 
• Fourth, the group briefly discusses whether the interviewer was able to delve into underlying needs or whether it stayed at the want level. Also, discuss whether they interviewer was able to elicit any stories of experiences from the interviewee. 

 

• 

FB for these sessions. 

Each interviewer might tell story to larger group as well. 

Class discussion about story elicitation lessons learned. 20 minutes.

Review, summary, and preview of homework challenges: 5 minutes. 

Questions: 5 minutes.

Optional Homework Challenge: Design a high-level visual representation for one of the three major “dimensions” of story: Plot, Character, or Setting. Stories are written or told with words, but the underlying structure is hard to “see” by simply looking word by word. Representations can either make problem solving, including design problem solving much easier — or much more difficult. So, your goal is to provide a thinking tool for higher level design aspects of story. Prepare to give a ten minute talk to the class about your representation on Friday.

Speech analysis and waveform versus spectrograph. Use of “speech-flakes” by Cliff Pickover (which again shows that human beings are not just information processors).

Optional Homework Challenge: Look up the TRIZ method. This was developed by Genrich Altschuller for invention in the engineering domain. Find out his story. Prepare a ten minute explanation of the method for this class. At the end, speculate about how this method might be applied to the process of story design on Friday. 

Optional Homework Challenge: Find your own design problem related to story — and solve it. Prepare a ten minute class presentation that poses the design problem and then explains, shows, demonstrates your attempt to solve that problem. 

Examples: You do NOT have to choose one of these.

How could a computer program extract the value changes in a story. This could be used, e.g., to check whether every scene had at least one value change (love to not love; rich to penniless; sick to healthy; alive to dead). Or, it could be used if you wanted to search for stories that showed someone going from rich to penniless. 

How could you design a program to find stories in a large amount of text — part stories and part non-stories? 

How could you provide a tool that would change a story to modify it for different situations, different audiences, or different goals? 

---

 

Magic Portal into Other Worlds

DSGN 90

Day Two: What are the properties of Stories? What makes for a good story? Character & characterization. Who are some memorable characters? Why are they memorable? 

Another View of Story (lecture & discussion): 45 minutes.

Three-dimensional view of story: Plot, Character, Setting. 

But these three are not really independent dimensions. 

Levels of Conflict:  Intra-psychic, inter-personal, with larger forces: society, nature. 

Character is deep; revealed by choices under pressure. 

Characterization are surface features.

Characters are more interesting when their surface features play off against their character. James Bond is actually a patriot willing to “go to the end of the line” for his country — even though on the surface, he seems like a superficial playboy. Shawn Spencer in Psych is a complete charlatan posing as a psychic. But through his shenanigans and charades, he uncovers the truth and puts away the bad guys. Lady “screw your courage to the sticking point” MacBeth is hard as nails on the outside, but goes insane with guilt. 

Characters must have weaknesses, not just strengths. What three weaknesses does Superman have? What about other heroes or superheroes? What about ordinary protagonists? 

Characters often have a lie. This is basically an overgeneralization that they have made on the basis of a traumatic event. “Our father/mother left the family; men/women are not to be trusted!” In order to find love, the protagonist must learn to overcome this and “grow” to a more nuanced view. This lie, at least initially, is often unconscious. They may not know they have it. If they do know, they initially do not see it as an overgeneralization at all; they are simply being “realistic.” 

Characters often have a secret. While the lie may be unconscious, the character is quite aware of their secret. They are ashamed of something and try to keep others from finding out about it. Neither the Lone Ranger, nor Zorro, nor Superman wants others to know their “true” identity. Other secrets might be about their upbringing, a love child, a rape, a crime, etc. 

Characters we care about, are active, not passive. They don’t just have vague inarticulate desires (in the most common case of an ArchPlot) – they want to achieve or gain something quite specific. Frodo needs to destroy the “One Ring.” Harry Potter needs to destroy Voldemort (or “convert” him). And, both these heroes will do anything to reach their goals. We don’t really want heroes whose approach is: “Well, while I’m visiting Mordor, if I get a chance, I might drop by Mount Doom and destroy the ring.” Even in user stories about products or services, have your use really care about the outcome. Cf. “Joe wants to get to downtown San Diego as soon as possible” vs. “Joe’s wife fell and hit her head; he needs to get his wife to the emergency room as soon as possible to avoid permanent brain damage.” 

Exercise: Improving a story. Each small group of 3-4 people takes a story and improves it. People work in turn improving character, plot, and setting. Put emphasis on character.  45 minutes. 

For each story, have the author pass out copies. Before reading the story, the author should say if there is anything in particular they want feedback on. 

After reading the story, one of the other members of the group acts as a shepherd. The shepherd, invites the author to listen to feedback. They should make a small group and have the author turn their back on the group, but be very close and listen to what is said. The author should be quiet, listen, and take notes. 

Each person, in turn, says one thing that they particularly like about the story in terms of plot, character, or setting. If anyone else in the group agrees, they simply say “ditto.” 

After each person, including the shepherd, has a had a chance to mention something they like, each one should offer a suggestion for improvement. Be as actionable and specific as possible in giving your feedback. If you agree with someone else’s suggestion for improvement, simply say, “ditto.” Rather than disagree, focus on giving your own positive suggestion when it’s your turn. It is not time to get into a debate about whether or not a suggestion is a good one or a bad one. Just give feedback to the author about the story and let them take it all in. 

When everyone has given feedback about the story, the shepherd invites the author back into the circle and then tells a short unrelated joke or anecdote.  

Move on to another story and another as time permits and try to get through everyone’s story. 

Class Discussion: What did you learn from the exercise? What surprised you? 25 minutes. 

Summary Recap:  5 minutes. 

Exercise for next class: Consider the feedback you obtained from the group and improve your story. Bring it in to the next class. 

———————————————-

Author page on Amazon. 

Dear Faithful Readers and Students:

I have been preparing for the last few weeks to teach an intensive one-week course on stories and story-telling, DSGN 90,  at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). I will using this blog to post information relevant to that course. Non-student readers are also welcome to peruse this material. Next week, I will return to general blogging further about stories and storytelling. The mythical translators and archaeologists who are working on The Myths of the Veritas assure me that within a month or two, there will be sufficient material unearthed and analyzed to begin recounting more of their tales.

Meanwhile, here is a link to the class.

And here are is the class outline for Monday, January 28th.

Course Outline: DSGN 90 (Instructor: John Thomas)

Day One: Introduction, What Makes a Story? What Makes a Story Good? Uses of Stories, Storytelling, and Story Elements in Design.  

Hand out sheet: Name, E-Mail, Major, career goals if known, course goals, comments

Introductions and solicitations for reasons people are taking the course. Terse: One interesting thing about your background + goals. Ditto.  20 minutes

The “Story of Story” (How I got interested). Knowledge Management & Dr. Maciw. – 5 minutes

Overview of Course Content: 30 minutes; 

Two main goals: 

Learn some of the ways stories can be used in design, development, and other areas of life & work. 

Learn something about how to create or elicit stories more effectively. 

Focus on What a story is; why stories? – memorable and motivating; can be good for tacit as well as explicit knowledge. Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book. Here are the opening lines from various novel length stories. Read over these and see whether they “hook” you to want to find out more. Also think about what you have already learned about: 

The Story Genre or structure.

The character.

The setting.
The writer. 

The intended audience.

Other…

Common stories allow a group or community to easily reference a situation: Robin Williams in Aladdin and the robot in The Nutty Professor.  

Stories may be viewed in many ways. Each of them is useful. And all of them together are more useful than any of them singly. 

Stories can be seen as setting up a resonance on an emotionally charged roller coaster. Real Roller coasters have a property defined by gravity. The biggest changes occur at the beginning. Stories have properties defined by imagination. The biggest changes occur at the end.

 

Stories explore the edges of human experience. What is true of our temporal and spatial sharpening across all our senses….putting more resource into processing those stimuli that change in space or time; true of sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, kinesthesia. We are also interested in the limits of things: what is the largest animal that ever lived on earth? What is the tiniest mammal? What is the age of the oldest person alive? How tall is the tallest mountain? And, just as our senses are influenced by expectation, so are our emotions. 

 {Anecdote about new cassette tape player that replaced AM radio in car.}

So too, an experience related in a story can be at the edge due to expectations set up for the reader by the writer. 

Because story looks at the edges of human experience, this has implications for character. We want our typical heroes to be out there in some way and be willing to go to the end of the line to achieve their goal. We want them to really care about their goal. 

Because story is supposed to explore the edges, it means that stories often tend to have something unusual in their setting too; Roman times, Medieval times, on Mt. Everest, on a space ship, during a war, in a magical world, in a world of monsters, etc. 

Good stories *can* be set in more normal situations, but then to get to the edges, the author will need to be put more emphasis on constructing the plot and giving characters a burning desire. The “edges of human experience” don’t always have to be the edges of all human experience. The “edges” can be of the edges, not of all human experience, but of that particular person’s experience. It’s not so much a way to learn what’s at the edge. After all, that will always be changing and is more the province of science than story. 

The dilemma of how we might respond to cruelty; to lost love; to overwhelming odds; what we will do about it — those are questions that are timeless. Those are the ones that allow us to identify with Odysseus, or Lady McBeth, or Bambi, or Frodo Baggins, or Jane Eyre. We have to feel how “on the edge” their decisions are for them in their world, not what they would be viewed as in our world. 

There is an important asymmetry to the knowledge exchange that’s possible in stories. We can learn from stories how we can deal better emotionally in some extremely bad circumstances. We hope we are never in such dire straights, but if we are, we are more emotionally prepared. For that reason, and because it’s more emotionally arousing, we the readers or viewers want the hero to “take it to the limit” — to risk everything to save…

In real life, we should avoid abandoned warehouses, wait for back up, and not yell out to the scores of hidden villains.  If you are the villain in real life, you don’t bother to “explain yourself” to the hero until help arrives! You would shoot them immediately! If a story is being used as a training manual for procedure, maybe you want the story to model the correct behavior. But the correct behavior is almost always more boring. Generally, the writer should put their heroes in pain, bad luck streaks, etc. This can be a sticking point for people who write. They identify with the hero and like their hero so they find they “can’t stand” having the hero they created lose their best friend, suffer an amputation, give in to an evil impulse, etc. 

Using Stories throughout problem finding, problem formulation, generating design ideas, user stories for coherence and to motivate, stories for sales and marketing, stories from users and service people. 

Creating a story outside in. Take any interesting object, person, fact, and dive into it. Expand historically, geographically. Immerse yourself in details and let the story come. (If Only; JFK). Of course, you can use this method to recount one of your personal experiences. But you can also elaborate on one of those, making sure to label it as fiction.  

Creating a story inside out. Look for strong feelings of anger, surprise, humiliation, or fear; e.g., what gave rise. Can change or alter circumstances to make for a better story. 

Exercise: Use one of these two methods (Outside In or Inside Out)  to generate a short short story (@250 words) ideally, but not necessarily, one that might be relevant to design potential (which isn’t all that restrictive really). 

Read your story to a partner. (If you didn’t finish writing, you can read the first part and create the rest on the fly). After reading/telling your story, have a short FB session. 

The author of the story should tell their partner one thing they liked about the story and THEN say one thing that they were not satisfied with or wanted to improve. 

Then, the listener should say one thing that they liked about the story and one suggestion for improvement. 

For feedback to be effective, it should be as specific as possible and as actionable as possible. 

For example, if you say, “Wow, that was a really good story.” it isn’t all that helpful. If you say, “Really good story. What I especially liked was your detailed description of the morgue” that’s better. If you say, “That’s a really good story. I liked that detailed description of the morgue, especially the way you used tactile imagery, smell, and the sound of the place.” That’s quite good. Similarly, if you say, “I don’t know. I didn’t really like that story.” it’s not very useful.  

Of course, feedback generally works best when it’s accurate as well. And all three of these guidelines apply equally well to the feedback you provide users in almost any system (games & CAI can have exceptions). FB needs to be:

Accurate

Specific

Actionable

Explain Writing & FB Exercise: 5 minutes

Explain Rules for FB on exercise: 10 minutes

The Formula for critiquing. FB should be specific and actionable. 

FB in therapy session. 

FB in OOPSLA Pattern Workshops. 

Actually Performing the Writing and Feedback Exercise: 30-40 minutes.

Review, summary, and preview: 5 minutes. 

Questions: 5 minutes.

Writing Assignment: Bring in four copies of a written story of your own (250-1000 words) to class for Tuesday. 

It could be fiction, anecdote, a user story illustrating a problem, or a solution. 

Main criterion is that it’s something you’d like feedback on.  

---

Author Page on Amazon. 

 

The Story of Story 4: Character

Character is revealed by choices under pressure. Character is one of the three main dimensions of story. Often people who write fiction — or developers who write “user stories” add details about the people in an effort to make their characters (or personas) more “interesting.” Adding irrelevant details in something as long as a novel might help the reader get a clearer image of the character. Even in a long novel though, it’s better to add details that relate to something else in the story. In something as short and “to the point” as a “user story” it is worse than pointless. 

Consider these descriptive details: 

“Jill had beautiful blue eyes.” 

“Jill had beautiful brown eyes.” 

“Jill had beautiful green eyes.” 

So what? 

It might be relevant to some story. For example, if Jill were a slave on an antebellum plantation, her having blue eyes might relate to her mother being raped by a white overseer. Maybe Jill finds out and exacts revenge. In that case, her blue eyes might be meaningful. Or, in another story, Jack might insist on dating only blue-eyed blonds. That is part of his “ideal beauty.” Jack pursues Jill because of her striking blue eyes. He shares information all the time about his “conquests” with his best friend, Judy, a woman with black hair and dark eyes. If it’s a romantic comedy, we will know, long before Jack will, that he is falling in love with Judy. The physical characteristics of the women serve to reveal Jack’s true character, which turns out to be deeper than we at first surmised. 

 

But suppose the story is about how someone might use an Uber app? Is it really going to matter what color her eyes are? Will it matter to someone playing a video game? 

Irrelevant details only seek to distract the reader (or the developer). These details sometimes go by the title “characterization” rather than character. Character should be reserved for deeper things. Sometimes, characterization can be interesting in the way it contrasts with character. In Psych for instance, Sean Spencer pretends every week to be a psychic helping the Santa Barbara police. His aim is to get to the truth. But in the service of getting to the truth, and putting the bad folks in jail, he runs this scam where he pretends to be psychic. 

In the James Bond movies, the character of James Bond is revealed by his choices under pressure. He will give up everything and anything in the service of his country. But on the surface, he seems like a playboy. He drinks martinis. Yet, he is highly disciplined. He wants things his way. Even in his instructions for his martini, his meticulous attention to detail comes out. 

Spock, on Star Trek, plays a character who reminds us time and again about how “rational” he is and how he can control his emotions. Of course, what makes this interesting is precisely because he isn’t always rational and in fact, sometimes has more violent emotions than the humans he critiques for their emotionality. 

If “character is revealed by choices under pressure,” it’s also good to remember that character should be coherently related to setting and plot. Plot advances through conflicts. In The Sound of Music, for instance, Maria has an internal conflict. She wants to be “good” and “follow the rules” of the convent (and later those of the Captain’s household), but she likes joy and music and spontaneity. She also finds herself in love with the Captain. Conflict. She also has inter-personal conflicts with the authorities at the convent, with the children, with the Captain, and with the Countess. She also has conflicts with larger forces in the world – notably Nazism. None of these conflicts is random; they arise quite naturally from the setting that she’s in — and from her own character. 

James Frey, in How to Write a Damned Good Novel, suggests a sequence of increasingly intimate reveals about character that allows the reader to care about the character. First, you say something about the objective, external world that the character exists in. Second, you reveal what the character perceives and does about the situation. Then, you reveal how the character feels about what is happening. Finally, you let the reader “tune in” to the internal conflicts of the character by showing their internal dialogue. Consider: 

“The snow began to fall. The wind began to howl. The “snow” morphed into sharp little knives of ice.”

“Joe began to shiver and pulled his coat tight about him, crossing his arms across his chest.” 

“Damn it! I want to be in a nice warm bed. Grrr.”

“Why do I always let Sally talk me into these half-baked schemes?” 

For me, this order “works” – I am now curious to see what this particular half-baked scheme is and what sort of power Sally has over Joe. Read the lines in the reverse order and it makes only a little sense. It also puts a greater memory load on the reader. 

In some stories, character stays fairly constant and the world (and others) change because of the character’s choices. In the “Hero Saves the World” plot, this is the main emphasis. In the “Growing Up” plot, on the other hand, the most important action is how the character “changes” over time. I put “changes” in quotes because sometimes the “change” is really that the character simply acknowledges their underlying character. For instance, in Sweet Home Alabama, Melanie never really stops being in love with her husband (or Alabama) but consciously, she claims to want a divorce and go back to NY to be a “success.” As always, character is revealed under pressure <spoiler alert> and she “forgets” to sign the divorce papers. In many of the best stories, the character changes (or saves) the world and the world also changes or matures the character. </spoiler alert>.

This may all make sense when it applies to fiction, but how does it impact how we write stories in a business context? This is often tricky because in many business contexts, only the founder or CEO is even allowed to have character. Everyone else is basically supposed to behave the same way: put the company first; follow the rules; do a great job; work together cooperatively; be loyal to the company. As a result, official company stories are bland and two-dimensional. They are basically nothing more than procedures. “If this happens, do that.” Implicitly, this says, “If this happens, do that” regardless of your internal character. 

If you’ve done an excellent job of observing and interviewing potential users of a product or service, you have hopefully discovered some interesting internal conflicts and some related aspects of character that can become a logical part of user journeys. Initially, your target user may be reluctant to use your product. 

Users may be reluctant to use on-line banking, for instance, because of the possibility of hacking or fraud. If this is a genuine concern of 1% of your potential customers, you probably don’t want to make it a concern to the rest, unless it is something they really should worry about. On the other hand, if it’s a genuine concern of 99% of your potential customers, sweeping it under the rug won’t do. The user in your user stories can be portrayed with this concern including internal conflicts and then you can show them overcoming the concern, if and only if it really can be ameliorated through various actions like two-factor verification, password choices, etc. Telling a lie about how safe on-line banking is, will ultimately undo you no matter how well told the story is. But character and characterization of these users should be designed around conflicts that actually are relevant to the product or service. 

“Mary had put all her life savings and all her energy into her small company. Her time had become gold. She was on a path to hire more people, but that took time. Now the bank was offering lower fees if she would switch to on-line banking. She had always wanted to be a soccer player but she knew she wasn’t coordinated enough.” 

What? 

Yes, that may be something that came out in an interview with a real Mary. And it may even be part of an interesting story. But not this story! The naturally occurring conflict here is Mary’s desire to be as efficient and cost-effective as possible — and yet also to be as safe as possible. Mary may initially see these in conflict, but you may have a legitimate way for her to avoid or rethink the conflict. Mary’s character might be made more intense by having her see her budding business as a legacy she wants eventually to hand off to her daughters. But it doesn’t really matter whether she has blue eyes or brown eyes. You could instead intensify Mary’s desires by making her a success-oriented second generation immigrant whose own parents spent countless hours of hard work so she could get through college. The family still cares about every dollar. It doesn’t matter whether she lives in a small flat in Brooklyn, Chicago, or LA. It does matter that she wasn’t gifted 10 million dollars to start a business by her billionaire parents who live in a mansion in Manhattan. 

It doesn’t matter whether she likes her martinis shaken or stirred either, unless you are making the point, e.g., that she is a fanatic for having things her way and that your software allows more customization than does that of your competitors. In that case, you can introduce a detail that shows, rather than tells, this fact about her character.

———————————

Author Page on Amazon.

   

The Story of Story: Part 3 – Good Story, Well Told.

Often in my English classes, (and yours?) we talked about the mechanisms of writing: spelling, grammar, word usage, punctuation, paragraph construction, metaphor, rhythm, and rhyme scheme, for instance. We talked very little about how to tell a story well. And we talked zero about what makes for a good story. 

In the last article, I described some guidelines for soliciting stories from users and other stakeholders. From these, one may gain insight into potential problems that a product or service might solve, ameliorate, bypass, or avoid. Later, I will describe more about how stories may be used in the design and development process. Before getting into that, however, I want to describe more about what makes for a good story. In the following articles, I will also suggest ways to make the story well told. 

What Makes for a Good Story?

You might find it helpful to write down a short list of 5-10 novels, short stories, movies, or TV shows that you really liked. It doesn’t have to be your all time ten best; just something good that springs to mind. Then put that list aside. Read through the criteria I propose and then check back after you’re done reading to see whether or not most of these criteria were met. I’m betting that they mostly were met. 

The Story Cube. 

Imagine a cube of some really nice material that you like; e.g., polished wood, lead ore, malachite, silver. This cube has three dimensions: height, width, and depth. It must have all three dimensions. In the case of a story, there are also three dimensions in this sense: Plot, Setting, and Character. If a story lacks any of these three, it will be “flat” (not so interesting). For example, if you spent time working in a large company or government agency, you were probably given training materials about how you’re not supposed to do unethical things like steal from your company. They may have provided you with scenarios and asked what you would do or what was the “right” response. These stories tend to have people in situations making decisions. The problem with these stories is that, in order for them to be “efficient”, they spend almost zero time on character development.  “Joe wants to impress his boss and make his quota for the fourth quarter so he puts down as sold this-quarter things he is sure he will sell early in January. After all, he rationalizes, calendars are arbitrary.” Of course, the answer is no Joe should not be lying on his sales report. But we really don’t know much about Joe. We don’t know enough about him to really care much about him. Of course, he shouldn’t lie. If he does, it’s pretty hard to feel anything but contempt for Joe. It should have been obvious to him that he shouldn’t lie on a sales report and if he does lie, he should be fired. Good riddance. Let’s replace Joe with someone who follows the rules. 

This story is so flat that it seems to me that the story is constructed, not so much to really educate, but more to prove that you were shown that it’s wrong to lie on sales forms so that, should the court case arise, you will not be to argue effectively that it was a mere technicality that you didn’t know about. If you really wanted to change someone’s mind about what was right, knowing about Joe’s character could make you empathize much more. Maybe he came from a Mafia-type crime family and no-one would bat any eye about lying on a sales report. They would expect him to lie on the report. Maybe even now, he is looked down upon by everyone else in his family for being such a chump and working for “the man” instead of being “the man.” 

Or, perhaps Joe just found out that his wife has serious cancer and is understandably but severely depressed. He desperately wants to bring her some good news. If we reveal, not only what situation Joe is in but also, how he sees that situation, how he feels about it and what conflicts he faces, we will begin to have real empathy for Joe. His choices become real, rather than predetermined.  

TV commercials, like corporate training videos, are typically pretty flat too. But in some cases, the ad agency has gone out of their way to introduce you to some character that is recognizable and re-appears in commercial after commercial. Each time, just a little bit of character is revealed and eventually you find yourself watching the commercial largely because you start to care about the character. In a similar way, one might be able to make the corporate training stories more intriguing & educational if there were a cast of characters that persisted over time. 

Two Paths Diverged in a Yellow Wood…

Typically (but not invariably) the author knows how the story will turn out before he starts writing. But for the reader (or viewer), it is not at all obvious how the story will turn out. For compelling stories, the reader must be convinced to “play along with” the uncertainty of the outcome even if they are sure ‘the good guys will win.’ In good stories, bad things happen to the protagonist, but he or she is not a cork tossed on the ocean waves. The protagonist must want something; they must have a goal that is overwhelmingly important to them. They must react to changing circumstances, overcome the obstacles that are thrown at them. Characters are engaged in battles! Battles test them. If winning the battles is easy or inevitable, the character isn’t someone we can really relate to. 

Kryptonite 

Superman is basically super-human and invulnerable! But watching someone who is invulnerable and has super-powers win battle after battle is boring. Superman has to have weaknesses. To make it more interesting and allow for more plot variation, he actually had three original weaknesses: kryptonite, friends, secret identity. In one episode, someone will have some kryptonite while in the next, someone will kidnap one of his friends. Recent movies have added a fourth weakness: other super-human and invulnerable beings.  

Whatever the story, your character must have weaknesses. Otherwise, no-one will “believe” the character and you as the writer will be stymied when you try to develop an interesting plot. The weaknesses can be physical, moral, social, intellectual, situational, and so on. But they should not be merely irrelevant weaknesses. Imagine a story where Sue is the main character. She’s tone deaf. She’s also brilliant, hard-working, imaginative, driven to succeed. And, indeed, she becomes a very successful trial lawyer. Eventually, she is made partner. OK. Isn’t this exactly what we’d expect to happen? What does being tone deaf have to do with anything? 

Imagine instead, that Sue was inspired at the age of four when she went to the opera. It was her life-long dream to become an opera singer. Indeed, she was blessed with a beautiful voice. She was also brilliant, hard-working, imaginative and driven to succeed. Unfortunately, she was tone deaf. Now, the weakness becomes interesting. Perhaps she will fail and kill herself. Perhaps she will fail but find another goal that is even more important to her and succeed at that. Perhaps she will fail time after time but eventually develop a career as an improvisational opera singer. She will ask people in the audience to name five things and then and there, she will create a beautiful aria that weaves a tale of some considerable interest about the five things. No-one knows that she is singing out of tune because she is composing on the spot. 

The more improbable the odds and the more horrendous the journey, the more challenge you give yourself to make it work! Blind at birth but wants to be an artist? Surely, that’s just stupid. It’s impossible. But is it? What if feedback were provided in such a way that it influenced her to make unique and beautiful paintings? What if genetic engineering allows her to grow new neural pathways? What if she can be equipped with artificial eyes? If it’s fiction, a magic spell can do the trick. Even if your ultimate goal is a real product for the real world, imagining a magical solution may lead you to a new (and real) path, previously hidden by your own expectations. 

It is easy for a writer to identify with their hero. And that is potentially quite a problem. After all, if you were superman, you sure as heck would not go out of your way to go near kryptonite. You’d quite sensibly stay away from the stuff! But if you are writing about superman, you need to get him near the deadly stuff every third or fourth episode! The “weaknesses” in the character generate interest. The failures, injuries, betrayals, and conflicts of your protagonist provide materiel that allows you to architect a more interesting plot. 

A Garden of Delights, Flashy Sights, or Sword Fights?

Three dimensions of story is a weak metaphor only. The three dimensions of a cube can be manipulated independently. This is not generally true for the three dimensions of story. The character makes a decision, the decision determines the next step of the plot. That will influence the setting for the next scene. In addition, the actions of the protagonist may also change state of the underlying and cross-cutting conflicts. 

Imagine:

 two rival gangs fighting for urban turf and maybe sex,

 two gardeners in a fierce competition for sex with the town “catch” as well as the blue ribbon, 

two rival secret agents vying for victory and maybe sex,

two life long friends now vying for #1 in their Harvard Law class, and maybe sex.

The structure of the underlying plot might look quite similar, but the specifics will depend a lot on how the character is developing. If they develop from ego-centric to altruistic, then they will tend to make different decisions near the beginning than near the end of the story. In addition, the setting will have to be consistently portrayed. 

The four descriptions above would most naturally lead to a lot of the setting for the stories respectively in urban settings, garden settings, foreign settings & dangerous situations, mainly Law School and campus settings. Of course, you could violate expectations in a way that increases interest. Imagine that rather than have another garden scene–

The rival gardeners arrive at an urban parking lot dressed in expensive gowns, fully jeweled in their finest, both fully knowing that they will win first prize (but secretly fearing that they might not). These life-long friends now exchange icy greetings, make back-handed compliments about each other’s appearances. The verbal exchange escalates. Precisely because they know each other so well, they know exactly how the other person’s escalator functions. Soon, they are rolling around on the parking lot in their fancy gear; ruining each other’s clothes and hairdos. At this point, they hear in the distance, the loudspeaker and the chairman about to announce the Blue Ribbon Winner!  In their trashed and ripped clothing, they sneak in together to hear the awards, hanging out together in the shadows so as not to be seen in their tattered clothes. “And the blue ribbon goes to” {drumroll}: 

someone else entirely. 

At this, the two life long friends look at each other, laugh uproariously, hug each other, and then become even more intimate friends than they were before their fight in the urban parking lot. 

The fact that there are “expected” relations among various dimensions of story is wonderful. For every such expectation, you can decide to follow, bend, or break that expectation. The more expectations people develop, the greater the number of variations for creative exploration. One valid reason for the choice of setting is really where you want to spend your time. That goes for an author — but it also goes for any designer or business person or User Experience expert. What kind of setting do you want to be in? What kind of customers do you want to serve? Do you really want to make their life better or just get them to buy more product? What sorts of application areas are really cool to you? Of course, I understand people need to eat and often there is a conflict within us all about what to do. That’s what a good story is really about.

The reason that stories resonate is that, regardless of setting, people face the same kind of dilemmas. We all do. And, how we handle those dilemmas? In life, as in story, 

character is revealed by choices under pressure… 

——————————————

Author Page on Amazon

Introduction: 

This is the second in a series about using stories and storytelling in the design, development, and the deployment of products and services. In each post, I will weave in some advice about what makes for a good story as well as how to use stories. In this first case, the emphasis is on using stories to help uncover customer needs and wants. Needs and wants are not quite the same thing. For an extremely worthwhile discussion on the difference, check out this classic article by George Furnas. 

We Human Beings are not just Information Processors; we are also Energy Processors.

I had just attended a conference on “knowledge management” co-sponsored by IBM consultants and IBM Research. On the plane ride back, after finishing the crossword, I turned the page to find a full page color ad by an IBM competitor that proclaimed: “Knowledge Management is simply [sic] providing the right information to the right person at the right time.” Color me skeptical, I thought. It isn’t simple to do those things. Beyond that, the formulation seemed simplistic even in its formulation.

The image of one of my undergraduate professors flashed into my brain. Professor MacCaw, (as we will call him), taught advanced German, a language which he had learned in a Russian prison camp, which might explain his approach to testing. At semester’s end, he asked, “Who in class wants A?!” 

All two dozen of us raised our hands, of course. At this point, he proceeded to — there is no other word — attack one of the students in the class who had had four years of German in high school and had also lived in Germany for two years. The contents of his questions were not really that difficult, but the manner in which he demanded the answers was horrid. He would ask, for instance, “In first story, main character went where?” (He would always ask the questions in English). 

And she would begin to answer (necessarily in German), “Er geht…” And after a couple words were out of her mouth, he would scream, “Please to conjugate!” This meant that she would have to think back to the last verb she uttered and then conjugate it. “Ich gehe, Sie gehen, …” Then, he would interrupt again and scream a completely different and unrelated question in English. She would begin to answer; he would interrupt after she uttered only a few words: “Please to decline!” This meant, that she would have to give the various forms of the last noun she spoke according to the case. But once again, she could not finish but only begin declining the noun when he would once again interrupt. After 40 minutes, she was in tears and he looked menacingly around the room and asked, “NOW! Who in class STILL wants A?” 

I have zero desire to go hang gliding or sky diving. But when it comes to the danger of mere social humiliation, I say, “Screw it. Been there. Done that.” I was one of only two of the remaining students who raised their hand. This act won me the next turn on the chopping block. He proceeded the same whip-saw questioning fest with me. The two-period class was almost over when he finished with me and began questioning “Mr. Lepke.” The bell rang and everyone else in the class left. Later that evening, I chanced to see Professor MacCaw in the Student Union. He walked up to me, eyes blazing. “Ha! I had Mr. Lepke after class for two hours! Finally, he said to me, ‘No, No, Dr. MacCaw, no more, I beg you. No more!’” 

This oral exam was difficult (even with my “screw it” attitude). It was much “harder” than my dissertation defense, for example. Again, it was not the information requested but the manner of questioning that made it difficult. People are not emotionless robots, as it turns out.

The next semester, not surprisingly, only about half the class returned. One day in class, as Dr. MacCaw began one of his lengthy digressions on Eastern European history, he stopped himself in mid-sentence to say, “What is THIS!? Someone is passing notes in my class! I will take note and read in front of entire class!” He snatched the note, unfolded it, and indeed read the note in his loud ringing voice: “Doctor MacCaw: your zipper is down.” And, indeed it was. He had meant to humiliate someone in front of the entire class — and he had succeeded. He had the necessary information delivered at the right time to the right person, but — thanks to his own actions — it had not been done in the best manner — at least not the best manner for him. 

Human beings are not just information processors. We are living things and as such, the emotions, the vibes, the manner, the intensity of presentation — these are all vital to how we will react at the time and also how we will feel about the people involved and what we will recall years later. And this fact also means that the atmosphere you create when you interact with various stakeholders will vastly impact the quality of the insights and stories that you receive. If you really care about the people and are really committed to doing something to making people’s lives better; if you are truly open to hear and take in something unexpected or even disruptive to the project; and if you allow your informant to feel that truth about you, you will obtain the gold ring. 

Stakeholder Stories Solicited at their Sites. 

If you use a mechanical method and a mechanical tone and a mechanical manner to ask your users and other stakeholders about their needs and wants, what you will uncover are the most mundane, most rudimentary, most superficial and socially acceptable needs and wants. You can indeed use this information to design a product or service, and you may even have a product or service that succeeds in the marketplace. It will likely be, however, a rather short-lived “win.” Why? Because you are designing to fulfill wants that are subject to the wild winds of passing fashion rather than to catch the fire of an underlying passion. 

What I found for myself was that it typically took about an hour of talking with a stakeholder, and most importantly, listening attentively, before they began to tell me their real stories. Your mileage may differ according to culture, context, power relations, your personality, and so on. I like to use a semi-structured interview. In this type of interview, there are known questions that I want to ask. But I also schedule plenty of time to let them elaborate, tell me what’s what behind the scenes. I know that in the corporate world, there is an ever-present push for being “efficient” and getting the job done as quickly as possible. So, it’s tempting to get the informant “back on track.” I always prefer to interview an informant in their workplace. This seems like common courtesy; it puts them more at ease; and it sometimes reveals their use of other people, references, private notes, etc. as well as what they are dealing with in terms of atmosphere, noise levels, interruptions, desk space, etc. 

John Whiteside, who ran the Usability group for Digital Equipment Corporation for a time, recounts running various usability studies and gathering data in various ways about a product they were designing for manuscript centers (places where human beings, historically almost always women, transcribed the dictation of others into text on a computer so that it could be edited, re-written, stored, etc.). The first time that they visited their users in the field, they discovered that they spent about seven hours a day typing and a considerable amount of time every day counting up, by hand, the number of lines they had typed. So, in one instant, they realized a feature that would improve productivity significantly. 

Guidelines for Soliciting Stakeholder Stories. 

When I managed the storytelling project at IBM Research, I was fortunate enough to hire Deborah Lawrence to help with the project. She thought it would be a cool idea to interview experts in a number of fields whose job, in one way or another, involves soliciting stories. So, she went out and did just that. I believe that her interviewees included medical doctors, policeman, reporters, social workers, and psychotherapists. These various practitioners had very similar guidelines. 

Story Elicitation Guidelines:

• Provide a “warm-up” period.
• Tell something personal and revealing about yourself; perhaps tell a story that is a model of the kind of story you’re looking for.
• Observe an implicit contract of trust.
• Provide a motivation for the story — why it’s important.
• Accept the storyteller’s story and worldview.  Don’t resist the story.
• Reveal who you are, how the story will be used, potential audience and goals, answer questions.
• Use questions to probe.  Sometimes, a totally “off the wall” question can create space for story to emerge.
• Empower the storyteller — they are the expert.
• Avoid threat; don’t appear as an expert yourself.
• Listen with avid interest.

These may seem fairly obvious such as does a lot of the advice in the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. (Come to think of it, that might be the single best book you can read if you want a career in HCI/UX). However — back to the guidelines. I think they seem obvious once pointed out, in much the same way that once someone points out the “pig in the clouds” (or the face in the tree) you cannot not see it. 

The above list is not, of course, meant to be the definitive such list. This was based on one study. If you have additional guidelines or disagreements, please let me know. 

---

Author Page on Amazon

---

 

The Story of Story, Part 1

Background.

Right around the turn of the century, I managed a research project at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center on the business uses of stories and story-telling. The project was part of a larger effort on “knowledge management.” One of IBM’s major reasons for being interested arose from their increasing revenue stream from services. However, services such as consulting required a lot of labor; it was competitive. Therefore, the margins on this business were not so high as, for instance, in hardware or system software. IBM has invested a lot in tools so that they can make hardware very cheaply and effectively using relatively little labor. The company wanted to be able to something similar with consulting services. The idea was that we could use knowledge management so that the knowledge assets of top-level consultants could be, captured, organized, and then re-used by more junior (and less expensive) people thus rendering higher margins for the company. The success of this approach was fairly limited partly because the knowledge management methods were geared toward explicit rule-based knowledge and specific facts. Much of what experts “know”, including IBM’s top-level business consultants was tacit knowledge. Stories provided a natural way to capture tacit knowledge. Thus, the story project began. 

My simplistic initial idea was to build a story platform that would enable consultants to write stories about their experiences. After all, sharing stories orally is what experts naturally do anyway. Since I enjoy writing stories, I failed to realize initially all the reasons consultants would not want to share their experiences by writing stories. Writing stories is not so natural or fun for most folks. Partly because of the medium and partly because of higher expectations, it also takes more time. Perhaps, even more importantly, it takes extra time. When consultants share stories, they are often traveling, eating dinner, having drinks together and sharing stories is something done in a friendly off-hand way, but importantly, it does not take extra time in the way that using a computer system to write a story would. Besides, when a consultant says something out loud it is not typically recorded. So, if they misspoke or said something untoward, they have plausible deniability. When someone tells a story live, they also can sense how the story is being received in real time. If the listeners are “into it” the teller can draw things out and make it more vivid. On the other hand, if they are starting to play “Candy Crush” on their phones, you can cut it short. In writing, typically, first you write and then you get feedback. Of course, professional writers often improve things considerably with the help of a copy editor and proofreader. Anyway, over the course of time, we did develop a feasible way to have people tell stories and from those stories, provide information of use to other knowledge workers. 

Three Patterns for using stories. 

Narrative Insight Method describes techniques for gather valuable knowledge from experts through the use of storytelling.

Fostering Group Cohesion through Common Narratives is another storytelling technique: in this case, one focuses on building and disseminating stories that illustrate common values.

Fostering Community Learning via Transformed Narratives. This helps solve a dilemma. For organizational learning, it’s crucial to learn from people’s mistakes. Ordinarily though, mistakes are not just used for learning but to bar one from advancement, raises, and the esteem of one’s colleagues.

Here, however, I want to describe some of the things I found interesting about stories from personal observations and, to a lesser extent by reading. Here are just a few examples of interesting aspects of stories.

• Good story writing is not magic. It’s craft. Mastery is is life-long quest, but one can quickly learn a few important things that will help you to write better, but also to enjoy more thoroughly the stories you see or read.
• Stories are memorable and motivating. If you watch people telling stories, they are animated and engaged in a way that is rare when people are discussing facts, pronouncements, or pleasantries. 
• Business-speak is grey, toneless, neutral, abstract and speaks to the intersection of people’s experiences. Stories on the other hand, can be colorful, concrete, emotional, and speak to the union of people’s experiences.  
• Although stories are generally presented in a linear sequence, beneath that, the story actually has a hierarchical structure. Most stage plays have three acts. Within each act, there are a number of sequences. Within each sequence, there are scenes. Within each scene, there are “beats.” 
• The three major dimensions of story are setting (where, when), plot structure (what happens), and character (the people; what they are like and what they want).  
• Story lives on conflict; it explores the edges of human experience; it’s takes us on an empathic roller coaster ride.

In the next essay, we will begin to see more specifically how to use stories to help us discover problems and issues that a well-designed solution might solve. 

———————————————

Author Page

 

On Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater. 

Babies are a pain. Let’s face it. Of course, they are. But they are also a joy. Not only that, they are the future of humanity. Yet, it’s true that they require a lot of attention. And, they have unpleasant by-products, bathwater being one of the least unpleasant. But we say, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater” because we humans do have a tendency to over-emphasize whatever the negative aspects of something are and take for granted the good parts. 

For example, let’s say that your furnace goes out. You are sitting there one cold, wet November evening, before winter’s knife edge of cold is softened by the splendor of a snowfall’s sparkle. No, this is an evening for complete relaxation; it’s the end of a frustrating day at work. Time to settle down with a little Jack Daniels on the minimal rocks and watch the next episode of your favorite TV show. But you find yourself thinking: “It’s cold in here!” So, up you go to see whether someone — certainly not you — has set the thermostat too low. No, you see that it’s set to 72F. But the actual temp is only 67F. No wonder it’s chilly. You put on your slippers and pad down the basement stairs to look at the furnace. It’s not running. 

You feel that you have been cheated out of your richly deserved and eagerly awaited evening of relaxation. Instead, through no real fault of your own, you find these plans and dreams in shambles and you have to go through a series of hoops, each of which will steal some of your money, and equally important, steal some of your time away from activities you’d prefer. The path in thinking that is tempting to take is to “throw out the baby with the bathwater” and decide that the company or the manufacturer is evil. (They might be, of course; my point is simply that deciding that on the basis of the evidence at hand is not warranted). You might even decide that all heating companies or even all companies or, in extreme cases, everyone else is evil. 

A similar line of thinking, again completely understandable, is something like the following. “Well, when I grew up, we just put everything in the trash. You know. We didn’t have to recycle things. If it was good enough for my parents not to recycle, it should be good enough for my kids.” It really doesn’t seem fair. After all, you were just doing what you had been taught was right and now, all of a sudden, like an infomercial embedded in a sit-com, you are supposed to do something different that does take some extra time. And why? 

As the population of earth grows and grows, our own behavior will inevitably be influenced by a greater and greater number of people. That would be true even without the fact that about half of earth’s 7 billion human beings now have access to the Internet. Sometimes, that interconnectedness puts constraints on your behavior or makes you feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, that same interconnectedness is what allows so many people (hopefully you included) to live in far better circumstances than did any Medieval king. 

Because we humans trade skills, and natural resources, and cultural strengths, and ideas, and money throughout this whole diverse world, our standard of living is a symphony of glorious possibilities instead of a tuning fork forever singing the monotone of “Sing Johnny One Note.” But we tend to take for granted the affordable laptop, the central heating and air conditioning, the car now fitted with life-saving seat belts and air bags, the cancer treatment that saved your life, or the pollution regulation that prevented you from getting the cancer you would have gotten without those regulations. You have access, I hope, to a public library and the Internet where you can find out about the world’s great architecture, the world’s great ideas, the world’s great art. Think about that. The world’s knowledge is at your fingertips. Not just the knowledge of your family, or your town, or your state, or your country — the world’s knowledge. And, of course, it isn’t just you. More than 3.2 billion people on earth have this access. And, they can invent, and learn, and dialogue together to create a much better world. 

And that much better world will necessarily be different. Being different means that people such as you and I will need to change; learn; and sometimes we will be uncomfortable. It’s understandable that it’s somewhat disconcerting. But we need to look at this in balance. The modern world gives us many good things. Yes, it has some unpleasant side-effects. If we work together though, with the knowledge of the world at hand, we should be able to find ethical and effective paths forward. 

It isn’t only in terms of world-wide cooperation (or lack thereof) that we need to take a balanced look. It’s easy to get frustrated with an actual baby and temporarily forget how wonderful it is. It’s easy to get frustrated with college courses, or roommates, or spouses, or co-workers, or technology, or stop lights, or —- when what is really causing that frustration is not the totality of any one of those things. Stop lights actually speed you on your way! If you’ve ever been to a busy intersection when the traffic light stopped functioning, you’ll quickly see how much worse off things are without the traffic light. 

So, please, let’s all have the best 2019 that we can. But when you encounter one of the many frustrations of modern life, let’s try to do a better job of seeing the totality of the system, not just the bothersome part. It’s not easy. When your down jacket, usually so comfortable and warm, happens to send the spiky end of a feather into your neck, it’s natural to focus for a moment on the sharp spike. Okay. We all do that. But let’s also remember that ancestors, not so long ago, would have loved to have a down jacket against the winter freeze. 

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater! 

————————————

Author Page on Amazon. 

Here we are again. Or so it seems. It’s true that the planet is pretty much back where it spun a year ago relative to the sun (though the planet itself is a lot sicker). This relative position also affects our seasons so it’s natural that we take some stock-taking, review, and do some planning. There’s nothing wrong with following some of the paths set down by your culture, so long as you’ve taken the time to check in with the larger picture and asked yourself whether those are paths you really want to follow; are they paths that feed the good wolf in you or the bad wolf? Most paths don’t really do much one way or the other, but some paths do. Paths? You know who you are. So, a review and a plan are fine. See below.

But while we are more or less in the same position relative to the sun, our whole solar system is moving around the center of the Milky Way at 140 miles/second (and there are other giant moves beyond that). So, in that sense we are about 4.5 billion miles from where we were last year. Four and a half billion is a good number. That’s also our best estimate of how long life has been evolving on earth. Every individual of every species of life on earth is a cousin or yours and mine. Around 50 to 100 thousand years ago, our ancestors began wandering off in different directions. As explained in this Myth of the Veritas, the fact that humanity proved adaptive, resilient, and successful enough to inhabit regions hot and cold, dry and wet, sunny and cloudy, on islands and mountains and forests and plains — this success, this massive success of our ancestors at populating the earth — this is what our species accomplished! Naturally, enough, as people lived in different physical situations, they evolved slightly different physical characteristics and slightly different cultures. It’s kind of a cosmic joke that we often treat these minor differences as an excuse to “hate on” — instead of sharing congratulatory high-fives all around (and all the other variants of celebration of mutual success) that we’ve survived in all these amazing circumstances. That’s what we should be doing! You survive in igloos! Wow! How amazing! You survive in the desert! Wow! How amazing! You survive in rain forests! Say more! You live at 12,000 feet! That’s so cool!

https://petersironwood.com/2018/08/03/the-myths-of-the-veritas-the-forgotten-field/

Honestly, it’s hard for me to believe we are so stuck on that misunderstanding that we cannot yet go on to the next step of collectively determining how we are going to keep from destroying the ecosystem that we all depend on for life itself, both human and non-human. I’m still hopeful that greed and power on the part of the few will not overcome the will to live that our species has. That will to live must exert itself though. And I think it shall.

In the first half of 2018, I blogged about “best practices” in collaboration and cooperation.   I put these in the form of a “Pattern Language” inspired by Christopher Alexander. I wanted to do what I could to improve cooperation and collaboration. That seems critical if we are going to continue to survive and thrive.

Here is a link to an introduction to the enterprise.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/01/07/special-spaces-wonderful-places/

Here is a link to an index of all the “Patterns” in the “Pattern Language.”

https://petersironwood.com/2018/06/29/pattern-language-summary/

---

 

Starting July 7th, I began recounting some experiences that occurred early in my career as an “expert in human-computer interaction.” These experiences are meant to be springboards to discussions about more general issues. While everyone’s life experiences are very different — they are also very similar! Despite working in different decades in different industries and in different companies within those industries and working in different countries, it is surprising how the same themes seem to come up; e.g., speaking truth to power; the power of allies. Here’s a link to one of the first stories.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/07/12/chain-saws-make-the-best-hair-trimmers/

 

---

At the end of July, I began publishing the myths of the Veritas. I began with their “creation myth” which recounts how being able to mimic the sounds of animals may have helped language evolve. I also wrote “The Orange Man” – a myth meant to show that being untruthful and greedy may have large-scale and tragic consequences for a whole tribe. Eventually, these stories morphed into a life and death struggle between two tribes: The Veritas (who value truth, cooperation, and love) and The Cupiditas  (who value power, greed, & cruelty). This longer narrative begins as the shaman/leader of the Veritas seeks an eventual successor. So, she devises a series of increasingly difficult trials that mainly test empathy. There are twelve candidates for the next leader to start with and each trial narrows down the field. Watch for anagrams in these stories.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/07/29/the-creation-myth-of-the-veritas-part-i/

https://petersironwood.com/2018/07/31/myths-of-the-veritas-the-orange-man/

https://petersironwood.com/2018/08/07/myth-of-the-veritas-the-first-ring-of-empathy/

---

In December, I took another direction. The wars between the Veritas and the Cupiditas were over, at least for now. Soon, there may be further translations of these myths available. Meanwhile, I began writing a series of essays on “tools of thought.” I suppose most readers will already be familiar with all of them. Nonetheless, I think it’s worthwhile to have a compilation of tools. After all — plumbers, carpenters, programmers, piano tuners, sales people — they all have tool kits. There are three advantages to having them together in some one place.

Without a toolkit you may be prone to try to use the tool that just so happens to be nearest to hand at the time you encounter the problem. You need to tighten a screw and you happen to have a penny in your pocket. You don’t feel like walking all the way down into the garage to get your toolkit. A penny will do. I get it. But for more serious work, you are going to want to have the whole toolkit there.

First, the toolkit serves as a reminder of all the tools at your disposal. Second, you may only be familiar with one or two ways to use a tool. I may have thought of ways to use a tool that are different from the way you use it. And you have undoubtedly also know useful things about these tools of thought that I have never thought of. We can learn from each other. Third, having all the tools together may stimulate people to invent new ones or see a way to use two or more in sequence and begin to think about the handoff between two tools.

Here’s an index into the toolkit so far.

Many Paths (December 5, 2018). The temptation is great to jump to a conclusion, snap up the first shiny object that looks like bait and charge ahead! After all, “he who hesitates is lost!” But there is also, “look before you leap.” What works best for me in many circumstances is to think of many possible paths before deciding on one. This is a cousin to the Pattern: Iroquois Rule of Six. This heuristic is a little broader and is sometimes called “Alternatives Thinking.”

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/05/many-paths/

And then what? (Dec. 6, 2018). This is sometimes called “Consequential Thinking.” The idea is simple: think not just about how you’ll feel and how a decision will affect you this moment but what will happen next. How will others react? It’s pretty easy to break laws if you set your mind to it. But what are the likely consequences?

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/06/and-then-what/

Positive Feedback Loops (December 7, 2018). Also known as a virtuous or vicious circle. If you drink too much of a depressant drug (e.g., alcohol or opioids), that can cause increased nervousness and anxiety which leads you to want more of the drug. Unfortunately, it also makes your body more tolerant of the drug so you need more to feel the same relief. So, you take more but this makes you even more irritable when it wears off.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/07/systems-thinking-positive-feedback-loops/

Meta-Cognition. (December 8, 2018). This is basically thinking about thinking. For example, if you are especially good at math, then you tend to do well in math! Over time, if your meta-cognition is accurate, you will know that you are good in math and you can use that information about your own cognition to make decisions about the education you choose, your job, your methods of representing and solving problems and so on.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/08/meta-cognition/

Theory of Mind (December 9, 2018). Theory of Mind tasks require us to imagine the state of another mind. It is slightly different from empathy, but a close cousin. Good mystery writers – and good generals – may be particularly skilled at knowing what someone else knows, infers, thinks, feels and therefore, how they are likely to act.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/09/theory-of-mind/

Regression to the Mean (December 10, 2018). This refers to a statistical artifact that you sometimes need to watch out for. If you choose to work with the “best” or “worst” or “strongest” or “weakest” and then measure them again later, their extreme scores will be less extreme. The tool is to make sure that you don’t make untoward inferences from that change in the results of the measurement.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/10/regression-to-the-mean/

Representation (December 11, 2018): The way we represent a problem can make a huge difference in how easy it is to solve it. Of course, we all know this, and yet, it is easy to fall into the potential trap of always using the same representations for the same types of problems. Sometimes, another representation can lead you to completely different – and better – solutions.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/11/representation/

Metaphor I (December 12, 2018): Do we make a conscious choice about the metaphors we use? How can metaphors influence behavior?

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/12/metaphors-we-live-by-and-die-by/

Metaphor II (December 13, 2018): Two worked examples: Disease is an Enemy and Politics is War.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/13/metaphors-we-live-and-die-by-part-2/

Imagination (December 14, 2018): All children show imagination. Many adults mainly see it as a tool for increasing their misery; viz., by only imagining the worst. Instead of a tool to help them explore, it becomes a “tool” to keep themselves from exploring by making everything outside the habitual path look scary.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/14/imagination/

Fraught Framing (December 16, 2018): Often, how we frame a problem is the most crucial step in solving it. In this essay, several cases are examined in which people presume a zero-sum game when it certainly need not be.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/16/fraught-framing-the-virulent-versus-virus/

Fraught Framing II (December 17, 2018). A continuation of thinking about framing. This essay focuses on how easy it sometimes is to confuse the current state of something with its unalterable essence or nature. 

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/17/fraught-framing-the-presumed-being-ness-of-state-ness/

Negative Space (December 17, 2018). Negative space is the space between. Often we separate a situation into foreground and background, or into objects and field, or into assumptions and solution space. What if we reverse these designations?

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/17/negative-space/

Problem Finding (December 18, 2018). Most often in our education, we are handed problems and told to solve them. In real life, success is as much about being able to find problems or see problems in order to realize that there is even something to fix.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/18/problem-finding/

 

Non-Linearity. (December 20, 2018). We often think that things are linear when they may not be. In some cases, they can be severely non-linear. Increasing the force on a joint may actually make it stronger. But if increased force is added too quickly, rather than strengthening the joint even further, it can destroy it. The same is true of a system like American democracy.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/20/non-linearity/

Resonance. (December 20, 2018). If you add your effort to something at the right time, you are able to multiply the impact of your effort. This is true in sports, in music, and in social change.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/20/resonance/

Symmetry (December 23, 2018). There are many kinds of symmetry and symmetry is found in many places; it is rampant in nature, but humans in all different cultures also use symmetry. It exists at macro scales and micro scales. It exists in physical reality and in social relationships.

https://petersironwood.com/2018/12/23/symmetry/

---

2019: Happy New Year!

I plan to continue for a time with “Tools of Thought.” In the next few weeks, I will concentrate on stories and storytelling as tools of thought and tools that are useful in design as well as elsewhere in solving problems, making decisions, and change management.

Author Page on Amazon