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The Void

21 Saturday Aug 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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aesthetics, beauty, death, HCI, life, pattern language, TNOO, UI, UX, vacuum, void

The Void

While all the previous properties of natural order seem positive, clear, and obvious, this one seems mildly scary. It reminds me of death, somehow. It’s true that individual death is part of the overall reality of life, it still seems scary. It’s reminiscent of whirlpools, caverns, the abyss. I suppose some of our tiny distant ancestors may have faced the dark mouth cavity of a large predator — a shark, a cave bear, a saber toothed tiger. And a few of those who were terrified enough to flood their bodies with adrenalin may have escaped to reproduce and pass on the terror of utter darkness genes to their offspring, including me.

In a friendlier interpretation, the void could be thought of as “empty” space, or more accurately, extra space not filled with functional items. From that perspective, The Void promotes rest, relaxation, rebirth, regeneration. Your day should include “The Void” in terms of activity — sleep, certainly, but also times that are unscheduled and restorative. If you are scheduling a day long meeting and every minute is accounted for ahead of time, there is no “margin” for something which catches the passion of participants to spill over. There is no time for unanticipated contingencies or for people to reflect on what is happening. 

Similarly, a space (whether computer memory or physical space) that is completely “taken up” with data or things becomes inflexible. In extreme cases, nothing can be done because there is no room to move things. 

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

When I was a kid, I used to enjoy puzzles that consisted of 15 square pieces and one blank space. The idea was to move the pieces around until the pieces were arranged into a particular numeric sequence (or made a picture). It’s immediately obvious that if there is no space, there is no way to move the pieces and whatever order they are in is the order that they will stay in. 

It seems that people who want to control everything want exactly that — no space — no void — no possibility for change. It may be related to the mystery of overworking so many people with long hours despite decades of research showing people are more productive with shorter hours. 

In a living human being, there is typically “space” in our respiratory system and our digestive system. To have zero space means we cannot eat and we cannot breathe. We do have spaces within our body — ventricles in the brain, sinuses in the head, and — crucially — females have a place that can accommodate the creation of a new life within. 

A hive, or a garden, or a city may indeed be crowded, but if it literally has zero space, it dies, just as we would. The void allows flow — in the case of the individual human body, space allows for the flow of food and the flow of air. 

A science that has no void, no space, has no flexibility. It is no longer science but dogma. 

A budget with no space, no void, means every penny has been pre-assigned and this is not an effective way to budget. 

Games typically have space (Go, Chess, Checkers, Monopoly) as do sports (Tennis, Baseball, Soccer, Basketball). Play often consist of using, changing, and manipulating space. The baseball pitcher tries to throw the ball so that it crosses through spaces where the hitter cannot easily hit it well. The hitter tried to hit the ball where the fielders cannot reach the ball. The tennis player tries to “build a point” by creating more space; e.g., by pulling their opponent progressively wider so that a shot can be hit into such a large space that it cannot be reached at all. In most games and sports, the amount of empty space, particularly at the beginning of play is relatively large. In chess, as in American football, play begins with a large space between the teams. In many games, there are special terms for spaces. A “Luft” in chess is a place for your King to go if attacked on the back rank by a queen or rook. In American football, the quarterback throws passes from the “pocket” which is supposed to protect them from tacklers.  

Under Umbrage, everything living and loving was smothered by a rule, or at least she wished it were.

To me, “The Void” connotes more than space, however. “The Void” seems to refer to a relatively large, concentrated space. In music, for example, without any space, there is just a long, annoying noise. But “The Void” isn’t just the space between notes. It seems as though it must be a significant silence such as after the tuning and before the first note is played or the space between movements in a symphony. 

Of course, we can contemplate things at different scales. If we see Alternating Repetition from a distance that allows us to see the alternating repetition, we might see gaps as spaces, but not as examples of “The Void.” If we moved our point of view so that only one such gap were visible, it might become an example of “The Void” at another scale. 

Most of our everyday reality is physically made up of empty space. Every atom is more than 99.999 % empty space. At that scale, it’s mostly void or at least mostly space. And, at the other extreme, although it may seem that space is crowded when you see the Starship Enterprise go through the universe at “Warp 9” that’s an illusion to make it more interesting. Most of the universe (and our solar system) is empty space. The sun which is by far the largest object in our solar system has a diameter of 865,000 miles. That’s big! But the nearest planet, Mercury, is 40 million miles away. And, that planet is the only thing in its orbit. 

Once I was driving with my family from San Francisco to Salt Lake City. Around 3 am, in the absolute middle of nowhere with no lights and no moon, I stopped the car and ran a quarter mile from the road into the desert to look up at the stars. It doesn’t “look” empty of course. Far from it. Yet the sheer blackness of the background and the vastness of it made it seem like a true void. In fact, because of contrast with the sharp and sparkling stars, the vast void was made into even more of a vast void. 

An atrium, a central courtyard, a reflecting pool — can these be voids that strengthen the center? 

If we look at a void, does that produce a different aesthetic feeling from when we are in a void that surrounds us? If you and your family or friends or tribe huddle around a campfire at night, the fire is a center. You can see the faces of people in the firelight. But you are aware that each of you knows that surrounding your little group is darkness. Sometimes, in movies, someone will remark, “Well, it’s quiet.” To which, the proper response is, “Yeah. Too quiet!” When the frogs and crickets stop making noise, the heaviness of the silence becomes oppressive. It might mean that large predators are about, each with their own maw of void. Being in a large space that has no perceptible features is awe-inspiring or even fear-inspiring. Looking at a large space that is situated in the context of a pattern may echo that feeling slightly, but to me, it feels very different. 

The same tune can be played on a piccolo or a base vile. 

When it comes to user experience, what comes to mind for me is the empty page or the empty canvas or the empty spreadsheet. These are large unfilled spaces. To compose, whatever the medium, requires of us a kind of courage. We must “enter” the empty space. In order to write, we must also allow for empty space within us. As I write, I find that there is always a rhythm of “describing” things that have “come up” for explication and then pausing — staring as it were into the blackness, the void, of my own consciousness. I allow things to arise from that inner void and show themselves. I don’t always know what it will be. 

I think that process (and not wanting it disrupted) is one reason that I, like so many others, found “Clippy” to be so annoying. Whenever I was allowing for the void to reveal to me what I wanted to say, “Clippy” would imagine I was stuck and offer a suggestion (invariably irrelevant). 

Perhaps you or one of your kids has played “8-ball.” You ask it a question then you shake it a little and an answer “appears” in a little window. The most enthralling time is that space between when you ask the question and the answer appears. Of course, it’s fun thinking of the questions and interpreting the answers, but the most dramatic part is waiting for the answer to appear. In that moment, you may suddenly realize what answer you want to appear.

Photo by Monica Silvestre on Pexels.com

 

If an application is to support any kind of creative activity, it should not “rush” the user and it should provide the user empty space in which to create. That emptiness can be intimidating, but I still think it’s necessary. 

My desktop has many icons, tool bars, and windows. The only true void is the blank part of the writing pane in Pages. Visually, since the blank part of the page is white, it doesn’t seem much like a void. There is enough space between the icons and menu items to make them legible, but there is no “void” there. Visually, the only thing that really strikes me as a void is the totally black rounded rectangle beside the color sphere in the Format window. It’s black because that is the color of the text I’m writing in. Its function is nothing like that of an actual void.

The void may symbolize death, but it also symbolizes life. It is the happening place. It is the dance floor. It is the game board. It is the playing field. It is waiting for the curtain to rise. It is the movie theater when the lights go out but the movie has not begun. It is also the movie theater when the credits have done rolling but before the house lights have come up. If it is death, it is also rebirth. If it is birth, it is also the end. 

As every moment of our existence and our attention becomes commoditized and sold to the highest bidder, there is ever more pressure to eliminate the “wasted space” inherent in the void. 

Photo by Leonid Danilov on Pexels.com

Running into the ocean; diving into a pool; deciding to have a child; moving; divorcing; falling in love; losing a loved one; starting a composition; beginning a design — these are moments when we brush up against the void or enter it or avoid it or incorporate it into ourselves. We like to fool ourselves that there is some process or routine or formula or piece of software that can take all the uncertainty out of these transitions into the unknown.

That’s all illusion. It’s the very nature of life itself — that dance on the razor edge between chaos and repetition — to embrace the void. We try always to “avoid” The Void. 


Nature doesn’t “abhor a vacuum.” Nature is mostly vacuum.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com



But we abhor a vacuum. Our productivity tools are geared toward reducing “The Void” as much as possible. Children are shuttled from one high intensity activity to another to ensure that when they apply to college, they will get in one which will ensure that they will get a high-paying job that will enable to them to work their entire lives so that there will be no uncertainty.

I am also a product of that “Avoid The Void” culture, so I find it hard to imagine what it would mean to design a tool or UI or app that embraced and encouraged The Void. There are some specific mobile apps that support meditation or listening to music or breathing. What of composition though? Whether it is programming, writing, drawing, or creating a business plan, is there a place for The Void to be supported? How would you encourage it? What visual elements or other sensory elements could be used to support it? How would you measure how well you did? 

Or, is it easier to avoid the whole topic? 

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The sound of one hand clasping 

Take a while or three

That cold walk home

Wordless perfection 

Life will find a way

The bubble people

The jewels of November

The lost sapphire 

Author Page on Amazon

5. Positive Space

04 Wednesday Aug 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

aesthetics, beauty, Christopher Alexander, Design, HCI, pattern language, Patterns, usability, UX

5. Positive Space

(This is the fifth in a series of 15 blogs that explore Christopher Alexander’s “Fifteen Properties” of good design, natural beauty, living spaces, etc.). 

Life is a dance on the edge between chaos, on the one hand, and sameness & repetition on the other hand. Repetition without variation or change is not life. On the other hand, endless random variation without any pattern or principle is also not life. Planet Earth is sometimes said to be a “Goldilocks Planet” — not too hot and not too cold — to support life. Most of the life forms on planet earth themselves exhibit a “positive shape” — a shape that wants to expand and fill out — and yet, there are limits because of circulation, gravity, communication etc. so that growth is typically not unrestricted. The tension between trying to grow and having to stick close enough to form creates positive space. 

Life may not always be “a bowl of cherries” but nonetheless, a bowl of cherries does illustrate the property of “positive space.” The bowl connotes living things trying to expand right up to the boundaries possible. A bowl that is filled with cherries and even slightly over-filled but without inducing a fear of spillage, to me, connotes life being vigorous and healthy. To me, a single cherry sitting all alone in a large bowl seems to exhibit positive space much less — at least at the scale of the bowl. 

When I look at an individual cherry, I also see positive space. The cherry is not a perfect sphere, featureless and smooth. If it were, to me, it would be a much less positive space. The fact that there is a stem and a noticeable indentation where the stem goes provides a kind of center. So too does the slight asymmetry of the cherry. It appears as though it might have developed as two halves that tried to circle a space at the same time from two different directions – clockwise and counterclockwise. They met and merged to form the almost spherical cherry. 

The cherry is not the only natural food that has this kind of positive space. Think of corn on the cob. Each kernel seems to have tried to grow as large as it can. It pushes up against and into other kernels. Each kernel seems therefore to be “bursting with life.” 

Consider a cucumber. It’s roughly cylindrical. But “roughly” is important here. To me, it would seem much less an example of “Positive Space” if it were literally a cylinder. It tapers at the ends and it bulges at the middle. That seems more “positive.” 

A person who doesn’t understand that life is primarily a cooperative endeavor among all the parts of the vast tree of life, but instead sees the world only as a zero-sum game, it must seem as though the positive living space of a cucumber makes the space around the cucumber less positive and less living. But this is not true! The space around the cucumber’s slightly rotund shape is much more positive and living than the space around a perfect cylinder. 

Think of a tree trunk compared with a telephone pole. They are both made of wood and they are both approximately cylindrical. But a tree trunk feels much more alive to us than a telephone pole. I don’t think this is simply because we “know” a tree is alive. It looks more alive and if you allow yourself to “tune in” to it, it feels more alive. And, importantly, not only does the space that the tree inhabits seem more living. So too does the space around it! A long line of telephone poles may exhibit “Levels of Scale” and “Alternating Repetition” and such a picture may make us feel some life to it. 

Photo by Lerkrat Tangsri on Pexels.com

But a single telephone pole does nothing to stir life in me. In that sense, it’s nothing like a tree. It’s flat and it kills the space on either side as well. The columns in the Parthenon are roughly cylindrical and obviously not literally alive. But they, unlike a telephone pole, have positive space and create positive space around them. Life is not fundamentally a zero-sum game. The bee does not “steal” the flowers pollen and thus damage the flower. The bee helps the flower. The flower helps the bee. Positive space in an object does not steal from or detract from the space around the object. It enhances it! 

Similarly, the “competition” for space among the kernels of corn on a cob of corn shows that competition can be a beautiful thing. I like to see the kernels pushing against each other. All of them seem living and positive. Imagine instead a cob of corn in which one kernel had grown like a giant spider of orange cancer and took up 98% of the cob. Aside from this one ultra-greedy cell, there were only a few widely spaced and shriveled up kernels. Would you pick that from the pile of corn? Would want to slather it with butter and bite into it? I sure wouldn’t! And to me, that is exactly what cruelty, unfairness, and greed look like. It might seem positive — after all, the dictator is trying to “grow.” That is true but he’s rigged the game. Competition is no longer beautiful when the game is rigged. Competition is no longer beautiful when your tennis opponent slices off your leg before the match starts or pays off the chair umpire to call everything you hit out. 

I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about cucumbers or cherries or corn. I just happened to have been washing vegetables before writing this. These radishes also exhibit positive space. And, although their shape is not the same as a cherry or a cucumber, the radishes also enhance the space around them. And, so does the avocado. An avocado that is just past ideal ripeness begins to flatten irregularly and the “pebbles” of the skin also flatten making a less positive space. The pebbles of a perfectly ripe avocado are themselves tiny positive spaces that add to the overall impression of vigor. 

Flowers provide numerous examples of positive space. And, so far as I can tell, the positive space of flowers invariably also enhances the positivity of the space around them. 

Animals also generally exhibit positive space. Their shapes, after all, come about through a struggle among different tradeoffs that have been “learned” by each species over four and a half billion years. But whether you look at the leg of a turtle, the leg of a turkey, or the leg of a polar bear, you will see positive space. The shapes are quite different because their histories are quite different. But in every case, the shape is determined by the history and each of those histories is the same length — 4.5 billion years. The fact that each of these shapes comes about through the dance of trying to survive and thrive in all their various habitats makes every one of them beautiful in its own right — even those whom most of us don’t particularly like to interact with such as rattlesnakes or lions. Even if we don’t wish to come face to face with a lion or grizzly bear we do recognize their beauty. And, I would claim that as those animals walk through any landscape, they will not only exhibit their own positive shape; they will also enhance the positivity of the shape around where they are walking. Think how many times photographers and painters have put an animal in the foreground of a landscape! Of course, doing so makes the scene immediately more living, more interesting, and more beautiful. 

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva on Pexels.com

What does this have to do with the user’s experience on a computing device? I would have to say that most interfaces on most devices do not do a lot to bring the interface “alive” including having positive space. The tool bar icons on this version of my Mac are very slightly “bulging” like a living cell (or kernel of corn). Even more subtly, the windows have slightly rounded corners. 

It’s an entirely different story with many games though. It seems to me that some of the game artists are among the best artists in the world. They have created many very beautiful games. Could they be more beautiful still if game designers consciously thought about using Christopher Alexander’s “Properties” in general, and “Positive Space” in particular? I think so, but for many games, such as Horizon Zero Dawn, many of the elements are copied so closely from nature that aspects such as “Positive Space” are mostly already taken care of by evolutionary bias toward the beautiful. (Yes, I do think there is such a bias, but it will have to be the subject of a different post.)

What about other applications and systems? Do you think you’ve seen good examples of “Positive Space” in such systems? How could you see incorporating “Positive Space” in UX? 

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Winning by Cheating is Losing

Life Will Find a Way

Math Class: Who are you?

Life is a dance

Myths of the Veritas: The Forgotten Field

Patterns for Collaboration: Rituals

25 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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collaboration, cooperation, Pattern, pattern language, ritual, teamwork

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Author, reviewers, revision history: 

John C. Thomas, Draft – May 22, 2021 (Draft)

Synonyms: 

Rites. Observances. Routines. Habits. Sacrements. Ceremonies. Protocols. Programs. Practices.

Abstract: 

Many groups, and not only religious groups, perform various rituals. Some are done periodically like daily prayers. Some are done on special occasions such as baptism, graduation ceremonies, marriage ceremonies, last rites, funerals, etc. Rituals appear to address many issues simultaneously. 

Problem: 

Rituals, so far as we can tell, are quite old. They seem to serve several purposes. It isn’t clear to me which of several purposes they were originally “designed” to solve.


Here are the problems they seem to touch on and offer partial solutions to:

  1. In many cases, it is necessary for groups of people to work in a coordinated fashion. If each person separately develops their habits for dealing with things, conflict and confusion can arise. How can the group behave without interfering with each other?
  2. Some rituals deal with major life changes. When Complex Adaptive Systems are faced with major changes, a whole host of individual changes and adaptations may be necessary to deal with the new circumstances. Too much change can induce exogenous depression. The person simply does not know what to do. Exogenous depression may be a coping mechanism to avoid making a catastrophically wrong decision before the person has had a chance to adapt to the new circumstances. However, in some cases, action must be taken before people have had a chance to let the implications of the new circumstances “sink in.” For instance, a death in the family has many implications. No-one knows quite what to do. Yet, something must be done. How can one behave when one is too depressed to think straight?
  3. In very small groups, such as the tribes we evolved in, everyone knew everyone personally. As groups grew larger and larger; in order to accomplish more ambitious tasks, for instance, it became difficult for people to recognize who was in their “in-group.” How can one recognize who is in one’s group when there are too many people to know personally? 
  4. People grow aware of their own mortality. How can one gain a sense of belonging to something that transcends the boundaries of their own bodies when their own bodies are limited in space and time?
  5. As groups grow larger and larger, there will be more and more diversity of abilities, capacities, styles, and so on. How can we keep track of what people are like?
  6. Human life is complex and so is the human behavior that attempts to deal with that complexity. Our behavior at time t is influenced by what happens before hand and especially what happens directly before a given activity. If it is important to perform something at time t precisely, it helps to preface the action with a series of actions right before the critical time t. This also “loads” working memory with the same material. 

Context:

Forces:

  • Individuals naturally have somewhat different ways of doing things.
  • Having individuals do things in different ways means that some individuals will discover, invent, or happen upon ways of doing things that are superior. 
  • Group behaviors, to be most effective, require some degree of coordination. 

*  Some situations are so stressful and/or novel that people cannot make reasonable decisions.

*  Some situations require action in a timely fashion. 

Solution

Communities develop rituals over time. A community ritual may address any subset of at least five problems at once: 

  1. It provides a set of roles and procedures so that people may act together without interfering with each other.
  2. It provides people with a “plan of action” that they can follow in times of change without having to try to think it through individually. 
  3. A ritual provides a kind of behavioral “test” that shows whether someone is in our “tribe.” 
  4. A ritual, since it has many common elements over time and space, reminds us that we are part of a larger effort. 
  5. Precisely because rituals are to be done in a common way, they partial out those aspects of behavior which are due to circumstances and motivations from those that are due to abilities and inherent styles. 
  6. When someone seeks optimal performance of a complex behavior, it can help to preface the complex behavior with a series of preparatory behaviors that are performed in exactly the same way over and over. 

Examples:  

First, I present below some “porto-rituals” from my own life that I don’t claim are examples of what people generally think of as rituals, but which are behavioral “in that direction” which solve each of these subproblems.

  1. I do most of the food preparation for my wife and I. We mostly like the same things, which is handy. But sometimes, there are slight differences in preferences. For instance, I never add salt to my portions. In some things, my wife likes additional salt. Therefore, I alway prepare her drink or dish on the left and put mine on the right. This just avoids confusion. One might imagine however, that over generations such a heuristic could evolve into an actual ritual; e.g., women’s portions are on the left; men’s are on the right. 

  1. As I learned more and more psychology, it became more and more feasible to use what I learned in order to teach others or help others. But when? How much is enough? When do (or should) people “trust me” enough to take my advice? The ceremony, credentials, and rituals around getting a degree provide a handy shorthand that is generally though not universally accepted as showing that the point had been reached where my advice was “valuable enough” to receive credence (and reimbursement). This was much better, in my opinion, than having to decide every single day, “Should I stop learning and get a job today? No? How about tomorrow? How about the day after?” 
  2. One of the things that people in many academic communities do is review papers and grant proposals. In my experience, the reviewing process is partly influenced by reading signals about whether someone is in or not in the appropriate “tribe.” In a study of a new computer interaction technique, for instance, in my “tribe” it is not enough to simply claim that a new technique is superior. One is expected to show empirical evidence to that effect. If one does not do that, it detracts from the credibility of the claims. More than that, however, it signals to the reviewer that the author is not yet a full-fledged member of the community. 
  3. My mother was one of those people who always returned shopping carts to the store rather than leaving them in the parking lot. I do the same. I want to model good behavior for others, and avoid unneeded wreckage of carts and unneeded scrapes on the paint jobs on cars. But another motivation is that it reminds me of my mother. Since I am carrying on her tradition, it gives me a small feeling of continuity across generations.

    In a similar fashion, my grandmother told me stories that she made up herself. I create stories for my grandkids (as I did for my kids as well). Apart from other benefits, this gives me a feeling of being part of a tradition which I think is beneficial for me, for my descendants and for society. 

  1. I organize some tennis games for some of the local tennis players who are about my age and ability. In order to do this, I book courts and then send out email asking everyone on the distribution list whether they can play. Anyone who wants to play replies. Around 7 pm the evening before the upcoming tennis game, I let everyone know whether they are “in.” I’m not claiming it’s exactly a “ritual” but only that it’s a kind of “proto-ritual.” It has ritualistic elements. One of the people I play with — actually one of the very best players — cannot consistently perform this ritual. Sometimes, he shows up without informing me. Sometimes, he send three emails telling me he wants to play. Sometimes, he responds to an email from weeks prior. The fact that he is unable to perform the ritual shows a fair degree of impairment in working memory. If you simply observed him playing tennis, you might never know this. 
  2. In tennis serves, golf putts, baseball pitching, and many other athletic and non-athletic behaviors that require top performance, many people find it helpful to engage in a consistent series of overt behaviors and thoughts before the critical activity. Engaging in a preliminary ritual is not only a performance enhancer; it is also a learning enhancer. It essentially means that if you are trying some new “tweak” in your tennis serve, the way you putt (or trying a new putter) or trying a slightly different way to throw a knuckle ball, you are keeping every other variable as constant as possible. 

Resulting Context:

Rationales: 

Metaphor: 

The earth revolves around the sun. If the the gravitational attraction between earth and sun were much less, the earth would fly off into space and soon all water would freeze and life would soon cease. If the gravitational attraction were much greater, the earth would soon spiral down into the sun and the planet would be incinerated. 

A society, group, team, or partnership must similarly have a balance between centripetal forces that tend to make it collapse into a singularity and centrifugal forces that tend to make it fly apart. Ritual can be seen as one of the centripetal forces that keep groups together. 

As an individual lives their life, they will typically do some things in a fairly creative and ever-changing manner and other things will become habitual and routinized. For example, there are several ways to tie shoes but most adults only use one way. Unless, as once happened to me, you break your arm, you need pay little conscious attention to shoe typing. Anything that gets the job done is sufficient.  

Related Patterns: 

Context-setting entrance. 

Meaningful initiation

Build from Common Ground

Known Uses:

Singing “Happy Birthday.” Playing the National Anthem before sporting events. Taking exactly two practice swings before a golf swing. Saying grace before a meal. Going out for a beer at a particular pub after every game. Reading the mission statement at the beginning of each “All-Hands meeting.” Reading the minutes of the previous business meeting at this business meeting. 

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival

Pan, Y., Roedl, D., Blevis, E., & Thomas, J. (2015). Fashion Thinking: Fashion Practices and Sustainable Interaction Design. International Journal of Design, 9(1), 53-66.

Schuler, D. (2008).  Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Social Change. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Thomas, J. C. (2017). Building Common Ground in a Wildly Webbed World: A Pattern Language Approach. PPDD Workshop, 5/25/2017, San Diego, CA.

Thomas, J. C. (2012). Patterns for emergent global intelligence. In Creativity and Rationale: Enhancing Human Experience By Design J. Carroll (Ed.), New York: Springer.

Discussion: 

What new rituals could be designed to remind people of their relationship to all life on earth and the impact of today’s actions on future generations? Could such rituals help remind people to “do the right thing”?

Are there existing rituals which could be used as is, or modified, for ecological purposes? 

An introduction to Pattern Language

Pattern Language Overview

An index of Patterns

Pattern Language Summary

29 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 86 Comments

Tags

Anti-Pattern, bully, Business, collaboration, competition, cooperation, innovation, Overview, Pattern, pattern language, politics, tyrant

A fellow writer recently posted a story seed on Facebook: “The World is Made of Glass.” 

IMG_3316

I immediately thought: “Indeed it is. And that glass can be extremely beautiful but it is also fragile. It is called ‘mutual trust.’ We live in a globally interconnected world that fundamentally depends on that mutual trust.” 

I recall that when I was eleven years old, if my friends and I saw a bottle on our travels, we would find a way to destroy it. Before we actually destroyed it, we would discuss the most fun method. Would we chuck stones at it? Or would take turns throwing it high in the air and wait for it to crash upon the ground? One thing we never discussed: whether or not smashing the bottle was a good idea. It never occurred to us that time and effort had gone into making the bottle. It never occurred to us that someone might come along and cut themselves or their bike tires on the broken glass. It never occurred to us that a shard of glass might go flying into someone’s cornea. 

IMG_3430

Stupid. But I was eleven. Now, quite astoundingly, I find people who should be decades beyond knowing better want to break bottles just for the hell of it. They want to destroy the current network of agreements, treaties, compromises, supply chains, currency exchanges and replace it with … ? The goal of the pre-teen billionaires? An extremely divided society in which a very small number of people will hold all the wealth and all the power and control all the sources of information. Most people on earth will essentially be their slaves. It will be a world run by men, not laws. This “break everything and then grab all the pie for yourself” goal might succeed but I think a more likely outcome is the destruction of civilization. 

Suddenly realigning the nations of the nuclear-armed world when many of them will be headed by essentially authoritarian dictators is extremely dangerous in terms of beginning an atomic war. War and war-like rhetoric are standard tools for autocrats to consolidate their power. 

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Even if atomic war is somehow avoided, billions of people could die. No, not millions. Billions. As I’ve mentioned before, most of us know how to survive and thrive in a particular context and we’ve become largely unaware of the extent to which the adaptive habits in our brains depend on our network of friends, family, and information sources. Not only will infrastructure and supply chains falter, fray, and fail; Anti-Patterns for collaboration will prevail over Patterns. This will make life more miserable but it will also make what people do far less efficient and effective as well. 

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I think anyone can do the necessary extrapolation. Becoming better at positive collaboration and increasing mutual trust will have two effects; at least, so I claim. First, there will be a local effect: whatever work you’re doing will become more pleasurable and effective. Second, there will also be a more global effect: you are providing a model of what works for others; you are also making them feel good about working with others; increasing their trust in each other and, to some extent, in their fellow humans. Better collaboration, teamwork, and cooperation can help prevent the destruction of our glass world. 

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Needless to say, the world is hardly perfect. It does need to change. That can be done in a collaborative way that leaves people alive; respects individuals; protects important freedoms. Real improvements will not be made by isolating nations, by trade wars, by shooting wars, by reneging on signed agreements, by tearing families apart, by cruelty. 

And yet, there is reason for hope – and action. People around the world are interested in learning how to collaborate better. That’s one reason for hope!

 

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Here is an index to the Patterns and Anti-Patterns that have been presented in this blog. 

Special Spaces & Wonderful Places introduces the concept of a Pattern Language.

“Who Speaks for Wolf?” reminds us to seek the input of all stakeholders and relevant areas of expertise before making a decision.

“Reality Check” reminds us that we cannot settle for ersatz measures; at least periodically, we must make sure we understand what is really happening.

Small Successes Early suggests that before launching into a complex project, especially when strangers must collaborate, it is useful to first tackle a smaller, shorter term project so people can build mutual trust.

Small Successes Early: Metaphor & Fable is an experiment in additional, potentially useful new parts of a Pattern. Although they seemed useful in this particular Pattern, I am not certain that they should be a normal part of a Pattern.

Radical Collocation suggests that for some types of complex problems it is important to put everyone together in the same space. Particularly relevant when the structure of the problem is not completely known ahead of time.

Meaningful Initiation can be a significant source of group cohesion but if done poorly, it can become an excuse for people to act cruelly. In that case, it can backfire.

The Iroquois Rule of Six suggests that we do not glom onto the first interpretation that comes to mind when it comes to interpreting the behavior of others.

Greater Gathering is a way for people to feel connected to the larger organization that they belong to – over and above those they come into frequent contact with.

Context-Setting Entrance allows people to know how they should act once inside a physical or virtual place.

Bohm Dialogue is a way of relating non-competitively. Rather than “making points” to “prove” one’s pre-existing beliefs, people work together to build a joint understanding.

Build from Common Ground – Rather than trying to be overly “efficient” by jumping right into “resolving” differences, it works much better to begin by establishing common ground in terms of experiences, likes, values, hobbies, concerns, etc.

Use Thoughtful Group Feedback Structures and Processes in order to provide useful information in a way that maximizes its likelihood of actually being used.

Indian Wells Tennis Tournament is not a Pattern per se. The purpose of this interlude is to provide an example of complex collaboration. Often, when we use a service, buy a product, or attend an event, we fail to think about how much complex collaboration is necessary to make it happen.

Negotiate from Needs, not Positions. Often, creative solutions to negotiations can be discovered by working together to understand the situation from each other’s perspective.

Give a Sympathetic Reading. If you work together with others in good faith, it pays to do your best to interpret what others say in a way that makes sense, if you can find one.

Positive Deviance. There is always variation in the way people do things. In a large enough population, it often happens that a few people may have solved a problem that faces everyone. That information, often implicit, can improve the lives of the entire population.

Music binds people together. This post explores some of the possible reasons.

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.

Speak Truth to Power says that those in power must hear the truth rather than simply what will make them happy. (See also Anti-Pattern: Kill the Messenger).

Find and Cultivate Allies in complex organizations. Often, necessary allies may not be immediately obvious from official org charts.

Support Both Flow & Breakdown if you want to avoid systems that crash catastrophically.

Use Diversity as a Resource. This can be especially useful in finding and formulating problems, generating ideas, synthesizing ideas, looking for bugs, finding creative ways to market and sell products, etc.

The Day From Hell: Why Does Anyone Care?  A fantasy of how the simplest most mundane things could become nightmares of conflict without cooperation and collaboration. (Not a Pattern – a motivation for a Pattern Language.)

Collaboration Patterns: A Pattern Language for Creative Collaborations. This is a pointer to a so-far unrelated attempt to build a Pattern Language for Collaboration.

Anti-Pattern: Power Trumps Good This is the first of a series of ANTI-Patterns; that is, things to be avoided. Might does not make right; but when people act as though it is, the most powerful rather than the most competent calls the shots.

Anti-Pattern: Gratuitous Push Down This Anti-Pattern describes the behavior that some people engage in of useless and unnecessary cruelty. They push people down for no reason.

Anti-Pattern: Kiss Up; Kick Down People obsessed with power for its own sake will tend to be very solicitous who have more power and show no respect for those whom they oversee

Anti-Pattern: Conjure a Common Enemy This is a common trick of tyrants. They will point first to some very unpopular group and exaggerate its influence, power, or ill intent. In some cases the “enemy” can be completely imaginary. Eventually, the “common enemy” is anyone who disagrees with the tyrant.

Anti-Pattern: Taking Credit & Spreading Blame. Another common tyrant trick is to take credit for everything good even when they had nothing to do with it and to spread blame on others even if they had nothing to do with the bad outcome.

Anti-Pattern: Kill the Messenger This is the opposite of a Learning Organization. Tyrants want to “kill the messenger” because they bring bad news.

Anti-Pattern: Cascading Betrayal Since the organization built by a tyrant does not rely on affection or competence, once power starts to crumble, people will begin to desert the tyrant. Viewed from a different perspective, some may simply decide to do what’s right rather than what’s easiest or most profitable.


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Anti-Pattern: Taking Credit & Spreading Blame.

27 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Anti-Pattern, bully, Business, collaboration, competition, Democracy, fascism, innovation, learning, pattern language, politics

man in brown long sleeved button up shirt standing while using gray laptop computer on brown wooden table beside woman in gray long sleeved shirt sitting

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Think back to the worst boss you ever had or ever observed. Maybe one stands out immediately. Or, maybe you had two so it’s hard to say which was worse. If you have been very lucky and had reasonable bosses throughout your life, then, maybe you can think back to a very nasty teacher. In either case, I’m hoping you can think of someone who was not only strict, but pig-headed, arbitrary, unfair, and liked to demean employees (or students) in front of everyone. Not only that, they would take credit for the work of others and blame others when they had actually made the mistake themselves. 

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These are the sorts of people who practice the Anti-Patterns that I’ve been writing about lately. And it occurs to me that most people have had some experience with something similar to fascism in its mildest form: having an “intolerable” boss or teacher. It’s a very mild cousin, but it  is a cousin. 

The major difference is that if you have a horrible boss: a bully, a liar, a person who uses their position to hide their incompetence and blame it on others, it bothers you at work and you may lie awake thinking about it, but you do have other things in your life. You don’t have to have it affect your personal life; it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have fun playing a sport or dancing or singing. But actually living under fascism is a 24×7 business. Your bosses now are in charge of everything in your life that they want to bother with being in charge of. In the post below, I describe another one of the Anti-Life Anti-Patterns that they will tend to use: Taking Credit and Spreading Blame. 

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Taking Credit and Spreading Blame. 

The basic idea of this Anti-Pattern is simple. The “boss” controls information into and out of their group. They are in a position to present the work of the group to higher management. The workers under the boss, in some corporate cultures will have little recourse when they are mistreated or their actions are misrepresented. If someone comes up with a good idea, for example, it may be ridiculed by a boss who knows less. Let’s say, for instance, a member of a research group at a camera/film company comes up with the idea of an electronic camera, the boss may well call the idea ridiculous. If it later turns out that the camera/film company goes out of business due to competition from electronic camera companies, the boss who originally pooh-poohed the idea will now claim that they were all in favor but that they had asked the employee who originally thought of it to look into it. That employee had come back with such a negative assessment of the market, that they had all convinced the boss not to pursue it. This is an example of “Spreading the Blame.” 

On the other hand, if the boss had decided to pursue it and it had made the company successful, that kind of boss would lead everyone to believe that it had been their idea all along. They might even go so far as to discredit, transfer, or fire the employee who had actually thought of it. One might be tempted to think the “truth would out” and it might, but the boss has more control over how the group and the individuals within it are perceived than the employees do.

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In an organization without any form of checks and balances, a tyrannical boss may gain a stellar reputation among higher management by the use of this tactic. This may result in promotions and an ever-expanding scope of power with which to ruin people’s lives. If you can convince the people above you that you never make a mistake yourself because you convincingly blame others; and you manage to take credit for everything that happens in your organization (and possibly even credit for some of what happens even in neighboring organizations) then you will gain more control over the information flow. 

Ultimately, the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization suffers when Anti-Patterns such as Taking Credit and Spreading Blame are employed. People will begin to see little reason to work hard or imaginatively since the boss will take the credit. People who gain pleasure from friendly and collegial interactions will work somewhere else if they possibly can. Similarly, people who are primarily motivated at work by the work itself and doing it well will tend not to thrive under such a boss and will also go work somewhere else as soon as the opportunity arises. However, people who like to be told what to do, and enjoy power themselves, might collaborate with a boss who uses Anti-Patterns because the employee may feel as though helping the boss is the best way to open a promotion for themselves as well. 

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What “Anti-Patterns” have you observed in a boss, petty bureaucrat, teacher? 

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Anti-Pattern: Cascading Betrayal

23 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, sports, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

authoritarianism, Business, competition, Democracy, ethics, Facism, life, pattern language, politics, religion, Totalitarianism

Cascading Betrayal

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A very interesting little book that I recommend is Jane Jacobs’s Systems of Survival. In it she argues that there are two systems of ethics and morality: an older one, the “Guardian Syndrome” whose values include: Shun trading; exert prowess; be obedient and disciplined; adhering to tradition, respecting hierarchy, being loyal, deceiving for the sake of the task, making rich use of leisure; being ostentatious; and taking vengeance. Most of us might recognize these from history and stories about the Middle Ages in Europe but many other kingdoms and empires of earlier times also valued such things more than most of us do today. On the other hand, a newer system of values has been developing since the Renaissance. In the “Commerce Syndrome,” people tend to value things such as shunning force, competing, being efficient, being open to inventiveness and novelty, being honest, collaborating easily with strangers and aliens, dissenting for the sake of the task, respecting contracts, investing for productive purposes. 

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In modern societies worldwide, both systems are at play and they can often be in conflict. For instance, you have friends that you feel loyalty to (Guardian Syndrome) and you work for a corporation which asks you to sign a contract that says you will not steal from the corporation and that you will report anyone who does (Commerce Syndrome). You observe your good friend taking supplies from the company storeroom for personal use. You ask the friend to return the goods but they say, “Oh, come on. The company makes billions. They can afford it. It’s just our little secret.” You can’t dissuade your friend. Now, the conflict in values causes you a conflict. Do you “betray” your friend and honor your contract? Or do you betray your contract and collude with your friend? 

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Within American society (the one I happen to be most familiar with), these values are not evenly distributed. For instance, Silicon Valley seems quite centered on the “Commerce Syndrome” while small towns, sports teams, and the Catholic Church, for example, seem more centered on the “Guardian Syndrome.” 

People whose values are almost totally aligned with the “Guardian Syndrome” will tend to stay loyal to their boss, leader, team, political party, even when the boss, leader, team or political party does something stupid, cruel, unethical, or illegal. For a time, people in positions of great power can keep their power through, for example, the dispensing of favors, defining agreed upon untruths, or taking vengeance on the disloyal. 

abandoned architecture auschwitz auschwitz concentration camp

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Such a system is always somewhat fragile as demonstrated by the constant stream of rebellions, crusades, and wars in the Middle Ages. A state or organization based purely on the “Guardian Syndrome” is even more difficult today. If one tries to keep to a pure “Guardian System” in the midst of a highly interconnected and interdependent world, it will fail sooner and more spectacularly. 

One issue is that it is no longer possible for people not to be exposed to the actual truth. Lying to a populace in which only 1% of the population could read and write was fairly easy. Trying to do it in the computerized and recorded world of today is nearly impossible. Some people will remain loyal and refuse to call out the Emperor for having no clothes. But someone will. And, it will be caught on tape. And, the tape will be shown to vast numbers of other people who have no loyalty to the Emperor. They will all see he’s naked and have no compunction about saying so. 

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As a result, a modern “Emperor” will find it difficult to keep all but the most fanatic fans from dismissing his attempts to control through politics and pageantry. The Medieval mechanisms of dispensing favors and wreaking havoc via vengeance will largely prove ineffective. Once such an Emperor begins to lose power, more and more people will begin to realize that they are much better off to “play by the rules” of the Commerce Syndrome. As a result, people who might have stayed loyal to the death to the Emperor will instead begin to defect. As more and more people defect, this will further weaken the Emperor’s power base and make it more likely for even more people to defect. 

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Naturally, the Emperor will attempt to use whatever power they have left to prevent defections, but in our modern interdependent and interconnected world, this is increasingly difficult. Most modern countries — and their leaders — realize that material prosperity in the 21st Century depends on many of the values of the Commerce Syndrome. A society that tries to remain “closed” like North Korea, for instance, will find themselves at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to invention, comfort, prosperity, and the happiness of its citizens. What little resources such a country does have will be increasingly funneled toward weapons of war, security, police, prisons, and the suppression of truth. While these measures may serve to consolidate the power of a modern emperor in the short term, in the long term, too many people will have too little physical comforts to feel much loyalty to the emperor. Support will continue to erode and eventually everyone will see beneath the invisible clothes. An early signal of such a collapse will be a cascade of betrayals. 

By contrast, in a modern state, loyalty is earned through such virtues as fairness, competence, innovation, and collaboration. In other words, people dispense loyalty on the basis of what people do, not because of what they promise to do and not on the basis of some bogus claim to royalty based on how and where they were born. Cascading betrayal is typically a symptom of an attempt to revert to an earlier state of human social evolution. It is another descriptive short-hand Anti-Pattern. It can be avoided by allowing feelings of loyalty to grow naturally from watching someone in a role of power make and keep promises over time and by watching them do what is in the best interest of the State; not by watching them take actions which mainly enrich the emperor. 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival

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Anti-Pattern: Conjure a Common Enemy

20 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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authoritarianism, Bete noir, bully, Business, competition, Dictator, fascism, history, innovation, learning, military, pattern language, politics

Conjure a Common Enemy

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Of course, it is quite a commonly used technique among leaders to arouse people to work together by pointing to something that they all want. For example, leaders may use visions of a better future to motivate diverse people to work together to build a bridge, say, or find a cure for cancer or to put a person on the moon. And, sometimes, as when an army stands on the border about to cross into a country, the leader may call upon everyone to work to defeat that enemy. 

The difference between working together to create something and working together to destroy something is quite palpable. Working to create something tends to make people feel happy and behave and think creatively. Working to destroy an enemy tends to arouse fear and anger. It is stressful and stress tends to foster doing the same thing rather than doing something new. At the end of the day, when people work together to build something good, that may provide positive value for a long time to come. When people work together to destroy something, they feel good temporarily, but what they have at the end of the day is, at best, nothing. 

I claim nothing is the best long-term outcome for destroying a common enemy. This may strike you as odd because, after all, if you defeat an enemy, you might be able to enslave their children or sexually abuse some of the survivors. You may also be able to steal some of their wealth. I still claim that these “benefits” are worse than nothing as an outcome because they will tend to corrupt and demean everyone involved in the effort. The gold that is extracted from people’s teeth and given to you as the spoils of war is not really a benefit. The gold may not tarnish. But you will. And so will your children.

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Note however, that the title of this Anti-Pattern is not: “Fighting a Common Enemy.” I chose “Conjuring a Common Enemy” quite deliberately. These are not enemies that are about to take your life and property. These are enemies conjured out of thin air, or more accurately, out of the disappointments, fears, humiliations, and angers that people have suffered. The Anti-leader essentially claims that any failure you have experienced and all that attendant negative emotion you felt is not your fault. The disappointments of the past are not due to your own faulty actions, bad choices, bad luck, or being born into unfortunate circumstances. No, the Anti-leader proclaims that your illness, unemployment, lack of wealth, lack of a loving relationship  – they are all caused by an enemy. 

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The Anti-leader wants to make it really easy to distinguish these conjured common enemies from everyone else. They might therefore choose dress, age, gender, race, or location as “magic markers.” They are “magic” because in real life, all one finds are, at best, tenuous correlations between the markers and actual behavior. But in the conjured enemy, they are all alike. It is a magic marker of ability, motivation, or behavior. If it is too hard to tell enemies apart from the “good guys,” the Anti-leader will mark the conjured enemy. Jews might be required to wear yellow stars. The “good guys” might all wear brown shirts or red hats while they “spontaneously” destroy things. 

In some cases, leaders try to cast inanimate and abstract things as “enemies.” Thus, we have the “War on Poverty” and the “War on Drugs.” While this framing is not so nasty and despicable as a “War on Immigrants” or a “War on Jews” or a “War on Blacks,” it is still an ineffective framing. Instead of a “War” on “Poverty” it would make more sense to build a bridge to prosperity, to my way of thinking. A “War on Drugs” is just plain silly. It would be laughable if it hadn’t cost so much money ($ 1,000,000,000,000 – one trillion dollars and counting) and ruined so many lives (many more than drug misuse and abuse has). Among the important questions that a “War on Drugs” glosses over are: “What is a ‘drug’?”, “Isn’t it really drug abuse that you are against?” “Why are some powerful and addictive drugs like caffeine, alcohol, Ritalin, and nicotine deemed okay while others like marijuana deemed not okay?”

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One problem with blaming all your troubles on a conjured enemy is that, even if you do destroy this “enemy,” you’ll be left with the same set of issues that you had before. Stemming immigration to the USA in 2018, will not land you a job in 2018 or in 2019 nor in 2020. Making homosexual marriage illegal will not improve your own marriage in the slightest. Making it illegal for Buddhists to practice their religion will not make you a better Jew; making Islam illegal will not make you a better Christian; making Christianity illegal will not make you a better Hindu. 

There is also a more systemic and pernicious problem with Conjuring a Common Enemy. Eventually, a society, business, or team who never faces the real causes of their failures will never improve and will be relatively disadvantaged in any competition with similar organizations who do face facts. In addition, once people are in the habit of blaming others for their troubles, they become ever more pushed into an “us vs. them” mentality; they will be unable to see win/win solutions for what they really are.

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They may well eventually turn on their Anti-leaders the way they did on Mussolini. Since the enemies are conjured, it is also necessary to spin an illusion about them. This was fairly easy to do in ancient times or in Medieval times. With mass media and the Internet, one cannot simply assert some absurdity and have it go unchallenged. The Anti-leader will therefore tend to destroy people’s access to sources of information that might challenge his or her lies; e.g., TV news, newspapers, websites, etc. and instead try to fill people’s minds with so much doubt that they will be tempted to make the “easiest” decision; that is, simply to believe the liar and their lies.  

Comments welcome; e.g., agreements, disagreements, references, examples, suggested Patterns or Anti-Patterns. 

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Here are some of my books. Perhaps I should do the next one on Pattern Language? 

The Winning Weekend Warrior focuses on strategy, tactics, and the ‘mental game’ for all sports as well as business and life. The Winning Weekend Warrior

Turing’s Nightmares depicts possible scenarios in the world filled with Artificial Intelligence. What might that mean for humanity? Turing’s Nightmares

Fit in Bits is for anyone with a desire to stay in shape but an extremely hectic, busy, or unpredictable life. Fit in Bits suggests many ways to work various exercises into other daily activities. My own favorite is to dance while cooking or washing and drying dishes. 

Tales from an American Childhood: Recollection and Reflection. Actually, this one is related to and inspired by the Pattern: Build from Common Ground. In Tales I recount early memories and then relate them my current values and what that says to me about contemporary issues in society. I invite you to take a little of my journey, not because it is your journey, but precisely because it isn’t. Therefore, we have observed different things and then come perhaps to observe the same things differently. It is simply my recollections and reflections – not the “correct” ones. Tales from an American Childhood

All are available on Amazon from links on my Author Page. 

Collaboration Patterns: A Pattern Language for Creative Collaborations. 

14 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Business, collaboration, cooperation, creativity, Design, innovation, pattern language, teamwork

Collaboration Patterns: A Pattern Language for Creative Collaborations. 

(Takashi Iba with Iba Laboratory).

In response to a look at my on-going efforts to build a Pattern Language of ‘best practices’ in collaboration and teamwork, one of my readers suggested I take a look at the work of Takashi Iba at Keio University in Japan. I fondly recall visiting Keio University back in 1977 and giving a lecture on our work at IBM Research with John Carroll and Ashok Malhotra on the “Psychology of Design.” (See references below). In any case, I bought the book and read it and here I am recommending it to you. 

The approach taken in Collaboration Patterns: A Pattern Language for Creative Collaborations is somewhat different from the one I’ve been taking so far. The Patterns here are fairly elaborate and “wordier” while the ones in Collaboration Patterns are much shorter and more at a strategic level. They deal more with what one should do rather than how how to achieve the results. Another way to think about it is that some of the Patterns in this blog are more about mechanisms or processes to achieve many of the goals expressed in Collaboration Patterns. 

The Patterns in Collaboration Patterns are each only two pages (one of which are quotes and cartoons). You can read the book quickly and an entire group could come up to speed on using this book fairly rapidly. By contrast, understanding all the Patterns in this blog will take a longer time. Anyway, if you are in the middle of a project right now or about to start one and would like to improve your creative collaboration, I would suggest starting with Collaboration Patterns. It gives excellent suggestions for how to use the book in multiple ways. Hopefully by now, everyone sees that collaboration has always been vital for humanity to have many of the things that now exist to make life more beautiful, comfortable, and safe. I think that there is a place for these longer Patterns as well. 

https://www.amazon.com/Collaboration-Patterns-Language-Collaborations-Catalogue/dp/1312447168

Carroll, J. and Thomas, J.C. (1982). Metaphor and the cognitive representation of computer systems. IEEE Transactions on Man, Systems, and Cybernetics., SMC-12 (2), pp. 107-116. 

Thomas, J.C. and Carroll, J. (1981). Human factors in communication. IBM Systems Journal, 20 (2), pp. 237-263. 

Malhotra, A., Thomas, J.C., Carroll, J. & Miller, L. (1980). Cognitive processes in design. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 20 , 119-140.

Carroll, J. Thomas, J. Miller, L. & Friedman, H.  (1980). Aspects of solution structure in design problem solving. American Journal of Psychology, 93 (2), 269-284.

Malhotra, A., Thomas, J.C. and Miller, L. (1980). Cognitive processes in design. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 12, pp. 119-140. 

Carroll, J., Thomas, J.C. and Malhotra, A. (1980). Presentation and representation in design problem solving. British Journal of Psychology/,71 (1), pp. 143-155. 

Carroll, J., Thomas, J.C. and Malhotra, A. (1979). A clinical-experimental analysis of design problem solving. Design Studies, 1 (2), pp. 84-92. 

Thomas, J.C. (1978). A design-interpretation analysis of natural English. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 10, pp. 651-668. 

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Author Page on Amazon 

The Day From Hell: Why Does Anyone Care? 

05 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

anarchy, Business, collaboration, competition, cooperation, Democracy, pattern language, politics, Rule of Law, sports, teamwork

The Day From Hell: Why Does Anyone Care? 

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I oversleep. The alarm did not go off and it feels late. I glance at my watch and sure enough, I’m late. I grab my iPhone to see whether I forgot to set it. Nothing works. I cannot even turn it on or reboot it. I’ll have to deal with it later. I will be late for my tennis match or have to skip breakfast. I decide to compromise and just grab a protein shake out of the fridge. Something’s wrong. It’s not cold. In fact, the refrigerator is not cold at all. Nor did the light go on when I opened the door. I try the kitchen lights. Nothing. Power is off throughout the house. I’m sure the bill was paid on time. I’ll deal after tennis. 

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I arrive at the court for my doubles match. The other three are already there. John says, “You’re late. We’ve decided we’re playing you.” 

“What? Very funny. Yeah, I’m good but not that good.” 

“No, it’s not a joke. We’re tired of losing. The three of us will stand you.” John’s face is deadpan. I look at the others and there is no sign of japery anywhere. 

“Well…that makes no sense whatever. Sorry I’m late. My phone alarm isn’t working. In fact, my phone isn’t working at all. But I’m sure this isn’t April First. How about if Tom and I take you two on?” 

“No. We’ve decided we’ll take you on.” 

I think that sounds crazy but whatever. I’ll call their bluff. At least I’ll get a lot of exercise! “Fine,” I say, “let’s just warm up for a few minutes.” 

“No. No warm-up. We’re already warmed up,” explains Tom.

“OK, fine. Just go ahead and serve.” 

“No, you have first serve,” says Larry. 

I quickly unsheathe my racquet and walk to the baseline, one ball in each pocket and one in my left hand. I position myself near the middle. It looks really weird to look across the net and see all three of them positioned there. “First in?” I query. 

“No,” they sing out in unison. “Serve it in.” 

“What is this joke, guys?” 

“No joke. Just serve.” 

“Fine.” I think to myself, I will play along till the joke gets old. Since I’m not warmed up, I just hit an easy serve into the middle of the box to start the point. 

“OUT!” shouts Tom, who generally makes fair calls. 

“WHAT?! That was in the middle of the box! It wasn’t even close to the line! Enough’s enough.” 

“Our call,” says Larry. 

“Yeah, it’s your call, but come on. You all know that was well in.” 

Our debate, if you can call it that, is interrupted by screaming tires and a loud crash coming from the nearby street. “What the hell was that?” 

No-one reacts or answers my question. Larry says, “Second serve.” 

I shake my head. “Guys. We should go up there and see if anyone needs to call 911. I mean, it would have to be one of you. My phone doesn’t work.”

Don, still with a bland, blank look on his face says, “None of the phones work. That was just a car crash. Probably intentional. Let’s just play.” 

I know I am not dreaming. But what is going on? “You seriously think someone crashed their car on purpose? What is with you guys this morning?” 

“Yeah,” says Larry. “It’s been going on all morning. Let’s just play. Second serve. Wait. Tom! Come over here. I want to play deuce court.” 

“No way,” says Tom. “I’m already here.” 

Larry wields his racquet above his head and charges at Tom. In seconds, they are both bleeding profusely and keep swinging at each other. Don joins in the fray. They are completely oblivious to my shouts so I pick up my stuff and head for the clubhouse to call for help. Maybe someone put some kind of drug in the water? Just then, another screech of breaks, squeal of tires and a loud crash. Another car crash? 

red and yellow hatchback axa crash tests

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

By now, I am jogging through the parking lot toward the front desk at the tennis club. Something is terribly wrong. It all looks wrong. Then, I notice that virtually none of the cars are parked inside the white lines meant to indicate parking spaces. Some appear to have been left in the drive. Several are on the grass and one is in the flower bed near the gym. Many of the cars have smashed windshields.  

Collaboration? Cooperation? Teamwork? Who cares? 

I am very grateful for readers and commenters on my blog. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been cataloging “best practices” in collaboration and teamwork in the form of Patterns. I think it may be time to “take stock” and make it clear why I am doing this, in case it isn’t obvious. 

I don’t “own” these Patterns. I don’t get any money from people using them. Why should I care whether people do a good job or a horrible job at collaborating? And, isn’t life all about competition anyway? 

IMG_9850

There was a time, not so long ago, that I really didn’t think it would be necessary to “explain” why it was important to cooperate. There was a time, not so long ago, when I thought most people knew that life was not all about competition. But lately, so-called “civil society” has been so rife with uncivil words and actions, at least in the “United” States, that I think it’s time to re-iterate why cooperation is vital. I also want to point out that, while there is certainly competition in life, there is also cooperation. 

Why all of life is not competition. 

In the natural life of animals and plants, there are, for some species, some specific times and places for competition. That is true. And, some of those competitions can be pretty fierce; e.g., antler-smashing bucks competing for mates. And, you could say that the rabbit eats a plant and that the coyote eats the rabbit. But there are far more ways that plants and animals cooperate. 

adult and cub tiger on snowfield near bare trees

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

First, plants and animals participate in the recycling of material. Generally, plants gain energy from sunlight, and put some of that energy into compounds that are high energy and fit for consumption by some animals. In the process, plants also take carbon dioxide out of the air and replace it with oxygen. Animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Animals eliminate “wastes” from their food and that “waste” replenishes nitrogen and minerals into the soil. Plants use the nitrogen and minerals. And, when animals and plants die, their bodies further enrich the soil for plants. 

Cooperation within the great tree of life doesn’t stop there, however. Flowering plants often cooperate with each other and with bees to flower so that there is a more or less a constant supply of pollen. Sucker fish take parasites off large fish. Butterflies collaborate with flowering plants. Rabbits collaborate with berry bushes. When there is danger, many animals and birds cry in such a way as to warn others. 

Let’s move on to consider what cooperation means for human beings. A single human being, however smart, will die soon after birth without the aid of more adult human beings. Apart from providing physical needs for the infant such as food and water, older humans immediately begin teaching the infant and then the child much of what he or she needs to know in order to survive. People have typically hunted, gathered, and prepared food in cooperative groups. People build shelters together. Cooperation among human beings has become more wide-spread and more complex over time. Most of the people in the so-called civilized world now rely on complex supply chains for food, water, clothing, electricity, security and learning. Dancing, playing music, playing sports, business, government — all of these activities depend on cooperation. 

photography of people stacking hands together

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Cooperation and competition in sports. 

Right now, the French Open tennis tournament is going on in Paris. The competitive spirit of the players is amazing! In some of the matches, shot after shot looks like a sure winner – only to be returned with another difficult-to-return shot. The players push themselves mentally and physically to the very limit and sometimes beyond. They are indeed fierce competitors.

But guess what? They follow the rules. And they show sportsmanship. No-one arranges to secretly injure another player or sabotage their racquet. The players cooperate to compete. After many of the most savage hard fought contests, the contestants often fall in each other’s arms. 

IMG_2818

In life, there is both competition and cooperation. In a world of 7 billion people, cooperation is more important than ever. In a world that relies on international supply chains and agreements and laws, cooperation is more important than ever before. In a world with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, cooperation trumps competition. The natural world has never been a zero-sum game; it has never been a fixed pie. Look around! Life has covered the planet largely through cooperation. To solve problems such as global climate change and the plastification of our oceans, we need widespread and effective cooperation more than ever. Of course, there is a role for competition as well. But competition is only fruitful within the bounds of cooperative frameworks. If we try to run this world under a non-cooperative and purely competitive framework, we will guarantee our own extinction. I had thought that was obvious to everyone, but apparently it isn’t. 

That’s why I’m trying to catalog best practices in collaboration and teamwork. 

————————-

Examples of cooperation: 

http://nectunt.bifi.es/to-learn-more-overview/cooperation-in-animals-ants-case/

https://listverse.com/2015/02/23/10-amazing-cooperations-between-different-animal-species/

http://vetsci.co.uk/2011/05/16/cooperation-between-species/#

https://epdf.tips/making-democracy-work-civic-traditions-in-modern-italy.html

Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-0304-6.

—————————

Author Page on Amazon. 

Use Diversity as a Resource

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by petersironwood in management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

collaboration, competition, Design, diversity, innovation, learning, pattern language, politics, problem solving, Representation

Use Diversity as a Resource

IMG_9333

Prolog/Acknowledgement/History: 

On the one hand, I’ve always been fascinated with biology. If you learn or recall even a little about biology, you’ll know that diversity is a fundamental aspect of life. Life repeats patterns. But it balances that repetition with variation and diversity. 

At the same time, I’ve found it much more interesting in nearly every aspect of life to seek some substantial level of variety rather than constancy. That includes everything from flowers to fields of study to people to interact with. My “favorite color” is blue. But the last thing I want is to see only my favorite shade of blue. That is, after all, equivalent to being blind. While I love eating cashews, it would be hell to have only them for every meal. 

My first job after grad school was managing a project on the “Psychology of Aging” at Harvard Med School. We focused on such tasks as reaction time and memory but I also looked into adjacent fields; for example, it was clear that “ageism,” as well as sexism and racism, was alive and kicking. True enough, there are general trends of age-related slowing and memory issues, but there are several caveats. First of all, there is huge variability within an age group. In our studies of generally healthy veterans from their 20’s to 70’s, the differences within an age group were about 2.5 x as large (roughly speaking) as the overall age-related changes that we saw. The fastest individual in the whole study of several hundred people was not in their 20’s nor in their 30’s. In fact, it was a 55-year old school superintendent who raced motorcycles cross-country on the weekend. The effect of the way various tasks were constructed was far more important than individual differences. In over-simple but basically accurate terms, age is a weak variable when it comes to “mental performance,” individual differences are a moderate variable and the conditions of the tasks are strong variables. In my experience, having individuals with a diversity of ages produces better results. (Relevant studies of aging, not empirical proof of the immediately previous statement: 9, 10, 22, 28, 31, 37 in references below). 

portrait promenade la nature homme

Photo by hermaion on Pexels.com

When I started the Artificial Intelligence Lab at NYNEX, I learned something of the history of the phone company including the fact that the telephone was invented to try to help people with special needs (in this case, hearing loss). There are many other cases where inventions that are of great use to huge numbers of people were first inspired by trying to aid those with special needs. Already aware of the possible enrichment of the field of human-computer interaction by making it more accessible to people outside of Western Europe and North America, I helped organize and run workshops on “cross-cultural issues in HCI” and as I met people from different cultures, I became even more convinced that diversity offered a resource for innovation and excellence. (Reports on a few of these activities: 2, 8, 32, 33, 36).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Working with people in other cultures or people with special needs, in my experience, provides a much greater wealth of possibilities than sticking with only one. (Some studies of relevance that I have been personally involved with: 11, 15, 16, 27, 30, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41).

Excellent arguments have been made by many as to why supporting diversity is the ethical thing to do and I quite agree with those arguments. Here, however, I am not making an argument on the basis of what is right; I am merely claiming that it is in everyone’s interest to support diversity and use it as a resource for creativity and innovation. 

Author, reviewer and revision dates: 

Created by John C. Thomas in May, 2018 

 

Related Patterns: 

Who Speaks for Wolf?, Build from Common Ground.

Abstract: 

Human societies have widely different customs about what is appropriate behavior. As people grow up in a culture, they generally learn one (or, more rarely two) ways to dress, eat, speak, walk, and so on. Diverse groups of people, regardless of how that diversity arises, will have a wider range of skills, experiences, perspectives, and attitudes to apply to solving a problem. This diversity is a resource that can help throughout problem solving to improve the chances of solving a problem, generating a good design, or resolving an issue. Therefore, when faced with a problematic situation, improve your chances of success by bringing to bear diversity on the problem. 

Context: 

Cultures developed separately in many places around the world. Partly to adapt to specific conditions and partly by accident, these cultures developed different cultural practices. In addition, humans, like every other living species, exhibits diversity on thousands of dimensions even at birth. Beyond that, people are further influenced to develop differently based on their families of origin and their peer groups. These differences are critical in having allowed us to develop a complex, highly interconnected society of many specialists. People can become incredibly skilled at tennis or playing the piano or writing poetry or programming in LISP or fixing plumbing problems or planting trees or hunting or cooking, to name a few of the thousands of specialities that now exist. Everyone doesn’t have to do every single task for themselves. If we did, we would all be moderately good at the same relatively small set of skills. Instead, we can mainly rely on others who are extremely good at doing what they do and trade the fruits of our labors at what we are expert at for the fruits of their labors. 

All these differences mean that it often takes slightly longer to find and work from common ground; to understand each other, than it might if everyone were born and raised identically. 

Many of us live in societies that push for the fastest possible answer, solution, design, or resolution. There is an absurd push toward speed at the expense of quality. This tends to make people impatient to “just get on with it” by which they actually mean, “just get on with it the way I want to do it.” 

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Problem: 

When people push to the fastest possible solution, it tends to compromise quality in every way. One of the most important ways it compromises quality is that it pushes people not to consider a large variety of ideas but instead to pick the first one or two that come to mind. Generally, the first few ideas that come to mind are not original in any significant way. The ideas will be largely deployed or implicit in the dominant culture already. There will be very few real innovations. 

There is another problem with such an approach. Whatever the “answer” is, it will typically not appeal to everyone or even be in everyone’s interest. As a result, a design will fail to gain the widest possible audience and may instigate a backlash among those whose needs are not being met or whose needs are actually being subverted. 

In a fairly homogeneous group, it is very likely that some vital aspects of the problem or situation will be overlooked. A solution will be derived based on limited data and then marketed based on limited appeal. This failure will be surprising to the homogeneous group because they are only looking at it from one perspective; viz., their own. 

Forces:

  • Diversity of background leads to diversity of experiences.
  • The expectations of any one person are primarily based on their own past experiences.
  • The behavior of any other person is largely based on that person’s past experiences. 
  • People in fairly homogeneous groups tend to focus on their similarities rather than their differences; in some cases, they may even denigrate or make fun of other groups. 
  • Fairly homogeneous groups who focus on their similarities will further reduce the space of possible ideas to ones that are shared by the entire group. In other words, the group will work within the constraints of the intersection of their experiences rather than the union of their experiences. 
  • Ideas and approaches that appeal to those in a fairly homogeneous group will engender a false sense of universality of the appeal. It is easy to believe that the idea will be liked by everyone as much as it is by this particular group.  
  • The same unconscious close-mindedness that prevents the fairly homogenous group from generating very innovative ideas will also make it very difficult to accurately diagnose the real source of the failure.  
  • People in a diverse group will provide that group with an initial set of ideas that is far larger than the set of ideas generated by a homogeneous group. 
  • Moreover, people in a diverse group, if they see diversity as a resource, will tend to more often work from the union of their ideas than limiting themselves only to the intersection of their ideas and experiences.   
  • Ideas can play off against each other and produce still other new ideas. Thus, the diverse group who views their diversity as a strength will start off with a larger pool of ideas; will produce still more “recombinant” new ideas; and will more likely allow a look at the large space formed by the union of ideas rather than being limited by the intersection. 
  • Moreover, people in a diverse group will not only be more likely to produce an innovative service, product, or solution; they will also be more able to see how to market the idea, or specialize it, or localize it to any population represented within the group.    

Solution: 

When facing any particularly challenging situation, try to construct a highly diverse group of people to face that challenge. Respect and learn from each other’s differences. Focus on your diversity as a resource to be capitalized on rather than a handicap to be overcome. 

IMG_9325

 

Examples: 

  1. Artists as diverse as Frank Lloyd Wright, Vincent Van Gogh, and The Beatles intentionally allowed themselves to be exposed to Asian versions of their art in order to enhance and extend their own styles.

2. High level chefs who specialize in a particular type of cuisine may also become conversant in other types of cuisine to expand the palette of tastes from which to select. 

3. In problem solving, it often happens that the representation a person uses can have a huge impact on how easy a problem is to solve. Similarly, different things are often better said in different languages.  Even when it comes to advances in an entire field, they often follow new ways of representing things. For example, understanding human speech began making much more progress once the sonogram (which shows time on the X-axis, frequency on the Y-axis and amplitude as darkness) came into use as a representation (rather than the earlier representation of a speech waveform with time on the X-axis and amplitude on the Y-axis). Modern medicine today relies on many kinds of “scans” – not just X-rays, though X-rays certainly allowed a big advance over guesswork. (Studies indicating the importance of representation: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26).  

Resulting Context:

Generally speaking, when diverse groups work together and view their diversity as a resource, the result is a better product, service, solution, or resolution. In addition, it typically happens as a kind of side-effect, that the roads to marketing in diverse markets are also opened up. Finally, everyone within the group learns from the others in the group. Inclusion and diversity have another very powerful positive impact. Everyone sees that what one does is the basis for reward rather than what one is or who they know. (Studies on the impact of diversity on team performance: 7, 12, 17, 42). 

This is a huge win for teams, groups, companies, and nations. If people feel that they will be rewarded based on what they do, then people are incentivized to do the best they can. If people feel that they are rewarded based on their age, race, sex, national origin etc. — that is, things over which they have no control, then no-one is motivated to do their best. Those in the out-group feel it is fairly pointless and those in the in-group feel it is unnecessary. 

Of course, there are many other factors besides diversity that impact creativity and innovation. The latter depend on leadership, organizational context, process, support, incentives, etc. In the short term, if people are under time pressure, some may perceive that they haven’t been as productive even if they have if there more ideas and more varied ideas are discussed. Arranging the context so that people are motivated to do well rather than do quickly will be critical to success. 

IMG_6566

References: 

[1] Bellamy, R., Erickson, T., Fuller,B., Kellogg, W.,  Rosenbaum, R., Thomas, J. and Vetting Wolf, T (2007) Seeing is believing: Design visualization for managing risk and compliance. IBM Systems Journal 46:2, 207-218.

[2] Best, M., Deardon, A., Dray, S., Light, A., Thomas, J.C., Buckhalter, C., Greenblatt, D., Krishnan, S., Sambasivan, N. (2007). Sharing perspectives on community centered design and international development.  Human-Computer Interaction, INTERACT 2007. New York: Springer.

[3] Carroll, J. and Thomas, J.C. (1982). Metaphor and the cognitive representation of computer systems. IEEE Transactions on Man, Systems, and Cybernetics., SMC-12 (2), pp. 107-116. 

[4] Carroll, J. Thomas, J. Miller, L. & Friedman, H.  (1980). Aspects of solution structure in design problem solving. American Journal of Psychology, 93 (2), 269-284.

[5] Carroll, J., Thomas, J.C. and Malhotra, A. (1980). Presentation and representation in design problem solving. British Journal of Psychology/,71 (1), pp. 143-155. 

[6] Carroll, J., Thomas, J.C. and Malhotra, A. (1979). A clinical-experimental analysis of design problem solving. Design Studies, 1 (2), pp. 84-92. 

[7]Chow, I. (2018) “Cognitive diversity and creativity in teams: the mediating roles of team learning and inclusion”, Chinese Management Studies, 12 (2), 369-383, https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-09-2017-0262

[8] Dearden, A., Dunckley, L, Best, M., Dray, S., Light, A. & Thomas, J.C. (2007).  Socially responsible design in the context of international development. Panel presented at INTERACT 2007, Rio de Janiero, BZ,

[9] Fozard, J. L., Thomas, J. C., and Waugh, N. C. (1976). Effects of age and frequency of stimulus repetitions on two-choice reaction time. Journal of Gerontology, 31, (5), pp. 556-563. 

[10] Fozard, J. and Thomas, J. (1975). Psychology of aging: Basic findings and some psychiatric implications.  In J. Howells (Ed). Modern Perspectives in the psychiatry of old age. NY: Brunner/Mazel.

[11] Friedman, B., Brok, E., Roth. S. K., Thomas, J. C. (1996). Minimizing bias in computer systems. SIGCHI Bulletin, 28(1), pp. 48-51. 

[12] Kurtzberg, T. (2005). Feeling creative, being creative: An empirical study of diversity and creativity in teams. Creativity Research Journal, 17(1), 51-65.

[13] Malhotra, A., Thomas, J.C., Carroll, J. & Miller, L. (1980). Cognitive processes in design. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 20 , 119-140.

[14] Malhotra, A., Thomas, J.C. and Miller, L. (1980). Cognitive processes in design. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 12, pp. 119-140. 

[15] Srivastava, S., Dhanesh, K., Basson, S., Rajput, N., Thomas, J., Srivastava, K. (2012). Voice user interface and growth markets. India HCI conference.

[16] Srivastava, S., Rajput, N, Dhanesha, K., Basson, S., and Thomas, J. (2013). Community-oriented spoken web browser for low literate users. CSCW, San Antonio, TX, 2013.

[17] Stahl, G., Maznevski, M., Voigt, A., and Jonsen, K. (2009). Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A meta-analysis of research on multi-cultural work groups. Journal of International Business Studies, 1-20. 

[18] Thomas, J.C. (1991). The human factors of voice interfaces. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 80 (3), 138-151. 

[19] Thomas, J.C. and Schneider, M. (1982). A rose by any other alphanumeric designator would smell as sweet. Behavior and Information Technology, 1 (4), 323-325. 

[20] Thomas, J.C. (1978). A design-interpretation analysis of natural English. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 10, pp. 651-668. 

[21] Thomas, J.C. and Carroll, J. (1978). The psychological study of design. Design Studies, 1 (1), pp. 5-11. 

[22] Thomas, J. C., Fozard, J. L. and Waugh, N. C. (1977). Age-related differences in naming latency. American Journal of Psychology, 90(3), pp. 499-509. 

[23] Thomas, J.C. (1974). An analysis of behavior in the hobbits-orcs problem. Cognitive Psychology 6 , pp. 257-269. 

[24] Thomas, J. (2015). Chaos, Culture, Conflict and Creativity: Toward a Maturity Model for HCI4D. Invited keynote @ASEAN Symposium, Seoul, South Korea, April 19, 2015.

[25] Thomas, J. (2014). Mobile Systems for Computational Social Science: A Perfect Storm. Invited keynote address at UbiComp workshop, Sept. 13, 2014, Seattle, WA.

[26] Thomas, J., Diament,J., Martino, J. and Bellamy, R., (2012). Using “Physics” of Notations to Analyze a Visual Representation of Business Decision Modeling. Presented at VL/HCC 2012 conference in Salzburg, Austria.

[27] Thomas, J. C. , Basson, Sara H., and Gardner-Bonneau, D.  (2008 & 1999) Universal access and assistive technology. In D. Gardner-Bonneau (Ed.), Human factors and voice interactive systems. Norwell, MA: Kluwer. 

[28] Thomas, J.C. (2003), Social aspects of gerontechnology.  In Impact of technology on successful aging N. Charness & K. Warner Schaie (Eds.). New York: Springer.

[29] Thomas, J. C. (2001). An HCI Agenda for the Next Millennium: Emergent Global Intelligence. In R. Earnshaw, R. Guedj, A. van Dam, and J. Vince (Eds.), Frontiers of human-centered computing, online communities, and virtual environments. London: Springer-Verlag. 

[30] Thomas, J.C. (1997). Steps toward universal access in a telecommunications company. In B. Friedman (Ed.), Human values and the design of computer technology. Stanford, CA: CSLI. 

[31] Thomas, J. C. (2017). Old People and New Technology: What’s the Story? Presented at Northwestern University Symposium on the Future of On-Line Interactions, Evanston, Ill, 4/22/2017. 

[32] Thomas, J.C. (2007). Panelist, Meta-design and social creativity: Making all voices heard. INTERACT 2007, Rio de Janeiro, BZ, Nov., 2007.

[33] Thomas, J.C. (2007).  E-learning: An opportunity to meld modern technology and ancient wisdom? Panelist, E-learning.  INTERACT 2007, Rio de Janeiro, BZ, Nov. 2007.

[34] Thomas, J.C. (2005). Patterns to promote individual and collective creativity.  Presented at the Human Computer Interaction International, Las Vegas, NV, July 27, 2005.

[35] Thomas, J.C. (1996). Invited panel presenter at the National Research Council’s workshop: Toward an every-citizen interface to the national information infrastructure, Washington, DC., August 23, 1996.

[36] Thomas, J.C. & Kellogg, W. (1993). Cross-cultural perspectives on human-computer interaction: report on the CHI ’92 workshop. SIGCHI Bulletin, 25 (2), 40-45.

[37] Trewin, S., Richards, J., Hanson, V., Sloan, D., John, B., Swart, C., Thomas, J. (2012). Understanding the role of age and fluid intelligence in information search. Presented at the ASSETS Conference, Boulder CO.

[38] Trewin, S., Bellamy, R., Thomas, J., Brezin, J., Richards, J., Swart, C., and John, B.E., (2010). Designing for Auditory Web Access: Accessibility and Cellphone Users.  The 7th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility, W4A.

[39] Trewin, S, Richards, J.,Bellamy, R, John, B.E.,Thomas, J.C., Swart, C.Brezin, J. (2010). Toward Modeling Auditory Information Seeking Strategies on the Web. CHI Work In Progress. 

[40] Trewin, S., Bellamy, R., Thomas, J., Brezin, J., Richards, J., Swart, C., and John, B.E., (2010). Designing for Auditory Web Access: Accessibility and Cellphone Users.  The 7th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility, W4A.

[41] Trewin, S, Richards,J.,Bellamy, R, John, B.E.,Thomas, J.C., Swart, C.,Brezin,J. (2010). Toward Modeling Auditory Information Seeking Strategies on the Web. CHI Work In Progress. 

[42] Yap, C., Chai, K. & Lemaire, P. (2005). An empirical study on functional diversity and innovation in SMEs. Creativity and Innovation Management, 14 (2), 176-190. 

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