I learned that the triple bottom line has yet to really catch on, much less become ingrained. But in my opinion it must be. We all agree that the human population is on a collision course with nature. As I see it, our century's "race to the moon" is to avert the worst of this collision, and it's probably going to be a question of political will more than anything else. Educating people on what can be done, such as on new economic models based on the triple bottom line, should be the impetus for the changes we need.
I learned that UH Manoa's ICS department has a terrible reputation with the attendees of this conference. Nobody but yours truly had any kind words or defense for us. Various parties described the grads as unprepared for industry, or worse. Brian Chee, senior contributing editor at InfoWorld and operations manager at SOEST, said the students "couldn't find their own asses with both hands." Others had complaints about the theory-heavy nature of UHM's program. Moments later, they complained that R&D capacities are badly needed in Hawaii. By the third smack-talk, I was losing my temper. I pointed out that CS R&D is impossible without understanding theory. If you just want a code monkey, you can get one by investing in what's called on-the-job training. Annoying. But I digress.
I also learned (for the nth time) that networking people across the various social media platforms is harder than it really ought to be.
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| I also learned that the Windward Community College campus is really, really pretty. |
On Journalism
According to Shawn "Mr. Doc Rock" Boyd, of Nonstop Honolulu, if you are any kind of writer, you should write 750 words to your medium of choice, daily. Or weekly. Just so long as you keep writing at a steady rate. If you want to turn it into a career, you just keep writing, seriously. If you have anything to teach through your writing, updating your blog helps there, too: if a writer is teaching the reader how to backup the data on an iPhone and prevents someone's loss of irreplaceable personal data, that person probably doesn't care if the writer misplaces a comma or has otherwise imperfect grammar.
Brian Chee, the one real journalist in the room, comes from the old school and takes exception to that. His magazine's office is down from three floors to half a floor. The entire art and copying departments were laid off because the world demanded online. When blogging became popular, journalists started saying "f*ck this," and leaving. Bloggers were the most obnoxious people on the earth. They took all the resources and wouldn't freaking shut up. He won't take any crap from Doc Rock with bad spelling or punctuation errors, because of which, as an editor, he rejects dozens of articles on a daily basis. I have to agree that there's no excuse for these kinds of errors in journalism.
The online magazines have had to go for memberships. While InfoWorld has always been free, it was only to people who qualified. They could sell a one-page ad for $50,000 apiece because their eyes were qualified—something bloggers couldn't get. For every page an article takes up, another page of ads had to be sold, to offset the cost of writing serious reviews. Everything was peer reviewed. The digital format cheapened his industry. On the other hand, young writers under his supervision write now for WaPo, the NY Times, and a spate of other serious periodicals.
Tech journalism is about trust, which takes years to build.
Then began the Ignite STEM talks...
- Mars used to be warmer and wetter, and might have harbored life. We've sent lots o' missions, many of which have failed. Mars has permafrost, which might enable settlement one day. Two three of the quick talks were about extraterrestrial exploration. I think we should be focusing on solving problems on our own planet. We're earthlings let's blow up Earth things!
- The takeaway from Dr. Angel Yanagihara's talk: JELLYFISH R COOOOOL!
- Lists are good, maps are better, web maps are best, map apps are better still. Make maps. Make them and help lift the curse of the PDF.
- Scott Robertson: Change, big picture, influence, all are increased by adding arts and humanities to STEM (which is the model of these talks). In the old model of HCI, the developer created a tool, then the user develops a set of ideas. The new direction is that the developer builds a story, and the user builds a set of beliefs. In the future, some developers will develop a really good "techno-rhetorical skill." They will understand history, philosophy, and be able to communicate eloquently and forcefully.
- After failing med school, Galilieo tested the limits of Aristotle's laws by dropping things off the Tower of Pisa. He became an inventor and refuted Copernican heliocentrism. It took the Catholic church 379 years to officially pardon him (for his correctness). Conceptions of the world shape the science as well as the beliefs of the time. Every great work of science shows the defective reasoning of logic at its time of discovery. Look into the telescope. Don't be afraid.
Check Out:
- The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (VDQI) by Edward Tufte
- This Week in Enterprise Technology with Brian Chee
Galileo is my homeboy
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