Off Course-On Target

Cool Tools I Use: Digital Pen and Paper

I truly believe that every one of us (yes, that includes YOU!) has cool tools that we use on an everyday basis and stories about how we use these tools and how we came to find and use them.  I'd like to hear about yours.  Meanwhile, here's another one of mine:

This tool is one of those great examples where the very best attributes of the past can be updated with the advantages of today's technology. In this case, it's by combining good old pen and paper with digital technology.

I use Logitech's io2 and have been using it for over 5 years, pretty much nonstop.  It does require that you use special "digital paper" but it comes in a good variety of sizes, pads, sticky notes etc., and they don't cost much more than regular paper and last a long time. The paper itself is very interesting and uses technology licensed from Anoto, one of the first companies to really break through with this type of digital paper, and is licensed by many makers of digital pen and paper. The Anoto-based paper works by having a very fine almost invisible set of little "dots" on each page.  Each of these dots has a unique identifier and so as you write on the paper with the pen, a sensor in the top of the pen keeps track of which dots you are passing over, so it knows exactly what your pen movement and motions have been and stores this digitally.  Then every time you insert the pen in its small pen holder base that hooks to your computer via USB, the software creates a full digital image of everything you've written or drawn on the paper. Think of it as digital carbon paper (if you're old enough to remember!)

Sounds complex, but the beauty is that you just have a very plain looking "regular" note pad and a slightly larger than normal pen that you use exactly as you would any other pen and pad. However, now you get a complete digital copy and backup of every page, which is not only handy, but also enables you to send your pages of notes and diagrams to others.

You also have the option of converting your handwriting to digital text by doing some "training" to recognize your personal style of writing, and this is working better with each release. I don't tend to use this feature too often, since my purpose is to have a visual archive and I'm the only one who needs to read it. Good thing, since I'm often the only one who can!

The Logitech/Anoto paper I use also has a bit of "smarts" to it, so you can use areas on each page set aside to automatically create, for example,  a calendar item or an e-mail.  Or you can take other specific actions based on the notes you take. This is extremely handy, and it can be setup to take these actions automatically every time you put the pen into its cradle and upload the contents to your PC.

This same technology has also been used to create some other fun and interesting devices such as the "Fly" pen from Leapfrog.  This cool tool let's you do things like write a word in one language, and then hear it translated into another language through the speaker inside the pen. You can also literally draw a small calculator on the paper, and then start using it as a fully functional calculator!

Of course, what I'm really waiting for is truly digital paper and paint, where we have surfaces that are digital displays with resolution at the molecular level, but I'll save that for another posting and hopefully it will be a Cool Tool I'm using in the next year or two!  In the meantime, consider trying out the currently available digital pen and paper to help you preserve and share your notes and diagrams.

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Have  "Cool Tools" you use and want to share?  Send me your favorites with the following information:

• Name of the tool and source for getting one. 
• What does it do? 
• How did you come to discover this? 
• How do you use it? 
• Why is it on your top ten "Cool Tools I Use" list?

Cool Tools We Use

Over the years, many people have asked about some of the "cool tools" I use to do some of the things I do, which range from presentations to podcasts, welding to woodworking, and sailing to speaking. 

In one such discussion a few months ago, long-time colleague Tom King, who now also works with Elliott Masie and the Masie Center as a "Masie Fellow", sent me the following note:

"I'm fascinated by some of the nifty tools I discover one way or another through contact with you. Things like doodle.ch or SlideShare or however the heck you get transcriptions of your podcasts. A totally separate and intriguing topic is how you quickly create such compelling, lengthy, thoughtful posts, podcasts & presentations. I've already seen quite a preso on "Whole New Mind" from you."

"Moving back to nifty tools....I think the interesting idea here is how these tools are discovered and shared-- and what makes them good. That process of discovery & recognition seems to be the long-term value, even if any given "nifty tool" has a place that is only ephemeral in the Internet-time mid-term time phase."

And he went on to say:

"For what it's worth, I think the best tools develop when the tool will "scratch an itch" for their very own developer... or someone near & dear to them. Likewise, I think the best recommendations for a tool comes from someone who uses it, and the second best source is a recommendation from someone who has a trusted/respected source that uses a tool. If the user is passionate enough to convey the value to that second party (who may not even use such a tool), and then recommends it to me.. well sometimes I find that is actually the best recommendation."

Couldn't agree more with your observations, Tom !  I too find great value in discovering such tools, tips, and tricks from you and others. 

Tom being Tom, he had already started to post some of his favorite tools, tips, and tricks on his blog Mobilemind (highly recommended BTW), and you can check out his lists of favorite Web Solutions and his favorite applications from earlier this year.

Cool Tools Kevin Uses:

Of course this is not a new idea. Another of my favorite people, Kevin Kelly over at Wired magazine, has has been doing a phenomenal job of covering a similar idea on his site Cool Tools.  His description is right on target for me:

"Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or web site that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We only post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted."

Even Dads can be Cool!

And then there is the totally cool offshoot that sprang up a bit later by Chris Anderson at Wired magazine called Geek Dad.  Check it out, no matter what your gender or status. 

So Many Tools, So Little Time

But what about the rest of us?  I truly believe that every one of us (yes, that includes YOU!) has cool tools that we use on an every day basis.  Even more valuable are cool stories about how we use these tools and how we came to find and use them.  How many of the cool tools that you use did you discover by seeing someone else use them?  Many, I suspect, but the problem is that as great as such serendipitous discovery is, it doesn't seem to scale very well. Considering that there are about to be 6.6 billion of us populating this planet, I think we may all have a few more to discover!

Later on in my discussion with Tom, I noted that I too am fascinated by the process of discovery, and I often point out that discovery is the opposite of invention—that discovery is the finding of something that already exists—whereas invention is the creation of something that never existed before (though most often consists of new combinations of previously existing ideas or things).  My point is to emphasize the differences and the power of going after both. I’m equally intrigued by the differences between invention and innovation, but I’ll stop myself from digressing (lucky you!) yet again. I merely want to emphasize how strongly I agree with Tom's larger point which is the value of the process of discovery and sharing.

So, thanks to Tom for the push. I'd like to see what we can do here on OCOT and as a group to explore and discover more Cool Tools. For starters, here are some quick thoughts from me and questions for all of YOU:

• Is this a topic that you would find to be of high value?
• Would YOU consider contributing one or more of your top cool tools and stories of how you discovered it, use it, etc.?
• Would this topic be well served by having a longer term “theme” or space on OCOT that is dedicated to “cool tools I use”? Or would one or two blog posts suffice?
• Might we be able to create a template that would help people describe their cool tools and stories, and make it easier for others to discover and use them? 
• Would a wiki-like capability work best for this, so that any given tool or technique could be expanded over time, so that other could add their examples of how they use the same tool differently, provide additional techniques or suggestions for getting more out of them, and add their own stories about how they came to discover the tool?
• Might “Cool Tools I Use” be a big enough topic to deserve its own “space” (section of a site, whole blog/wiki itself, etc.)?  For example, this could be a really eclectic mix of tools, where we are looking to discover them in any and all applications, walks of life, etc.

Please send in your comments or e-mails to let me know your thoughts on these questions.

Serious Fun, so let's make this a game!

In many cases we cease to consciously think about these tools. We use them so frequently and for so long that they are part of our "unconscious competency".  To "discover" them again, you may need to start noticing them again. 

So let's turn this exercise into a version of a once popular game based on the premise "If you could only take 10 things with you to live on a remote island for 10 years (randomly picked numbers), what would those be?"  And in the spirit of a game, let's not get too literal with this. Let's imagine that our basic needs for survival are met and focus instead on those things we could otherwise not live without.  In most cases, we probably could live without these, we just don't want to!

And let's really do some coloring outside the lines with this theme and not restrict ourselves to computers or the net!  I could imagine collecting “cool tool” ideas for anything from cooking to car repair to computers or canoeing (today’s post is brought to you by the letter C!).

Let's get Started!

In the interim, I thought I'd get things started by creating a "Cool Tools I Use" theme here on OCOT and use this to collect and share some of the cool tools each of us have found invaluable and to also share, perhaps even more importantly, the ways we found them or how they found us.  What I'll do on OCOT to help with this effort is create a metadata tag called "Cool Tools" and make sure all "Cool Tools" entries are marked with this tag so you can find them easily in the future.

Oh, and just for clarity, let's be clear that this is NOT to be used for nor does it represent ANY endorsement of promotion of a company or a specific product. These are authentic stories about "Cool Tools" that we use all the time and would not want to be without.

Should be fun, and if not, we won't do it! 

Now it's YOUR turn!

OK, that should be more than enough to give you an idea of what I'm thinking about.  Now it is YOUR turn to think about the "Cool Tools" you use and would never want to be without.  Send me your responses to my previous questions and we'll follow through accordingly.

Meanwhile, have a "Cool Tool" you use and want to share?  Send me your favorites with the following information and I'll start collecting and publishing yours and more of mine.

• Name of the tool and source for getting one.
• What does it do?
• How did you come to discover this?
• How do you use it?
• Why is it on your top ten "Cool Tools I Use" list?

I'm sure EACH of you have a list of tools you would not want to be without, and you probably have tools you know that are much better than the ones I have on my list. I can't wait to start to learning and benefiting from your cool tools!

w
a
yne
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My LEGO™ Epiphany

In my posting Happy 50th birthday, LEGO blocks!, I mentioned that the genesis of my model of Learning Objects started with one of those wonderful epiphany moments—in this case, from watching my children play with LEGO blocks many years ago. With thanks to those of you who asked, here is the short version of that story.

As with children in most families, my son and daughter have very different needs and styles: one loves clear instructions, directions, and a pre-determined end state (in this case, it was a castle as I recall), and the other wants complete “artistic” freedom and creativity when constructing whatever he can imagine. 

One day, my son was busy creating yet another LEGO masterpiece, and he was having trouble creating just the right nose for his robot. Wandering into his sister's room, he found her busy playing with the LEGO castle she had just put together. She was enjoying rescuing the people in the castle who were under attack from the terrible dragon she’d also built. My son's eyes came to rest on the PERFECT nose for his robot—the LEGO blocks that made up the turret of his sister’s castle. I think you can figure out the rest of the story!  <g>

Once I'd settled the “block war”, it struck me how incredibly well LEGOs, these simple blocks of plastic, met each of their wonderfully different needs. Even better, these LEGOs included blocks that were from my childhood, when LEGOs first came out, and some were purchased literally days earlier. Some came from collections of just an assortment of different size “plain” blocks and others were from specialized kits made to create a specific scene, theme, or object. I began to get that feeling  when you know you’ve stumbled serendipitously upon something really significant, and you just need to figure out what it is.

Was there more to this?  Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could apply this same basic model to other situations and things in our “adult world”?  And so I began a long and winding multi-year journey of refining this dream of a world where everything exists at just the right and in the lowest possible size, much like the individual blocks that make up LEGO systems. 

Some people may find the most value in taking a pre-assembled unit and putting it to direct use; others will want to assemble their own, possibly from scratch, but more likely from sub-assemblies. Some will want instructions and guidance on how to assemble the blocks, while others will want to determine their own results.

The empowerment of literally every individual by such a world full of metaphorical LEGO blocks (no matter how they may be applied) remains as staggering and as exciting to me as that epiphany moment when I watched the wonder of my two little "snowflakes" having their unique needs so wonderfully met by these simple yet powerful blocks.

I will post a more detailed explanation soon of the original model for Learning Objects and how this model can be applied to any type of content and really almost anything else. Stay tuned.

Happy 50th Birthday, LEGO™ blocks!!

Those who know me, have heard me speak, or have read my writings know that one of my longtime favorite models and metaphors is that of LEGO blocks.

Actually, it was my children playing with them 20 years ago that caused one of my greater epiphanies and led me to develop the concept of Learning Objects back in 1992 and I plan to post this fun story on the origin of Learning Objects here on OCOT.

Although my LEGO block model is often criticized for being too simple, I still find it to be a powerful and profound one precisely because of its simplicity.

So how could I NOT mention this is the 50th anniversary of the ubiquitous blocks that were introduced in 1958? According to a January 28, 2008 article on Gearlog, "There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world's 6 billion inhabitants" and "7 LEGO sets are sold by retailers every second around the world."

• Check out this fun timeline that Gizmodo put together on the illustrated history of LEGO.
• View this list from Jennifer DeLeo at PC Magazine of "The Ten Coolest LEGO Inspired Gadgets"?  The list includes everything from LEGO iPod Stereo Speakers, a homemade LEGO MP3 player, a hard drive, a watch and a USB charger. 

What fun!

I've also previously written about  "The LEGO of Gadgets" and the LEGO-like attributes of the fun electronic components from Bug Labs that you can literally snap together to create your own new devices. Check it out!

In the abstract and from my perspective, the LEGO block model:

• Makes infinite scalability a practical reality. It addresses what I've previously referred to as "Living in a World of Exponential Change" and "The Snowflake Effect" of mass personalization at a global scale by enabling you to create infinite new combinations or "assemblies" that are entirely (though not necessarily) created from pre-existing blocks.
• Is based on having a large collection of very, very small "blocks" that can be created in advance of a given need or use. This is a key part of enabling a strategy of "readiness for the unexpected" and dealing with exponential rates of change.
• Adds to the "pool" of blocks for future reuse and re-purposing, because in many cases the creation of new assemblies causes new blocks to be made.
• The "blocks" can come from any source at any time and with no need for any pre-agreements or design.
• Is based on a low-level and simple standard that enables each block to be "snapped" to any other block (size of "pins" in actual LEGO blocks is always the same)
• Each block is "just right" in terms of size—as small as possible, but not one bit smaller (to misquote Einstein)—when it meets two criteria:
  • It can stand by itself, ready for use.
  • It would almost never be used by itself, since it is too small to be of value on its own.
• It enables models that cover both ends of the spectrum, providing for maximum repurposing AND maximum relevance and personalization.

And just to be clear, these "blocks" and this LEGO block model can be applied to literally anything and is certainly not limited to content. For example, I've worked with others to develop applications of this same model for human competencies, software, music. You can also see examples of "hard" objects, such as those in the top ten list mentioned at the beginning.

What applications or ideas do YOU have for the application of this LEGO block model?

Happy 50th Birthday, LEGO!  I, for one, am planning on using you more than ever in the next 50 years AND I plan on being here to help celebrate your 100th anniversary! 

Sailing Into Uncharted Waters

There are a number of changes coming up for both myself and Off Course - On Target (OCOT), so this posting will be a bit different to provide you with a quick overview of what's coming your way.

Ship Shape

Through to the incredible support of my company, Autodesk Inc., and my boss (thanks Kelly!), I'm going to be off work through January 25th, 2008, and busy using up my large collection of years of accumulated vacation time. I'll be using this time to finish getting my sailboat, the good ship Learnativity, all ship shape and ready for some upcoming extended world cruising.  I'll start posting more details for you on my new adventures at sea in the new year and Elliott Masie and I are going to join forces in a larger context as he too sets out to live, learn, and explore this great planet of ours. We've dubbed our collective effort as the "Grand Learning Expedition" and will have a variety of ways for you to participate and learn along with us in the new year.

With all my time and attention devoted to this and all my online time spent learning more about all things nautical, including finding the best sources and prices for the seeming unending supply of equipment a seaworthy sailboat requires, my one regret is that I won't have any time to devote to Off Course - On Target until I return to work at the end of January. BUT, never fear, there are some very interesting alternatives and additions for you, and we'll continue to ensure that OCOT remains "serendipity central" and lives up to being the place "where unexpected paths lead to great discoveries."

New Perspectives, New IQ Points?

I've always been intrigued by and have often quoted Alan Kay's estimation that:

"A new perspective is worth 80 IQ points"

and this quote came to mind as I was pondering what to do with OCOT while I'm out. Of course, one perfectly fine option is to simply hang up a "Gone Sailing" sign and give you a rest and a chance to spend more time on the many other sites I'm sure you are trying to stay up with.

But I thought of some other options as well.  For example, I've long been interested in having more diversity of content within the blog format, and I think we need to understand more about the boundaries of that format before we switch to another one, such as a wiki or newsletters or shared documents or e-mail threads. I've also been planning doing some interviews, and featuring new perspectives from others to add to my own. Now I have the luxury of expanding upon this. In keeping with our theme of experiential learning being such a great teacher, I've picked out a small group of people I know who come from extremely varied backgrounds, professions, locations, and interests, and of course, perspectives. I've asked them to consider sharing their thoughts and ideas with you here on OCOT in text, audio, or video. I've left it completely open to each individual to decide everything from topics to format to frequency, and have simply asked that they choose topics they have a passion for and ones they think would be of interest to you. I'm excited by the prospect of having OCOT be a forum for the range of ideas and points of view this eclectic group will undoubtedly come up with, and am very confident you'll really enjoy it immensely.

I'm also interested to see how this works for the invited guests.  I've purposely picked a very broad range of individuals, and some have their own blogs, so this is in part an experiment to see if it makes sense for them to use OCOT as an additional outlet or to speak through their own blogs and use OCOT for connections I might make, providing comments, etc. Other invitees don't have a blog, but may be considering starting one, so this is a chance for them to experiment. For others  who don't have the time or desire to commit to a regular flow of content that a blog requires, this opportunity provides an outlet for them whenever they would like to use it. You can come up with many other options I'm sure, and again, this will be a chance to experiment and discover some of these combinations, and learn more about the variety of presentation that works within blogs and what needs to go beyond these boundaries.

We'll keep this wide open and informal, so just how many of them can find the time to contribute and just how often they choose to do so remains to be seen. I see this in keeping with our focus on experimentation and discovery, rather than being very directly tied to my being out for awhile, and my hope is that we find this works out very well and we can continue to play with this additional type of content on OCOT long after I return. My goal is to bring you interesting people and perspectives, along with the extra IQ points you can gain from visiting OCOT! So be watching this space over the next few weeks for some additional new posts by these individuals, and let us know via your comments, how it works for you, your reactions to both this new type of content, as well as the topics themselves.

My thanks in advance to those guests who took me up on this offer, and have fun with the experiment.

OCOT 2.0?  Looking for a Few Brave Beta Testers

Finally for today, I'd like to talk about one last but very exciting bit of new experimental and experiential learning we are going to be starting. We're adding entirely new capabilities to OCOT. As per my previous comments about exploring the boundaries of blogs, I'm also anxious to learn "beyond the blog" and to join forces with you to try out new forms, formats, and features that continue to improve and grow our mutual communication, collaboration, and value. For example, I'd like to learn more about when a wiki type of format is more appropriate for  soliciting more direct and detailed input from the rest of you. I'd like to have us learn more about when the voice of a single author makes sense, and when the collective voice of a group of people creating, editing, and evolving content, conversations, and knowledge make more sense. I'd like to see how well we can blur the boundaries and barriers that formats sometimes put in our way. Is there a more transparent and blended way to have content be "just right" for us and matched to our constantly varying moods, context, and conditions?  As we have more and more options and ways to communicate, we will need to become better at choosing the right tool for the task at hand. 

To do all this, I've been working with a talented developer, Tony Freixas, to create a test site with a whole new look and feel and a mashup of many different features and capabilities that might make sense for the next iteration of OCOT.  At this point, we have the first prototype up and running as a temporary test site, and we're looking for a few brave and curious volunteers to take this prototype for a test run and get their feedback on the experience to help guide future directions and capabilities to bring to all of you out there in OCOT land.

If you have a few hours in the next 2 months and would be willing to try out this new OCOT experience and provide us with your reactions, experiences, and suggestions, please send a short e-mail to Tony and he will send you instructions on how to participate and contribute. My thanks in advance to those volunteers. We'll be back to the rest of you with results in the New Year.

Bon Voyage!

As we all begin to wrap up yet another year that seems to have flown by, and ramp up for the start of 2008, I want to thank each and every one of you for reading, listening, and watching OCOT. I take it as a great honor that you would choose to spend the most valuable currency there is—your time and attention—and I hope you continue to find it to be a good use of both (why else would you come?). I hope that OCOT continues to take you down some very unexpected pathways, which lead to even more unexpected and even greater discoveries. I'm about to head out on some grand new adventures, journeys, and discoveries of my own, and look forward to sharing and learning more with all of you next year. 

Thanks for helping to make 2007 such a truly great year, and here's to making 2008 even better!

w
a
yne
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Wayne Hodgins
Strategic Futurist
Autodesk Inc.
+1-707-803-3579

Serious Play: Are We Humans the Biggest Computer of All?

Would you be interested in a future where the pursuit of fun and enjoyment was one our our major roles in life because it leads to solving extraordinarily large and complex world problems? For example, what if all of us helped to digitize all the content contained in all the books in the world? Almost none of this content is currently available on the Web or in any digital form and as such, is largely inaccessible to most. And would you be interested in a world where the relationship between computers and humans is a very positive and symbiotic one? I know I would. 

I'd like to bring your attention to some of the ways in which this is already happening. Let's see if this excites you so much that you'd like to not only participate in some of these processes, but also start to use some of these models to help solve some of the problems you and your profession or areas of interest face.

In my previous posting "Moving aLOM", I mentioned some of the exciting, yet daunting, challenges of the future of metadata, such as how to create, in staggering volume, some of the more "subjective" metadata—things like the infinite characteristics that describe people, places, and things—where we humans are still the only source. This effort would include things like creating metadata for all the images and videos out there—still a largely unsolved problem—the absence of which not only makes them very hard to find, but also makes the Web and computers very inaccessible to the visually impaired, which, with age, might include a lot of us!

The Exciting Work of Luis von Ahn

Perhaps most notable in this area is a relatively young new professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Luis von Ahn, standing at right in this photo with his PhD advisor Manuel Blum. Luis has already completed some amazing work on what he refers to as "human computation" and how to put "wasted" human cycles to use in solving problems a computer cannot solve at this point in time, but humans can solve easily. Luis also picks up on a theme we have discussed here on Off Course - On Target in many other contexts—the power of the "network effect" achieved by connecting everything and every one together. Human computation is obviously focused on the latter, and Luis wants us to consider having all of our brains connected together as an extremely advanced large-scale distributive processing unit. Not to worry, no wires or direct connections to your head are required!

Before I go any further, and especially if you are more of a visual and auditory learner, let me recommend that you immediately watch this talk called "Human Computation" that Luis gave on July 26, 2006, about the power of human cycles. This 51-minute talk is part of the Google Video Text Talk series (also highly recommended), and while it is long by some current standards, I feel very comfortable recommending this to you, since I'm convinced you'll agree it was a VERY good use of your time (actually Luis' talk only runs 40 minutes, and is followed by about 10 minutes of a good Q&A session).

Another excellent reference for you, which contains more fascinating details and examples of von Ahn's work, can be found in Clive Thompson's article "For Certain Tasks, the Cortex Still Beats the CPU"  in the June 2007 edition of Wired magazine.

Games with a Purpose

But for those who don't have the time right now to look at these things more, here is a quick synthesis of what I find so exciting and interesting about the innovative use of our human "compute cycles", and the use of "fun and games" for very significant and "serious" results. What von Ahn likes to call "games with a purpose".

One of the most common and effective examples of this type of human computation is one of Luis' first applications, which is known as "Captcha". The name may be new to you, but I'm sure you're already a veteran Captcha expert! Captchas are those slightly difficult to make out words that you are asked to identify and type into a box when you are signing up for web sites. Captchas are used for responses online and in other situations where we want to prevent automated "bots" from generating unending amounts of "spam" or other undesirable exploitations of such online experiences. The problem is how to differentiate between a human response and a computer response, and Captchas are a simple solution to this problem, as well as a simple example of a problem that computers can't solve by themselves.

In itself, this doesn't sound like that interesting of a problem, although certainly it is an annoying one! However, part of what I would see as Luis' brilliance is in the more primary problems he is solving with this process.

In the case of Captcha, the real problem being solved pertains to my initial reference about the challenge of digitizing all the content of the world's printed matter, such as books. For more background on this digitizing and scanning challenge, you may want to refer to my previous posting from Jan 2007 "Books—the NEW old medium". Specifically, the problem is with all the words found in printed matter that scanning and conversion technology cannot make out, because the medium has a crease running through it, or it is partly missing, or other factors which make it impossible for the technology to recognize the words correctly.  Yet, show these words to almost any one of us and we can easily recognize the word.

So all those "fuzzy" words in Captchas are NOT just some random words that are blurred to fool a computer. Instead, these are the images of words which scanning technology has failed to recognize correctly! Luis refers to this specific application as ReCaptcha and you'll find much more information there, as well as instructions and free plugins for you to embed within your own sites, blogs, etc.

And that's just one side of why Luis von Ahn was awarded one of the MacArthur "Genius" awards and a Microsoft Research grant, for he has also managed to put these types of solutions into a game format that starts to look at solving these kinds of problems at a scale that is truly breathtaking! 

Solving World Problems or Playing Solitaire?

In his talks, Luis likes to use a very compelling metric of human-hours, and he often compares statistics on the the amount of human-hours that are "wasted", in his opinion, doing something like playing Solitaire on a computer. I too have always been amazed at the number of people I observe when walking down the aisles of an airplane, for example, who are hard at "work" playing Solitaire, but I had no idea just how much time is spent on this. According to the statistics that Luis uses, over 9 billion human-hours were expended playing Solitaire in 2003 alone! Better yet, he puts this into perspective by comparing this activity to such things as:

• The building of the New York City Empire State building, which consumed about 7 million human-hours, and thus equates to just 6.8 hours of collective Solitaire playing.
• Building the entire Panama Canal, which took 20 million human-hours and amounts to less than a day of collective solitaire playing!

Metadata for All Images?

Now imagine if we were able to put this kind of "human computation" to more effective use AND still do so within the format of games that people can enjoy doing themselves! One example is another one of Luis' creations, and one that has been running with staggering results for over three years called the ESP Game. As we've discussed many times, experiential "learning by doing" is often one of the best ways to learn about something new, so I'd encourage you to not only read about the ESP Game on that site, but to play it for awhile. (Caution: can be very addictive and time consuming!) When you do, you'll see how it puts two or more players (there is also a single player version) into a friendly competition by typing in descriptive words for a given photo (that metadata thing again), and they get points whenever they both type in the same word.

So what? While progress is being made in image recognition technology, this is still largely a problem that computers cannot do. And ask yourself, do YOU take the time to "tag" or create all the metadata for the photos and videos that YOU post, such as who and what is in the photo? Didn't think so. Yet by using this type of game format, the ESP Game has been running for over three years with no drop off in popularity and as of mid-2006, it was very fast, very cheap, and very accurate. If this were done as a popular online game site, it would be possible to label all the images on Google Image Search in just a few weeks! No surprise then that the ESP Game has already been licensed by Google in the form of the Google Image Labeler, and is used to improve the accuracy of the Google Image Search. We humans are relatively competitive animals and we like to do what we enjoy, so this approach appears to have a lot of promise.

Yes, but WHERE is that object in the photo?

Another problem that is even more challenging than identifying WHAT objects are in the image is identifying WHERE they are in the image. To do this, Luis has created another game called "PeekaBoom". The first player sees an image along with a word that describes an object within the image, and then clicks on the image where the named object is located. The second player sees only the object that the first player clicked on and types the word associated to that object. Once the second player guesses the correct word, the two players move on to the next image and switch roles. More details are explained in the video (you really should take the time to watch it!).

Human Computer Relations: Parasitic or Symbiotic?

Luis also notes how this transforms the current relationship between humans and computers from what he calls a parasitic relationship to a symbiotic one where:

"...humans solve some problems, computers solve others, and together we work to create a better world."

Sound far fetched? Well, in the less than two years that his limited experiment of the ESP Game has run, over 75,000 players have come up with over 15 million "agreements" (matched words). This rate would indicate that 5,000 players playing simultaneously could label all images on Google Images in about two months. Think about that...5,000 is NOT a very big number when you consider the numbers on many gaming sites. Therefore, it should be possible to label all the images on the Web in a few months. Again, I strongly recommend that you check out the video to get not only more details, but to see just how accurate, pragmatic, and promising this approach is. 

For example, it turns out that the results of a game such as PeekaBoom can in turn be used to help train computers to recognize objects and their location. Turns out that one of the reasons that computers are not yet very good at this type of object recognition and automated metadata generation is that there is very little data and examples to use to "train" the computers on how to do it. By capturing the results of all the human play in location identification of objects within images, this data can then be used to train computers to do the same thing"—allowing us move on to new challenges... and more fun.

Super Side Effects

I think you'll agree that this approach not only shows great promise in terms of solving some very large scale problems, but has some surprising and equally amazing "side effects", like how some people have used this to help them learn a language. This approach has spawned its own game called Babble, where two English-speaking players are shown a sentence in a foreign language that neither of them speak, and are presented with a list of possible meanings (in English) below each word. Players try to agree upon a set of English words that forms the most coherent sentence. The result is that this activity is surprisingly effective in translating foreign text into English without requiring anyone fluent in both languages. Think of the possibilities of this running at a larger scale!

Another "side effect" of this approach is how many players have noted that they end up finding other people who think very much like them, and thus they have a great sense of "intimacy" and closeness with their counterparts who play these games. Therefore, many  ask if they can find out who their anonymous competitors are to continue the conversation. At this point in time, all the game players are anonymous and no identities are revealed, but one could imagine this being used as a way to help discover other people "like you"—ones you'd want to meet and get to know better.

Common Sense Isn't that Common; yet!

And lastly from von Ahn's work, check out his new game Verbosity, which helps to generate what he calls "common sense facts" (again just more metadata really). One player is given a word and the other tries to guess what it is by completing fill-in-the-blank-type templates, such as "It is a type of ____" or "It contains ___".  The player who entered the original word can answer "true" or "false", but can't use the word itself. All this is very much like some party games that many of you have probably played, but the important difference here goes back to the original point of the summative network effect and how this can all be put to greater use. In the example that Luis shows in his presentation, the word "milk" would have some common sense facts such as;

• It is white
• It is a liquid
• It is often used to eat cereal
• It has lactose

Again, computers can not currently solve this kind of problem, and it is another an example of the need for massive amounts of metadata. Imagine if we started generating massive volumes of these "common sense facts" and they were readily available to all. 

More Competition = Less Carbon?

Lest you should think this is just a "one man show" from Luis von Ahn, I want to point out that there are many others who have been developing, adopting, and adapting similar models. For example, "Carbonrally: Carbon Challenge", which you can learn more about from the Nov. 20th, 2007 Webware post "Carbonrally: My carbon footprint's smaller than yours" by Martin LaMonica, is an application that is showing some great promise for improving the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions or the "carbon footprint" of individuals and organizations alike. Carbonrally adds the dimension of some fun and healthy competition to do better than others. As Martin describes it, Carbonrally is "tapping into people's tribal competitive spirit".

Whew!  That's quite an introduction to what I believe is both a powerful and profound pattern emerging—where the natural pursuit of fun, healthy competition, and challenges are combined into a game-based model that has already shown some of the ways we can solve large-scale present and future problems. It also creates a whole new relationship between us and technology. This model is not only interesting and fun, but it is a fascinating example of "user generated metadata", which I mentioned in my previous "Moving aLOM" posting.

Your Turn to Play!

Besides raising your awareness about "human computation" and the power of this approach, I also want to encourage all of us to put more time and energy into figuring out how we can inject more fun into work and other problem-solving situations. As you do so, I think you'll see an important job or task or problem  can be more fun if it's solved with some kind of game play, and where the solution remains very much a human one.

We can not, for now at least, expect computers to come up with such fun and game-based solutions by themselves! 

For starters, if you have websites or other applications where you have problems preventing spam or other misuses, consider taking advantage of some of the freely available plugins and nullities, such as those from the ReCaptcha site. Longer term though, please put some thought into which problems you could address with this model, and the ways you could do so by injecting the fun and challenge of a game-based approach into the more serious problems you need to solve...then share them with us here at Off Course - On Target.

I'm reminded of the great quote from Brian Suton-Smith who said:

"The opposite of play is not work; its depression!"

And I look forward to hearing all the innovative and creative ways you will come up with to solve problems—large and small—and replace depression with play. Have fun!

Visualization Finally Coming to Interfaces Near You

I hope you've had a chance to check out the previous posting on "Musical Snowflakes" and try out Slacker and the just released Social.fm as examples of mass personalization and the Snowflake Effect in the world of music. If not, or if you didn't notice at the time, when you do try out Social.fm, you can experiment with the new visualization interface model that is becoming more popular, and which is in some Apple applications, such as iTunes and the new Mac OS, Leopard, where it is known as "Cover Flow".

As effective as it is simple, this technology restores the ability to flip through a stack of papers or albums and quickly stop at the one you are looking for or one that catches your eye. You'll quickly understand it after a few seconds on the Social.fm site.  You can also run this short video about Cover Flow. 

CAUTION:  Severe risk of time loss ahead!

YouTube has also started to include a version of this visual "flip through" interface. After you've watched a video clip such as the one above, you get a horizontal band of other related videos along the bottom that you can flip through with your cursor, see some of the underlying metadata about the one you are hovering over, and then watch it with a click. Very slick!  It's not only visually appealing, but it simply works well. And because the videos you are flipping through are all related to the one you just watched, see if you don't find yourself discovering many other unexpected things as you watch more and more. 

It is quite amazing how much you do discover and learn in the process. Tying this example back to music...if you have not already done so, try using YouTube itself as a music discovery site. I think you'll be amazed at how much new music and artists you discover.

Right now, these are very simple implementations of visual interfaces, but they are examples of the continuing rise of visualization that is much needed within our human computer interactions. It's time to start planning for how you will take advantage of such visual interfaces as they become more commonly available for use with any kind of content within any application and on any OS. And imagine that the visuals will start to contain more information and have greater dynamic relationships between each item that you can see. An early example of this type of interface is shown in the Visual Thesaurus, demonstrated in the short video clip below.

While you ponder all these new developments from the music world, keep in mind that music is simply one area we can look to for inspiration and examples that we can adopt and apply to our own context.  While I believe that most everyone likes music, and will find value in these kinds of services, the real benefits (and the reason for my highlighting these music examples) are to encourage their adoption in other wildly divergent ways. 

These examples help us find and listen to music that is highly personalized to be "just right" for us. Now imagine having these same kinds of Snowflake Effect capabilities that help you find "just the right" content of any kind—from text to images to video and audio. What uses can YOU imagine?  How will YOU use these as they become more and more prevalent and available?

Be sure to share your thoughts and experiences with the rest of us. I look forward to hearing from you.

Jumbled Joomla: there is no "B" in Joomla!

In my previous post (April 26) "Wassup with Web 2.0?" I noted two new tools, Joomla! and Zude that I believe to be of significant importance and very much worth having your checking out. Unfortunately, I spelled Joomla! wrong and thus put in the wrong link and directed you to a related but incorrect web site. Mea culpa and my apologies for any confusion.

Joomla! does NOT have a "B" in their name as I had mistyped, so please note that the correct URL is www.joomla.com and name is Joomla!   I've fixed the link now in the blog posting (one of the many benefits of dynamic publishing!) and wanted to alert those of you who may have already tried it and were confused.

I've already had many of you express an interest in both Joomla! and Zude and as I noted in my earlier keynote posting:

"This is NOT an endorsement of either of these applications, but rather to provide you with what I believe to be GREAT examples of the tipping point that is developing around my theme of “MC2(squared): Mass Customization x Mass Contribution”.  Have some “serious fun” spending some time to “play” with both of these and I’m convinced you will start to see how these enable and encourage almost anyone from your grandmother to your 4 year old nephew to be able to be both a content producer and consumer and do it all THEIR way.  I am particularly intrigued by the combination of both these types of “applications” with something like Joomla!! providing the functionality for content management however formal or informal, and something like Zude providing the functionality for assembling just the right stuff, just the right way, just for me.  Keep your eye on these types of functionality and I’ll be reporting more as I do so as well."

I'm particularly looking forward to the official release of Zude tomorrow (May 1st)  If you didn't catch it in the previous post, rather than try to explain Zude I recommend that you check out the ZDNet posting, "Zude’s drag-n-drop Web authoring/remixing make it the Switzerland of the social Web" that this posting with a video interview with Zude founders and a product demo.  AND for those of you who would like to do some experiential learning or "serious play" then be sure to get over to the www.zude.com, have some serious fun with it, and report back with your reactions and responses.
UPDATE:  Can't wait till tomorrow to get started?  Good news, David Berlind over at ZDNet just posted the code (9833) to let you in to the Zude site as an "early adopter" so you can get started RIGHT NOW! David also put up some of his initial reactions and comments which completely match my experience to date and I'd recommend that you read his posting; "Zude offers ZDNet readers early preview code in advance of May 1 beta launch"

In the hope that it will stimulate more of you to share your experiences, here are some of my very brief and very early reactions and thoughts so far:

Joomla!!
• Is intriguing as a powerful, open source “content management system” for the rest of us
• Completely separates content from the “presentation layer”
• Seems to be tremendously flexible in the way almost anyone (low skills like me) can create any form of content and have it show up however you like it
• Works on a “repository” type of model where all of the “articles” (content) and the applets, widgets, etc. are available for you to call up, display, layout or interact with
• enables “rules” to be easily created such as interactions between the individual objects and enable the site to dynamically determine how and what content is displayed for example

Part of my interest in Joomla! is that in the past month, several of my “trusted advisers” have independently decided to start using Joomla!!  Believing in synchronicity and serendipity rather than coincidence, I take great note of this “pattern” as being significant. Having said that, I am also hearing and reading good things about another open source CMS called Drupal and there are many more available as well. I’ve heard from some that Drupal creates much better code and was designed more bottom up as an application, whereas Joomla! is developed more “top down”, meaning that functionality is where they started (doing stuff with content) and then kept building up code by adding features over time.

Zude:
• Is a very new and very different way of working with content. (goes live as of May 1, 2007)
• I’m intrigued by its potential to be a truly universal content aggregator that let’s anyone and everyone have it “just right” and just their way.
• Zude appears to be COMPLETELY independent of the operating system or browser
• AND completely independent of the source of the content that you drag and drop onto your “pages”—anything from content that is from your local hard drive to server based content to web-based content
• Best explanation is probably in this short video and demo

I've always had huge respect and admiration for Alvin Toffler, one of the true futurists of our time and author of prescient books, such as Future Shock and The Third Wave. Toffler coined a great term "ProSumer" to indicate a future he predicted back in the 1960's where we would be both Producers and Consumers at the same time, and I see this coming true here and now. I’m specifically interested in how these two technologies (Zude and Joomla!) might work well together with Joomla! being the choice when we are in “Producer mode” serving as a central CMS for everyone from average individuals up through huge organizations, and then Zude being the tool for “Consumer mode” when I or anyone else is wanting to have more control over the content they are consuming and sharing. All of this enabling what I've been referring to as "The Snowflake Effect" of just the right content at just the right time in just the right way, etc. etc.

What I’m interested in getting from any of you (in all your spare time!) is some initial reactions, technical evaluation and your overall rating of where you would rate each of these relative to their importance for the future and worthiness of more of my and perhaps your time and attention?? Are these important new tools and methods of working with content or nothing new? Will this type of capability be a catalyst for massive change along the lines of how blogs have changed behavior and content? Will this catch on with "the rest of us" from grandparents to grandchildren" or it is just for geeks and the technically proficient?

IF you get any time to have some “serious fun” playing with these I’d be MOST appreciative of your thoughts and reactions. More to follow here on Off Course - On Target as we all get some time to do more of this critical kind of serious play.  See you in the sandbox of life and learning!

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Fido for Finding or just for Fools?

Many of you enjoyed the fun posting I made a few weeks ago called “Piracy Going to the Dogs?”. But many of you also thought my comments about Lucky and Flo (the two black Labrador dogs who have been trained to find illegal CDs and DVDs) was my version of an early April Fool’s Day* joke. Far from it!  I was quite serious and so too are the dogs and the people deploying them.

Last week, they chalked up another big success, which you can check out in Monday’s article from Reuters “DVD-busting Dogs Do It Again”. Once again the dogs were able to find things the human experts could not. In this case, they discovered over 150,000 illegal DVDs that were hidden in a secret room the investigators had missed. Apparently the pirates think the dogs are way too good as well and have "put out a hit” on the dogs to be killed and so Lucky and Flo now have their own security force!

While Lucky and Flo were not quite what I had in mind in my recent posting “The Search for Better Finding”, they none the less provide a great example of the end results (finding) winning out over the time we spend searching. As you can see, I didn't call this site "Off Course - On Target" for nothing!

But whether it is dogs or people or technology, here’s to continued progress in our quest to eliminate piracy and dramatically improve our abilities to actually find what we’re looking for.

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* For those of you unfamiliar with the fun tradition of April Fool’s Day, sometimes called “All Fools Day” (or in France they call it "Poisson d'Avril" or "April Fish"),  here is a quick history and explanation. Believing as I do that laughter is one of the best medicines, you may want to check out:

• “The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time”
• Elliott Masie’s most recent Learning Trends posting #439 - Updates on Learning, Business & Technology. This is his version of an April Fool’s Day joke for those interested in learning, education, and training. And if you haven't done it already,  I HIGHLY recommend that you subscribe to Elliott’s Trends Email.

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