Visiting the MIT Museum

Today I visited the MIT Museum after seeing a listing of current exhibits in the Boston Phoenix. It looked interesting, and I was in Cambridge anyway (having Japanese lunch in Porter Square) so I decided to make the long walk down Mass. Ave and check out the museum.

It was small, but neat. When it comes to technology, I am a software guy at heart, so I most liked the AI exhibit. I didn't realize MIT has had a dedicated AI and robotics program since the 1950s, and it was fascinating seeing some of the displays from those early experiments -- in particular, a robotic arm designed by Marvin Minsky in the late 1960s and an early LISP hardware device which was designed to replace the use of the programming language on mainframes. This latter technology eventually resulted in two startups being formed, but both went bankrupt in the 1980s and early 1990s as personal computers became powerful enough to use for LISP programming. I was reminded of the fate of Silicon Graphics, which produced expensive, powerful hardware to handle graphics design and rendering in the 1980s and 1990s. It also went out of business as cheaper PC-based solutions became possible. Moore's Law meets the law of the marketplace ...

The museum has other sections devoted to mechanical engineering, nautical engineering, the history of MIT, and even a very neat mechanized art section. A bunch of displays are hands-on, which can be fun, but when I tried out one of them -- a 3D simulator used to train remotely operated submersibles -- I was frustrated by the interface. "Bad UI," as I like to say when confronted by poorly designed or explained interfaces. RTFM? I would, but there wasn't any.

If you're in that part of Cambridge, the MIT Museum is an interesting diversion for one or two hours. It costs $7 for adults, less for students and seniors, and it's free for people with MIT ID cards.

Photo: Kismet, a 1990s AI/robotics project now on display at the MIT Museum.

A final farewell to Randy Pausch

I first wrote about Randy Pausch's "last lecture" in September of last year, just days after he spoke at Carnegie-Mellon. I had heard about the lecture through a Slashdot thread. After watching it, I knew right away that this was something special, and not just because of the virtual reality/3D connection (Randy is responsible for the Alice programming environment). Despite his terminal disease, he had an amazing take on life, family, work, and technology. It was touching, and fascinating, and viewers couldn't help but to examine their own lives after seeing it. The online video quickly went viral, and millions all over the world eventually saw it on the Web. I later ordered a DVD through the Carnegie-Mellon webpage, because this was something I wanted to share with my wife, and she is not the type to watch long videos online. She, too, was very impressed.

As you probably know, Randy passed away this week. Even though I never knew the man, I felt inspired to write a brief memorial in The Industry Standard, "Randy Pausch dies, and the world loses a true hero." At the end, I noted:

The heroes of the tech world are usually coders and entrepreneurs, who are judged by the products that they design and the businesses that they start. Randy made some major contributions to his field (such as overseeing the development of the 3D programming environment, Alice) but it is his accomplishments as a human being that make him a true hero.

The post prompted many tributes from readers, such as these:

Patty Kay Herndon:

He truly was an amazing person- his thoughts about acheiving childhood dreams has prompted me to realize that I have met some of mine and to be more grateful for the life I have had. Also to be grateful for good health and not to take it for granted. He was truly an inspiration - I am so sorry for his family's loss- he will be missed by many!

Lynn:

I feel as if I have lost a friend. Thank you Randy for your gift of wisdom of living life to the fullest. Thank-you Randy for being an inspiration to me in my current cancer treatment.

Kathie:

My deepest sympathy to his family. I hope they will remember that his story touched many as I know it touched me. I felt hope and encouragement as I read his book and heard his lecture. Not very many people get to make such an impact. You are in our prayers as is he.

Pauline Callahan:

I am an RN who in the end of my career am working with Hospice and I so much enjoyed the lectures and messages that Randy posted on his Web Site. I have taken care of many, many people with cancer and they are all truly remarkable people but once in a lifetime comes a person such as Randy who can put into words so many feelings that most people have who are facing the end of their life.

Trish:

Randy Pausch touched a nerve with society- and that is what people are looking for and what is lacking now- truth and depth of purpose. He not only lived his life well but had the wisdom of a sage and the wonder of a little child, and was able to communicate it so well that he lived his calling. He lived in the moment with clear purpose and his words have deep meaning to those that heard him speak and teach becasue he was so grounded in truth. We need more Randy's to encourage others to think out of the box and not be condoned for progressive thinking. He was a dichotomy of both scientific genius and artistic imagination, a rare combination. He inspired all who knew him and kept it simple so that understanding something was the key to not only enjoying learning but a ways to a mean to learn.

If you haven't seen the video yet, please press the play button below and take some time to hear what he has to say. The YouTube video is more than an hour long, but even if you only have time to watch ten or 15 minutes, it's worth it.

A silver ASBPE award for "Interactive Community"

Earlier this week in Kansas City, journalists from all over the country gathered for the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) national awards ceremony. Winning an "Azbee" is a big deal for business-oriented publications and trade magazines, and, increasingly, the websites that they operate. For the 2008 competition, there were 2,300 entries for 57 categories. My old employer, Computerworld, has done very well in the "Azbee" awards over the years, and this year was no different -- it won 15 awards total, including "Web site of the Year" and six other golds.

After the conference, I found out that I was named in the ASBPE silver award for "Interactive Community," which was given to Shark Bait -- the online community that I conceptualized and helped develop and launch in early 2007. The gold went to BusinessWeek, and the bronze to Macworld.

Being named on the silver was a totally unexpected honor, not only because I haven't worked at Computerworld since the beginning of this year, but also because day-to-day management of the site is now conducted by my former colleague (and Gamebits founder) Ken Gagne, who was also named in the award. Still, the nominations were submitted some time ago and they cover 2007, and during the first few months of 2007 I really lived and breathed Shark Bait. It was a great experience working on the minisite with some very talented editorial, business development, and technology staff at Computerworld, and, of course, the members of the community. While we did a lot to design and incorporate features that attracted readers and boosted engagement, it's the members of the community who ultimately make Shark Bait such a special place.

You can see the full list of 2008 ASBPE award winners here (PDF)

The end of the Long Tail? I don't think so

Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory is under attack by a Harvard Business School professor named Anita Elberse, and a lot of people are only too glad to pile on.

The Long Tail is a social and business paradigm which stresses the ability of obscure, niche content to find markets online. Read the column by the Wall Street Journal's Lee Gomes, who describes the HBS counterargument.

Besides conducting statistical analysis, Elberse also notes some conflicts in the qualitative arena, notes Gomes:

In addition to her data crunching, Prof. Elberse reminded readers of substantial bodies of qualitative social research that suggest "The Long Tail" may have been wrong in its description of what makes consumers tick. The book implies that readers and movie viewers are eager to cast off the shackles imposed by physical inventory so they can frolic among the thousands or millions of titles in the Long Tail.

But Prof. Elberse describes research showing that even in our cultural consumption we tend to be intensely social folks. We like experiencing the same things that other people are experiencing -- and the mere fact that other people are experiencing and liking something makes us like it even more. Far from being cultural rugged individualists, most of us are only too happy to have others suggest to us what we'd like.

Gomes himself seems to feel a sense of schadenfreude at seeing Anderson's theory being knocked down, which disappointed me -- I have read Gomes' columns in the print edition of the WSJ for years, and his tone in this case is uncalled for. Moreover, Anderson's theory may be under attack, but he hasn't conclusively been proven wrong (you can read his counterarguments on his Long Tail blog).

Based on my own professional and personal experience using the Web, I think Anderson really is onto something with his original theory. Niche content can be successful online for products or communities that would have had little chance of surviving in the physical, pre-net world.

In other words, the Long Tail ain't dead yet. We're only on chapter 2, and the final pages won't be written for many years, until more data is in -- and more people shift their shopping and media habits to the online world.

The power of mother nature, and the power of video 2.0

This afternoon around lunchtime there was a severe thunder and hailstorm in my neck of the woods, about a quarter mile from the junction of I-90 and I-95. Our family has a Flip video camera, so I grabbed it and took three quick clips, including this one:



Posting video on blogs is not a big deal nowadays, but as I went through the process, I was struck by how much things have changed in just a few short years. We really are entering the age of Video 2.0, and it's happening so fast.

Consider this. Back in 2004, when I started this blog, shooting and posting video was a very convoluted process. Most cameras did not record to disc, meaning that tape had to be played through cables to a PC and potentially converted to some Web-friendly format. Then you had to find server space, which basically limited homegrown video to techies who knew the ins and outs of FTP and had access to a server to host the file. At that point, you could send the link around or promote it via your blog, and maybe if you were lucky, someone bigger would also link to it or it would show up at the top of Google search results for people interested in the topic at hand.

A couple of developments have occurred since then which greatly change the way video is consumed and distributed online. First, there was a watershed event in world of news and user-generated video, the Indian Ocean Tsunami (an essay I wrote earlier describes this trend under "The New Gatekeepers" subheading). Second, the rise of free video-hosting sites such as YouTube not only took care of the hosting problem with easy-to-use interfaces, but also handled format conversion automatically and created search-enabled clearinghouses for millions of consumers. Third, cheap consumer gadgets such as the Flip (see my Flip review) and video-enabled phones made it easy for people to capture and send video to friends and hosting sites.

The hailstorm video above took 30 seconds to shoot, about a minute to get onto my computer (thanks to Flip's built-in USB connector) and about 10 minutes to upload to YouTube. Before I uploaded it, I used YouTube's interface to tag it, add a description, and even "geotag" it through the integrated Google Maps function. I then sent the link via IM to friends and even left it in a comment thread on a local newspaper blog. The editor at the blog then took the YouTube syndication code and published it under another blog entry, enabling more people to see the power of the storm ... and the power of Video 2.0.