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February 26, 2005
Karaoke
In honor of my and Jeff's birthday (and Chung's thesis paper on karaoke), we went out for karaoke during an ice storm last weekend at a local establishment to experience Joanie Karaoke. Chung brought his own karaoke music, and, it being my birthday and all, I was forced to perform my rendition of "Sympathy for the Devil" for the crowd.
Posted by Dan at 01:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Typographers with Balls
A group of us play in a graduate student intramural league. If you don't take it too seriously, it's a good way to blow off some steam.
(By the way, the title of this post is our team name. I had nothing to do with it.)
Posted by Dan at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Group Conceptual Model
Our group for conceptual models (me, Phi-Hong Ha, Harlan Weber, and Purin Phanichphant) came up with this model of CMU's Blackboard System (404k pdf).
Posted by Dan at 01:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Stress
In the last week, I
- lost my programmer for my thesis project, leaving me in the lurch with a half-finished demo
- madly scrambled to find a replacement, which I think I might have done with some help from Jeff
- searched for money to pay said programmer, which may involve cashing in some savings bonds I've had for 35 years. Seriously.
- had major issues re-printing my music map of Amazon
- got a tattoo
- presented our group model for conceptual models class
- discovered a cavity in a tooth that I need to deal with ASAP
- got yet another $300 bill for the hospital for my emergency room visit back in July (this after paying them $250 already. CMU's insurance is terrible.
- speaking of which, my wife just got a notice that our insurance company hasn't paid a dime for some doctor's visits for her either, to the tune of $225
- AND the insurance company keeps sending me weekly letters asking whether I have other insurance, which I clearly don't and they are just stalling to prevent paying these bills
- had three job interviews during career days
- set up two more phone interviews for this upcoming week
- tried to do a backlog of grading for my class so I can submit my students' mid-term grades this week
- added to my thesis paper presentation for my presentation in Montreal next week
- Oh, and did I mention my daughter went to the emergency room sick?
- and that my wife is sick as well?
Anyway, this is what I've been dealing with. In this last semester, the schoolwork has gotten lighter, but the stress is still high.
Posted by Dan at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 24, 2005
Organizational Culture Readings
- "Defining Organizational Culture" by Edgar Schein
- "Culture and Organizational Learning" by Scott Cook and Dvora Yanow
- "Changing Organizational Cultures" by Harrison Trice and Janice Beyer
Posted by Dan at 09:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Power and Games in Organizations
Power is one way of examining organizations: who has it and where does it come from and how it is used. As a designer, understanding they types of power you face in an organization is critical. You need to know how to play the power game (the rules) and who the players are (the roles). Power is a harsh reality in organizations; it's part of survival.
Power has to do with relationships between people: people have power and with it make organizations and can choose to exercise their power or not, for good or ill. Using power nakedly is probably a losing scenario; to play the power game, you need to have skill.
You can think of systems such as organizations like a game, and "players" "win" by getting more power. This is game thinking/theory, and it is a powerful tool, especially in strategy. Game theory in organizations is a tricky thing though. In the past, organizational theory used to think there was one goal to the game: to make profit. But in the last half century, this was overturned as the goals of the individuals in the organization were added in. Now we realize that people play their own games within organizations, that there are often multiple games going on where the rules aren't disclosed and you can lose without even knowing it. (Contradictions in behavior can sometimes be explained by people playing their own games.) Additionally, the formal and informal structures within organizations create different games with different rules.
Deep down, it is all about power.
Posted by Dan at 09:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 23, 2005
Career Dazed
The past two days have been the annual ritual known as Career Days, during which the School of Design is like a crazed bear half-shot full of tranquilizers, lurching around madly pawing at itself. I exaggerate, but only a little. For graduating students, it's a time of dressing up and subjecting yourself to a speed-dating style of job interviews in 20-minute blocks. Studios are cleaned, portfolios put together, interview clothes bought.
This year, like last, a reasonably impressive spread of companies came by with jobs to offer: Apple, Microsoft, GE, Google, Motorola, Sapient, Razorfish, and Siegel + Gale to name a few. A number of the interviewers were CMU alumni returning to rescue more of us and give us hope.
Posted by Dan at 09:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 20, 2005
General System Theory
In the past, there was a school of management thought called Administration Science, made up Operations Research and Decision Sciences. Operations Research gave managers quantitative information about the resources (or parts) of an organization, then the managers used decision science to make decisions based on those parts/resources. ("If we have three tons of steel, we should make some cars.") System theory rose an an alternative to this.
General System Theory says that there are properties common to all systems, regardless of specifics in a particular subject matter (biology, chemistry, sociology, etc.). It is a comprehensive notion of a system ("The Meaning of General System Theory" by Ludwig von Bertallanffy). Others (such as Fremont E. Kast and James E. Rosenzweig) refute this idea, saying there are different types of systems, not one general system, that different phenomena need to be discussed in different ways.
There are two types of systems: closed and open. Closed systems will gradually decay if left alone. Open systems are affected by outside environments. It's hard to tell the boundary of a system; you need wisdom to do it, lest you exclude data based on personal preferences and prejudices. But for the purpose of analysis (and design) you have to treat open systems as closed.
It's important to remember that however broad system theory seems to be, it remains in the context of resource usage; individuals and groups (except as resources) play little part in systems thinking. It's a distinct type of thinking about organizations, rooted in materials. However, systems thinking and chaos theory are growing in importance to Design.
But although system theory has significance, Dick Buchanan says it is a stretch of imagination to see how some of it applies to the problems designers face. It takes us out of the things we experience day-to-day and gives a high-level view of the situation--sometimes too high-level. It can be too big; it's often more helpful to find and understand the pathways through the system on a human scale because you can easier design for those. Go to the human experience and let design thinking restructure the system as a whole.
Posted by Dan at 05:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack