In the post regarding favorite and least favorite gadget, Brian states that his least favorite being “the panic alarm on my car key”. He argued that he did not see the value of it but only annoyance when it was often accidentally triggered at the least desired moments. However, I always appreciate the thoughts of Acura manufactures ever considering putting that little red button there on my car key and probably millions others. Although I have never once used it, and it seems well-designed not to be easily triggered unless you push it down hard, it is definitely an assurance for me knowing its availability, and hopefully it will function the day and time when I need it. It would be nice too with a built-in pepper spray for use at a place far from my car. I think multiple factors could influence mine and Brian’s perceptions towards this. One could be the gender difference. In the 2003 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, female students were more likely than male students to fear for their safety both at school and away from school. Another factor could be the experience of a malfunctioning button. I was surely annoyed by someone’s super-sensitive car alarm that had been on since 4am in a storm morning. Other factors could be the perceived knowledge about social status of women and crime rate on parking lots. I perceive generally women are weaker than men therefore are more likely to be targets of violence and crimes. I also perceive crimes often happen on parking lots, especially at night. My perceived knowledge may be influences by reading the monthly campus crime reports that I receive in email, watching late night news, CIS TV series, and recent campus shootings.

In the post regarding circuit city’s business strategy of “order online, pick up at store”, Nathan states that he couldn’t find a good reason for the strategy except that for “people who feel afraid of having something broken or lost during shipping”, and who is purchasing an expensive item. Yesenia, on the other hand, thinks this is a thoughtful business strategy that allows buyers to compare price with other stores without driving to multiple places, also saves business costs by reducing the work load of sales representatives at the store. I agree with Yesenia more. Both me and my husband are frequent online shoppers. We found this strategy very attractive, and I think that the business companies like circus city and best buy have some smart financial engineer working on their formulas behind scene. One important fact about “order online, pick up at store” is that sometimes price for the same item online can be much lower than the one in store, which usually accompanies with discounts, mail-in-rebates or other promotions. Furthermore, there are many items that could be available online but not in store. If you don’t want to wait a long time for the item to arrive, or pay expensive shipping fee, you can print out the order summary from email, bring to the store with your ID and credit card used, pick it up and enjoy it today. You could even order several items from different web sites and make the shortest route possible to pick them up from various stores.

In conclusion, product designers, business and decision makers must examine the target market of their product, examine target customers’ perceived value of the product through usability tests and survey studies in order to make outstanding products that meet their needs at the most efficient way.

In an IS design research study, the design theory specifies the design of a prototype for the new system that helps in the delivery of goals in a more efficient and effective way and ultimately benefit the end-users. Generally, the design processes involve 3 iterative steps: First, build the kernel theories using the ISDT framework. Second, develop the meta-requirements, meta-design for the system using the kernel theories. Third, test and enrich the ISDT theory by evaluating the design artifacts (including the design product and processes), whether the artifact achieves the research goals.

I think the ground breaking of ISDT is its systematic approach for designing any IS system. This differentiate from the traditional way in which systems are often initiated, designed and developed based upon poor defined user requirements that were collected in a limit time and costs. For practitioners ISDTs are beneficial because they increase development reliability and the likelihood of success by providing principles, derived from kernel theories, that limit the range of system features and development activities to a more manageable set (Markus et al., 2002). ISDT approach also helps fostering exploring transdeciplinary theories and knowledge and use them as kernel theories for building the artifact. Both the principles and the artifact generated as part of an ISDT are also open to empirical testing and thus can form a basis for further research.

Walls, J. G., Widmeyer, G. R., & El Sawy, O. A. (1992). “Building an Information System Design Theory for Vigilant EIS.” Information Systems Research 3: 36-58.

Markus, M. L., Majchrzak, A. & Gasser, L. (2002) A Design Theory for Systems that Support Emergent Knowledge Processes. MIS Quarterly, 26, 179-212.

I love Gmail since the day I started using it. Now I use my four Gmail accounts everyday except the days I really do not have Internet access or my computer nearby. Gmail is a free, search-based webmail service that combines the best features of traditional email with Google's search technology. Here’s why:

1. Storage - Gmail includes more than 2,500 megabytes of storage space - that's over two gigabytes, for free! Not only I can just leave the power point slides, pdf files, and photos I receive, with so much space, I can just turn Gmail into a file server of my own – a good enough reason to give up Hotmail’s 250MB storage!
2. Speed & Search – The speed of reading, receiving, sending mail, attaching files, and displaying search results are just superb. I’ve never seen a faster search in any email service or desktop application.
3. Auto-refresh & auto-save – Gmail auto-refresh the page every couple seconds so that new emails will just show up in the inbox. While in Hotmail, you need to continue clicking the inbox button or refresh the page to see if any new mail. Every few seconds, Gmail auto-save the message that I am constructing into draft, without much delay doing it.
4. Spell-check – I love their spell-check. It’s easy to use and save my time.
5. Anti-spamming – Hotmail is horrible on anti-spamming! I’ve been using Gmail for over two years now and received no spam that I can remember.
6. Filters & Labels - You can create up to 20 filters to manage the flow of incoming messages. Use filters so that certain messages bypass the inbox, are automatically labeled, or both. You can also automatically forward messages to another email address using filters. Labels are like email folders, only better. You can add multiple labels to a conversation (instead of being forced to choose only one folder) and you can search for messages by label name.
7. Google talk and contacts – anyone in your contacts using a Gmail account will have an indication of green dot when they are online and using Gmail, so you can chat with them via Google talk. You can choose to save the content of the chats, or not.
8. Interface – the interface is clean and simple, with all traditional look and feel. The ads on the sidebar are text-only, keyword-sensitive (which match the Gmail content you are reading/writing).

I noticed thousands of posts on the Web just about how they love Gmail. I am glad that we share the same opion.

My least favorite gadget – IPod

I hate my IPod mini. The only thing I like about it is that it’s pink and it looks cute. When I got it, the product was so hot that I saw it everyday in TV commercials, newspaper or magazine. These days I see it more in bank advertisement that if you open a checking account you get a IPod shuffle for free, no kidding!

Anyway I hate it because it is so difficult to use. I hate it because it takes me more time to find a desired song than listening to it. I never figure out how to use the wheel (menu). Trust me, I tried. There are only four icons (Menu, backward, forward and play/pause) on the wheel for users to explore hierarchical folders. Since I cannot view all hierarchical folders at once like you use explorer on Windows system, I always bet the luck finding what you look for. If I realized it is the wrong folder that I went after dozens of “forward” and I need to go back layer by layer, also I need to use “menu” instead of “backward”. Where is the logic? I couldn’t help but wonder. Next, make circles on the wheel to scroll down a long list and find my song is tiring, which really discouraging me changing a song since I wouldn’t know how far to move the scroll wheel to get to the desire location.

Most of the time I can figure out how software work without having to read the instruction or menu, even a DLink router configuration interface. But I never figure out how to import new music into my IPod and so that I don’t lose the previous lists. I hate the iTune just as much as I hate IPod.

I am not alone, there’re thousand of posts on the Web just about how much they hate the design of this product, here’s one detailed example, http://www.mobilecommunitydesign.com/archives/000152.php

President Klitgaard stated that being a transdisciplinary scholar could enrich his or her research work with more enlightenment and credibility. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) seems an extreme case of such scholar. For more than half a millennium, his Renaissance integration of engineering with human values has inspired technologist, scientists, and artists. In the book “Leonardo’s laptop”, Shneiderman stated “What I like about Leonardo is that he was more than just a Renaissance geek. His playful side flourished in performing on the lyre and stating musical events. He even fabricated theatrical sets, complete with dancing lion puppets. This combination of skills delights us every today and can suggest future toys and entertainment.” (pp. 3).

As a young IS scholar myself, I speak “a digital vernacular”, and have followed “a working trajectory that encompasses multiple careers” (Brown, 2005) myself. I was particularly interested in English and Chinese literature when I was in high school, yet I chose Economics and Foreign Trade major in college. I worked at a foreign company as manager assistant after graduation. Soon after, I came to US to study MBA, and one of my favorite classes turned out to be Management Information Science, so I continued a second master degree in computer science immediately after. Since then, I’ve worked in e-health and higher education industry as software engineer. Bored of writing programs in a lonely cubical, I join PhD in IS program at CGU, looking forward to teaching and researching things that I am interested in. I found myself often benefit from the aforementioned combination of knowledge, skills and experience, such that my research envision has significantly expanded and my analysis ability has also strengthened. For example, in various research projects at the social learning software lab, I applied technology acceptance, user training, and learning theory that I learned from the higher education industry to guide the design product and process of a system. I also applied project management, business strategy skills from MBA classes and business corporations to manage the projects and collaborate with my team members. I also feel comfortable working in cross disciplinary teams that encompass multiple ways of knowing. Amusingly, I often found myself think differently from other colleagues who possess only business or IT background. At the same time, it is easier for me to think in their shoes and assist consolidating different opinions.

Regardless of the aforementioned benefits of being trandisciplinary scholar, many institutions have been slow to recognize and allow for transdisciplinary inquiry (Borderland, 2006) - as Robert Hodge argued in a 1995 issue of the Australian universities review, while more and more postgraduates are pursuing such an approach to their research, they run the risk of being inappropriately supervised and assessed. He makes a passionate argument for students to be bold enough to hold to this approach, and for universities to change their culture to reflect the shift. For Hodge, the transdisciplinary turn is a kind of Kuhnian revolution or, in Foucault’s terms, an ‘epistemic rupture’. It is a question of refusing the way in which disciplines, whilst transmitting useful and important knowledge, also ‘repulse a whole teratology of learning’ - teratology being ‘the study of monsters’.

Hodge exhorts us to be open to the monstrous, to “take seriously those problems, beliefs and experiences that are annulled by a dominant discipline, whether they be intractably personal or contaminated by the disreputable demotic or popular, by passion or anger or delight, by the desire to change the world or to dream a new one.” Being a transdisciplinary scholar then is not to seek refuge in a new mastery but to place oneself, as a site and vector of knowledge, at risk - to seek to become something other than what one is. it might be to seek, as Jane Bennett has argued, productive new hybrids of thought, machine, history and subjectivity.

Here the troubling convergences between mind and body, reason and unreason, man and animal, male and female, self and other are matched by a dissolution of the boundaries which have marked off disciplines from one another and effectively organised powerful systems of learning, pedagogy, research and knowledge. For these reasons, practising transdisciplinary scholarship can itself feel dangerous and troubling, and may produce a certain loneliness. Yet however different, transdisciplinarity is still inspired by the ideals which lie at the root of the liberal tradition, even as it questions its form, limits and history. This is a necessary “postmodern” irony - because while such work criticises and undermines the enlightenment, as a historical experience and a series of claims, it continues to argue within its terms. It asks for free and open debate, democratic spaces of thought, for the university to live up to an ideal it claims to embody. It speaks in the terms of ethics, justice and freedom, even as it rethinks and modifies them.

Agreed with Robert Hodge, I think we should still be aware that it is difficult to become an expertise in another field; sometimes even within one field, each subject can be so deep that it can take years a scholar to master. For example, it may take a database expertise years to master the software development for the DBMS that he has been using. If a scholar doesn’t have enough time or talent in mastering another field or subject, there could be chances that the scholar cannot accurately interpret and/or incorporate other subjects into his own research context, as a result, the study would be misleading to colleagues in same area, and brought critics from the experts from the other field.

Reference:

Bob Hodge (1995), “Monstrous knowledge: Doing PhDs in the new humanities”, Australian Universities’ Review 38 (2)

Borderland eJournal Web Site http://www.borderlandsejournal.adelaide.edu.au/about/manifesto.html Retrieved September 26th 2006.

John Seely Brown (2005), “New Learning Environment for the 21^st Century”, Presentation at the Forum for the Future of Higher Education’s 2005 Aspen Symposium.

Ben Shneiderman (2003) “Leonardo’s Laptop”, MIT Press.

In my opinion, the book "Soul of the New Machine" is a qualitative study based on the six criteria outlined in "The Enlightened Eye".

According to "The Enlightened Eye: The Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice" by Elliot W. Eisner, a first feature of qualitative studies is field focused (pp. 32). "Soul of the New Machine" tracked a team of engineers at Data General Corporation working on an innovative new computer in late 1970's.

A second characteristic of qualitative study relates to the self as an instrument (pp. 33). The author of "Soul of the New Machine", Kidder, not only exploited his own subjectivity by being with the engineers' everyday life for a whole year, but also included his own presence in the description to make the story and characters more believable, such as the night he spent at Tom West's home. Near the end of the book, with the successful conclusion of the project in view, Kidder even joined the group on a day's excursion from their Westborough, Mass. headquarters to a computer trade show in New York. Kidder reported what he saw and responded to a situation with his own signature description.

A third feature that makes a study qualitative is its interpretive character (pp. 35). One meaning of interpretation pertains to the ability to explain why something is taking place; a second meaning of interpretation pertains to what motives and experience holds for those in the situation studied. Kidder did a good job illustrating how the key characters felt and what they thought behind their action and words. Although sometimes Kidder will make the key characters look mysterious, (like fiction novels always do), leaving audience more space to image and feel eager to explore further.

A fouth feature that qualitative studies display is the use of expressive language and the presence of voice in the text (pp. 36). Empathy, which pertains to feeling or to emotion, is often regarded as the enemy of cognition thus not suggested. Being a nature journalist, Kidder transmitted his professionalism into the descriptive writing style within this literature, while avoided too much personal feeling or emotion. Rather he often stood besides the emotional engineers, observing the characters and their surrounding events, and then presented them to a high level of narrative art.

A fifth feature of qualitative studies is their attention to particulars (pp.38). And a sixth feature of qualitative studies is coherence, insight, and instrumental utility (pp. 39). Although non-traditional, Kidder's work provides a sense of the uniqueness of the case by transforming the qualities of a group of engineers' heroic dedication and hard work on creating a new computer into multiple forms of evidence, or quantitative equivalents, from characters' portraits and technology terms to dramatic description of characters' actions and political struggles.

2.      What are the similarities and differences between non-fiction, documentary films, and naturalistic social science in explaining knowledge about every day life?

According to "The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge" by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1967), sociological research is about study and analyze the reality of everyday life, i.e., the knowledge of everyday life, particularly how this reality appear in various theoretical perspectives to intellectuals, and how to clarify such commonly available reality/knowledge (pp. 19). Berger and Luckmann stated that human expressivity is capable of objectivation, i.e., the understanding of products of human activity as elements of a common world. Although the objectivation indices are incapable of surviving beyond the vivid present of the face-to-face situation, subjective intentions of objectivations can sometimes help better understand meaning behind scenes even sometimes it is difficult to make sure (pp.34-35). Signs, symbols, and language (a system of vocal signs) have primary reference to everyday life, and are capable of transcending the reality of everyday life altogether. Berger and Luckman pointed out that the social stock of knowledge includes knowledge of one's situation and its limits; thus the validity of one's knowledge of everyday life is taken for granted by oneself and by others until further notice, i.e., when a problem arise that cannot be solved in terms of it (pp. 41-44). One's knowledge of everyday life is structured in terms of relevance, it is socially distributed, and that is, as possessed differently by different individuals and types of individuals; thus the social distribution of knowledge of certain elements of everyday reality can become highly complex and even confusing to the outsiders (pp. 45-46).
 
The similarities between non-fiction, documentary films, and naturalistic social science in explaining knowledge about everyday life are that they represent the above statements of how sociological research is relevant to knowledge of everyday life. They all study and analyze the reality/knowledge of everyday life, and try to clarify and share such knowledge with the society; They all use signs, symbols and language as tools to present subjective intensions of objectivation, and to transcend the reality of everyday; They are limited by selective context, time, coding technique used, the knowledge of their authors, and the knowledge of their audience.

The differences between them are:

1. Different technique used: Documentary films can benefit from in coding and staging real-time visualized face-to-face episodes, sound recording of vocal exchanges ("Two boys' days" pp. 6), sequencing and overlaying scenes and sounds ("Two boys' days" pp. 9). Naturalistic social scientists can make their interpretation or conclusions clear to audience with detailed descriptive settings (that may be neglected by film audience), and expansive and reflexive commentary from the authors("Two boys' days" pp. 6). Like Natualistic social scientists, non-fiction authors can also use detailed descriptive settings, and sometimes involve themselves into the story, such as Kidder in his book "The soul of the new machine".

2. Different viewer impact: Documentary cinema can transport the viewer to new levels of feeling and comprehending that are rarely achieved by products of naturalistic social science. Audience would hold multiple interpretations with varying degrees of clarity and confidence. In contrast, naturalistic social scientists appropriate much of the interpretative latitude by stating their own interpretations or conclusions  ("Two boys' days" pp. 10). Non-fiction literature stands in-between the two aforementioned artifacts, as it both represent authors' selection of objectivities and subjective intensions of these objectivities, it also encourages readers to explore different interpretations.

3. Different values: In contrast to empirical social science traditions, non-fiction and documentary film culture values exploration and discovery more than it values confirmation and gradual accretion of knowledge about the subject.

With aforementioned differences, "Two boys' days" authors also pointed out that the two can borrow ideas from each other for further improvement: The usual grounding study and painstaking documentation and analysis, and a high level of intellectual processing and sense-making can become the source of ideas for documentary films. Documentary filmmakers can also profit from a deeper understanding of and sensitivity to the concept and theory of behavior settings. Naturalistic social scientists can use alternative and expanded interpretations and knowledge claims just as documentary film makers did ("Two boys' days" pp. 11), to leave space for audience's own thoughts, and not only share but also elaborate knowledge of everyday life from within their work with the society.   

2. Manager Tools

3. Amazon.com

4. The New York Times

5. Powell's book review

The title of the book, "Soul of a New Machine", could have two layers of meanings. The book illustrated a story of how a team of a leader and his young engineers create a new 32-bit minicomputer that met a seemingly impossible deadline and insufficient resources, ensured qualities, and brought new business opportunities. Thus the first layer of meaning could be the "soul" of the new computer is the team of the leader and his engineers. My IT colleagues always comment, "computer never make mistakes; human does." This shares the same opinion from a different angel. Because computer will only operate at human's order (i.e. logic), with its unexciting 1s and 0s, but with accuracy and speed that human cannot beat. In the events that hardware fails, files or database corrupt, one could still argue that it is the fault of the human's design or the manufacturing machines/materials which were also designed by human being. For years, sci-fi movies and novels never ceaze to amaze audience with new, exciting stories of how machines/computers gain intelligence, and become to think and act like human. Examples are: "Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)" directed by Steven Spielberg, "I, Robot" (2004) starring Will Smith. Could it really happen someday? At least stories described by some sci-fi movies and novels years ago have come true today, for example, NASA's recently sent Mars exploration rover may help justify "Mars Trilogy" written by Kim Stanley Robinson (1994).

Business is a team sport, IT business is without exception. In the deeper layer, the key to make a successful new computer does not always rely on technologies or individual intelligence, but rather, it depends upon how the leader manage his staff and resources, how he makes the team share his vision, believe and support his judgement and decision, while still leaves space of democratics, creativity and respects, i.e., macro-manage. From the MBA courses I took prior to entering IT field, leadership and management is always an art; it takes time and efforts; and the quality of the management usually determines who wins the game. Thus the "soul" of a new machine may suggest the leader of a team or an organization.

2. How would you characterize Tracy Kidder's writing style?

Pulitzer Prize winner Kidder applies his hands-on style of journalism to an examination of a group of engineers of Data General design and build a new 32-bit minicomputer in just one year. Kidder's professional observation technique and descriptive writing style help build vivid portraits of the key characters, their sensitive relationships, dramatic organizational behavior, and a preview of this world in the late 1970s. Being one of the first books to describe the inner workings of the technology groups, Kidder did a good job making the technical context easy to digest for non-technical readers. An interview to Kidder helps to understand the hardwork underneath a good book. This is one of the best non-fiction "novel" that i ever read. It also reminds me another book (although a fiction indeed) I read during my MBA years, "The Goal" written by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, which illustrates state-of-the-art economic theory through the story of how a UniCo plant manager re-engineer plant operations to save his factory.

3. Who is your favorite character and why?

The book illustrates the life of the modern engineer by taking a glimpse into the mysterious motivations, the quiet revelations, and the spectacular devotions of engineers, and, in particular, of Tom West. As described by Wired article revisiting the book and the team after twenty years, "West is the project's enigmatic, icy leader, the man whom one engineer calls the 'prince of darkness,'" but who quietly and deliberately protects his team and his machine against "the scarce resources, the raw conflict of a corporate environment, and political wars" to fight over every circuit board and mode bit. The striking character depiction leads the story, embracing "power plays, the passion, and the burnout."

So it can be edited, or deleted.