Borg’s Blog

I am a Star Trek junkie like so many people of my generation. This is not a bad thing though as the series provides some remarkable role models. Captain James T. Kirk and Lean Luc Picard offer great examples of leadership. No one better exemplifies living logically than Spock. My favorite Star Trek character though is Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott. It is he who served me well as a role model in my personal journey through engineering leadership. Any success I may have had is due to the wonderful people who worked on my teams and this role model. I had the distinct pleasure of telling James Doohan how important his character was to my own career once.

My favorite Star Trek scene is from the feature film The Search for Spock. Scotty is on the bridge as the Enterprise NC-1701 is stolen. The Excelsior tries to pursue her but fails to engage transwarp speed. Scotty proudly remarks “the more they overtake the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain.” This is so true.

Listen to David Pogue as he talks about the current state of computer technology and the need for simplicity in design.

Why is it so many new products fail to satisfy the needs of their users? Engineers talk to other engineers too much and to real people far too infrequently. Its easy to get out of touch. The real joy of the work is in seeing the joy your work brings to your customers but who takes time and care to notice? Darn few!

Apple Corporation has had wild successes doing just what the competition didn’t anticipate. When competitors notice Apple’s success they move to emulate it but Apple has moved onto the next innovation by then. They can’t keep up. Apple’s secret is a witch’s brew of imagination and observation. They watch real people doing what comes naturally to them. Voodoo has brought us wildly colored computers because someone noticed people decorating their computers to distinguish them from every other computer in their environments. Black magic brought the iPod because Apple engineers noticed so many people were jogging with a walkman strapped to them. Again and again Apple innovates while the pack emulates.

That’s not the only secret of Apple’s success. The other is keeping design simple. David Pogue gave some excellent examples of that in his talk.

And like Spock says -

Do “live long and prosper.”

Second Life makes a compelling argument about joining its virtual world but it falls flat on its face at being user-friendly.

My first excursion into Second Life was cumbersome at best. Singing up involves selecting an avatar, a virtual persona, with extremely limited choices in bodies and last names. I felt force to make selections that didn’t represent me. Once I entered the virtual world I found moving around, communicating with others, and examining objects to be far too difficult for my degree of interest in the game.

Second Life fanatics will take offense at my use of the word game but it is intentional. The frustration I experienced with Second Life is the same frustration I experience with early role playing games. It just isn’t worth the hassle. If I have problems using this game imagine how our students would feel!

Educational technology should enable learning by removing barriers to learning. Learning to use Second Life seems to be a mountainous obstacle. Its just too tedious. Why bother?

Besides, I have no need to hide behind a persona. I like myself as I am and I prefer to deal with real people, places, and things.

Tips?

Teachers beware of any new product that promises to be everything to everybody. Nothing really is. Such talk indicates a failure of focus in product design. Without focus there can be no real substance. This usually means an old failure is being re-marketed.

Designers focus on simplicity.

Gamers get a real life!