Author Archives: kelly

In my previous two posts, I wrote about and . In one I outlined what I’ve learned about customer service from our Ubuntu philosophy here at GAP. In the other I wrote about how powerful data can be when it’s allowed to simply “do without doing.” Now I’m going to talk a little bit about how we combined those two principles into our product-building initiatives here.

The Original GAP TaCO Cart

We designed the GAP TCO tool to work like a shopping cart because it’s a paradigm almost all computer users are familiar with when it comes to selecting products. It’s filled with pictures. It has a powerful (and powerfully quick) search function and it all happens within a few screens without a lot of complicated clicking needed.

The bottom line was that we wanted people to be able to use the data that Chris and Gary have spent so many years gathering. We didn’t want to just throw our data onto some huge table that you would have to organize online. We didn’t want you to have to think about how to use the product. It had to be easy to use and thus rewarding to continue to use. It had to work without putting much thought into it on the user’s behalf.? Hence, the shopping cart interface. And that’s why we call it, affectionately, the GAP TaCO Cart.

Wu wei is an important tenet of that involves knowing when to act and when not to act. Another perspective to this is that “Wu Wei” means natural action – as planets revolve around the sun, they “do” this revolving, but without “doing” it; Or as trees grow, they “do”, but without “doing”. Thus knowing when (and how) to act is not knowledge in the sense that one would think “now” is the right time to do “

this

“, but rather just doing it, doing the natural thing.

Wu may be translated as

not have or without; Wei may be translated as do, act, serve as, govern or effort. The literal meaning of Wu Wei is “without action” and is often included in the paradox : “action without action” or “effortless doing”.

Wikipedia,

Lives online without Living online
Since my son was born, I’ve been on a 24-hour observation binge. Not a single thing that David does goes unnoticed. I love to watch him grow. And it’s the littlest changes that make me proud, happy and content.

David’s unconscious thought is what has me wrapped up in my own conscious thoughts these days. I’m fascinated by his essential being. The qualities of character that define who he is at the core. Clearly he has a lot of personality to develop — a life-long process none of us outgrows — but his ability to act without conscious thought is something I’ve noticed as an undervalued asset in others around me. Some people call it ‘instinct.’ Other call it ‘impulse’. But it’s the actions that we commit without having to think about them that tell the real story.

To help me tell David’s story, I created . It’s a place where people can start recording their lives for posterity. It allows you to write like you would in a journal, with a blank page, and share those stories with others who may be able to help you remember the details. What’s more, if you’re the type that has your videos on and your photos on and your music on and your comings and goings on , then you probably don’t have the time to stare at a blank page until the story comes out of your fingertips. Dandelife therefore also can record your unconscious actions (as it were) by archiving your feeds from those places.Sharing one’s life online is made possible by two converging trends. The first is the kind of stuff our clients are doing: making photo and video devices that are cheap, easy to use and produce high quality experiences offline. The second, participatory media (sometimes also called User-Generated Content) sites such as social networks, photo and video sharing sites and blogs like this one. The former is primarily usable

, the latter is primarily adaptable.

A good example of usability in a hardware device is the . Cheap and so easy to use that my 8-year-old niece records with it regularly. You don’t have to read the instructions. you can clearly see the instructions on the back. Big red button? Record. Stop. That’s it. While the quality of the recording may be less than the best the market has to offer, it offers something much much richer in unconscious thought. After all, with such a rapidly working device at my fingertips, as soon as the moment strikes, I am ready to record it. I’ll let Mark Twain inject an observation here:

?An autobiography that leaves out the little things and enumerates only the big ones is no proper picture of the man?s life at all; his life consists of his feelings and his interests, with here and there an incident apparently big or little to hang the feelings on.?

Mark Twain?s Autobiography, 1906

In other words, leave as little out as possible. When it comes to recording your life, no detail should be lost, no destination undone. In the past, this meant – increase the resolution. Today it means – increase its nowitude. If I have to think about it, it will slow me down. Please, don’t make me think. Otherwise, I might miss moments like this altogether:

Adaptability

Once we’ve solved the problem of recording important moments, the next step is to figure out how to deliver or share that moment. In the past – we might print a photo or share it online at a place like snapfish.com. Now, more users are putting their photos and videos on facebook and myspace first. Indeed taking a photo often has the specific destination in mind. If you want to print it, take it with an SLR, download it to your computer, adjust the levels and upload it to snapfish. If you want to share it on facebook, take it with your phone and send it now. And some places, places like Flickr, allows you to do both really well, employ a different mode of thinking. Flickr is remarkably adaptable to any use. That’s because Flickr has made itself a platform for photos of all type and for all uses. It lets users mash up the platform into their own innovative uses. They have created thier own experience around photo sharing, but do not limit the experience. Instead they offer an open API.

To bring this back full-circle, an API allows data to simply be. In the same way that a a tree grows, or the planet orbit the sun, or my son smiles when smiled at, the data in a given platform simply does was it does without thinking. Having an API allows us to tap into the power. Record the data. Display it in a new way. Compare and contrast it with other data. That’s up to the user’s needs. But before that, the elemental problem is to build a platform for data and let that data do without doing. At GAP Intelligence, we’ve embarked on a technology mission to “do” exactly that. And that’s the topic of my next post.

Don’t know much about history
Don’t know much biology

Don’t know much about a science book
Don’t know much about the French I took

Sam Cook – Wonderful World

When I’m at GAP, I feel like Sam Cook. I don’t know much about what the people here know. I don’t speak the language of printers, cameras and memory cards. As a technologist amongst technologist, this shortcoming could be laughable. But as a technologist amongst analysts, it’s what sets me apart.

It was Tuesday and I look at my screen and I see that Jake has changed his IM status. “Ubuntu,” it reads. Here is the excerpt of our conversation:

Kelly Abbott: ubuntu?
Kelly Abbott: did you turn into a linux nerd?
Jake (Analyst): african term for “collective success” and the celtics mantra
Jake (Analyst): unbuntu is less nerdy than TEAMWORK
Kelly Abbott: less nerdy than “collective success”
Jake (Analyst): true

Jake (Analyst): we’ll yell it during a jumping hi-five tomorrow

High five indeed. But what does Ubuntu really mean?

It turns out that Ubuntu has a storied past. It’s not just . Ubuntu is a philosophy. It has been used most recently by the Celtics head coach Doc Rivers to describe how his team should conduct itself as a single unit. As an individual, the philosophy teaches, there is no success without the success of your team. As an outlook on life Ubuntu means that a person’s humanity is defined by taking part in society – by being a contributing member to and accountable for one’s surroundings. It’s as much a way of living as it is a reason for living. Teamwork.

As a metaphor in the software world, Ubuntu suggests that using software is tantamount to creating it. It points toward a participatory culture that begat social networks, wikis and other posterchildren of Web 2.0.

And that’s where I fit in. As a technologist, my expertise is in looking at how we not only use data, but how we can cultivate an environment of particpation through the use of information technology. In the same way that Jake has a computer doing some valuable calcualtions, he has a connection to his colleagues, learning from them, and even expressing himself through them in the value they share as a team. He is able to extend that value to the reports he publishes and the clients we all serve.

Ubuntu, therefore, is a core value that gets reinforced at GAP unconsciously on a daily basis. Learning how I can allow the technology around here help us express that philosophy as a natural state of being is my goal (and the topic of my next post).