lefty loosey, righty tightie



Visual Thesaurus
Visualization for "counterclockwise"



I grew up hearing the expression "left loosey, righty tightie" referring to threads on a screw, nut, bolt, etc. To tighten, you turn to the right (clockwise). To loosen, you turn toward the left (counterclockwise).  So, if I'm writing instructions for, say, removing a field replaceable unit from a chassis, do I tell the reader to turn the screw to the left or counterclockwise? But which way is left? Which way is counterclockwise?

Ever since I read stories about the Beloit Mindset List for the class of 2014 showing that students don't use watches to tell the time, I've wondered about how to communicate the direction "counterclockwise" to young people if they have never seen an analog clock. Maybe the Beloit freshmen have seen clocks, even if they don't wear watches, but sooner or later, clockwise and counterclockwise are going to become meaningless terms.

Then recently, I heard an episode of Radio Lab that dealt with knowing where you are. One of the speakers referred to some indigenous tribes that say north, south, east and west, rather than left and right. They supposedly have a great sense of spatial orientation. The Wall Street Journal mentioned one of those tribes in an article on how language affects the way we think. So would I tell a member of the class of 2014 to turn the screw to the west? Probably only if they belonged to one of those tribes. I'm betting the students are even less likely to know which way is west, than they are to know which way is counterclockwise.

Maybe the best way to tell a reader which direction to turn something to unscrew it is to draw a picture with an arrow pointing the correct direction.

North Shore Web Geeks Meetup

The Port Tavern in Newburyport was jumpin' last night with the monthly North Shore Web Geeks meetup and some hockey game :-) on the big TV.  Thanks to the Port Tavern for handling the geekage in addition to the Bruins v. Canadiens playoff game and a power outage in part of the building.  Because the power outage affected the function room, we crowded into the space at the top of the stairs outside the function room  to hear Adam Darowski and Joe Oliviera talk about Sass.

Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets

Some folks did sit in the darkened area, with many jokes about running the Zippo Lighter app on everybody's iPhones and yelling "Freebird".  Real candles worked a bit better :-)

Candlepower

Speaking of geekage, I think this is the first time I've heard the phrase "Turing complete" since I was a compiler developer in the late Jurassic age of computing.  That warmed the cockles of my heart. I see a post about the difference between a markup language and a programming language in the future of this blog. :-) For that matter, why is my heart full of mollusks anyway? :-) Another blog post topic.

The crowd begins to gather.

The turnout was pretty good, around 25 people.  I saw many of the people I met last time, and met a few new ones. Also found out there's a Drupal meetup coming up in two weeks at the Port Tavern. I don't use Drupal, but it keeps coming up in so many opportunities, that I keep thinking I should add it to my repertoire. Remember the days when you could call yourself a webmaster when you knew HTML?

Pre-presentation Strategizing

Presenters Adam Darowski and Joe Oliviera

Adam and Joe did a great job of tag-teaming the presentation and covering all the important advantages of Sass for those of us still using plain old CSS.  The slides are up on slideshare.com, so I'm not going to summarize them here. Suffice it to say that Sass looks like a big improvement to this old CSS hack.

Mingling and networking and Bruins overtime victory over Montreal completed the night. (Yeah, techie geeks can care about hockey. I have a signed photo of Bobby Orr over my desk -- which may reveal a little about my age as well as working class origins :-)).

writer's block or something like it

I've attempted three different posts for this blog today. Each time, I froze.  The topics were,

• infographics that are hard to read, never mind understand
• correlation vs. causation
• millennials reading Milton's Paradise Lost

The thing holding me back is the same for all of them. How is this relevant to 21st century technical communication right now and in the future? You're all wondering how Milton even got into the mix, but let's start with infographics.

Why write about infographics? In the past few weeks I've come across several infographics were hard to read, either because they used a blurry white font on a pastel background or the graphic was so dense and cluttered it was hard to understand. Some of them would have made their point much more easily as text in a table. In fact, I noticed comments to that effect on some of them.  So what's blocking me from writing about infographics? I'm not a graphic designer. I have nothing to add to the experts' conversation about what makes a good infographic. I'm not the demographic for infographics anyway, so it doesn't matter what I think about how well they communicate information to me.

Why write about correlation vs. causation? As I click around the Innertoobz/Interwebz I encounter more and more stories, blog posts, and so on, citing all kinds of weird statistical correlations. They make for good headlines, like the one from OKCupid that found that people who use Twitter every day have shorter relationships than people who don’t.  OK, I majored in math. I know how to lie with statistics. I also know that correlation is not causation. Some of the articles about the OKCupid study made that point. Many did not. So what's blocking me from writing about that? Hasn't it all already been said? And to little or no effect?

Why write about kids reading Milton? I overheard a conversation among a group of teenagers at a coffee shop the other day that got me thinking about how different real kids are from the way media portrays them. The media would have us see these digital natives as one big tech savvy monolith who would rather text each other than talk to each other. I sat next to those kids for 2 hours and not once did I see any of them look at a cellphone, smart phone, or any other device.  I, on the other hand, had my laptop on the table and was attempting to work on a book project.  Anyway, the kids were talking about required reading in their  schools and how boring and unchallenging it was, except for one girl who attended a different school from the others. She talked about how much she got out of reading Paradise Lost and how challenging it was. The other kids were fascinated. So what's blocking me from writing about this? Well, maybe I just said all I needed to say. Then, there is the fact that I'm not a kid. And getting back to statistics, this was only 4 kids, not a statistically valid sample, just an anecdote. Maybe they're the only 4 kids in town who want challenging reading and don't need to text each other when they're at the same table. Who knows?

Well, there, now I've written all I needed to about those three topics and not one word about session border controllers, managing multiple site trees, or hazardous materials data sheets.  Now it is time to go to the North Shore Web Geeks event to shake myself out of this writer's block thing that's preventing me from getting the book done, finishing my help project, and designing the darn database.

Mass Innovation Night #MIN25

It was a dark and stormy night ... :-)

April showers were out in full force, but the innovation community packed the house at Continuum and Videolink's facilities in Newton for Mass Innovation Night number 25. The space was amazing. The place was mobbed! Shout out to Continuum and Videolink for sharing it with all these great innovators. Tours were wildly popular and fascinating.

The crowd starts to gather.

Innovators as far as the eye can see.

The focus this month was on  things rather than apps.  There seemed to be a sub theme of bicycles and bicycle technology going on too, which struck me as very appropriate for West Newton, the home of Harris Cyclery (almost as important to my childhood as the West Newton branch library). 

Once again, I didn't get to check out every single exhibitor, but I caught most of them. Products ranged from carpets and shoes to bags for your pooch's poop and everything in between. Some of the ones that made an impression on me:

Carpet Workroom makes custom area rugs out of  remnants. I love their focus on customer involvement as well as reuse of materials and good old-fashioned workmanship. 

Carpet Workroom

Heyday Footwear makes  "bling for your feet", shiny cool shoes. High-tops are already cool, but these are even cooler. I look forward to when they offer women's sizes.  

Heyday Footwear

Parachute Dog  makes a biodegradable dog waste bag kit.  Cleaning up after your pooch without perpetuating the immortal plastic bags is a definite benefit to society.

Parachute Dog

Our old friends from Memory on Hand were selling their USB flash drive bracelets. See my review of their useful and trendy product here.


The four presenters had folks looking up to them in the unique presentation space on the stairwell. Loved the improvised screen. Mass Innovators are a creative bunch!

Looking up at the presentations.

The product that knocked my socks off (what does that mean anyway? I've never seen anybody's socks literally knocked off. :-)) was the Leveraged Freedom Chair designed by Continuum in partnership with MIT to bring a wheelchair to people with disabilities globally. Conventional wheelchairs are not well suited for the rough roads and long distances encountered by the disabled in developing countries. The Leveraged Freedom chair combines the technology of a bicycle drive train with levers to create a nifty leveraged drive train that makes it possible for users to travel faster than they can on conventional wheelchairs, whether they're on pavement or off-road. And they've done all this while keeping the manufacturing cost to $100! Very impressive.

Leveraged Freedom Chair

The surprise hit of the night was Mouthwatchers with their antibacterial nano-silver toothbrush with patented flossing bristles. Who knew you could build a better toothbrush? Traffic at their table was brisk throughout the evening.

Mouthwatchers

Videolink's ReadyCam 2.0 remotely-controlled broadcast quality video solution meets its goals: bring down the cost, do broadcast quality, and do it on demand. This ain't your laptop webcast.

Videolink's ReadyCam 2.0

New England Bike Expo  is an event designed to bring together people who love bicycles and alternative transportation, and folks looking to learn about the vibrant bicycle industry here in New England. They'll have tons of bikes and bike related stuff at Arts at the Armory Somerville,  May 7-8. Nice to see the bicycling culture that was so vibrant here so many decades ago surging to the forefront again.

Turner Business Services
Note paper content delivery devices on the shelves in the background.

Memories in an Instant

The Experts Corner was a happening place too, with Memories in an Instant taking "social media ready" photos, office furniture from new MIN sponsor, Turnstone, and lots of people consulting Turner Business Services.  I got Leaf Legal  to pose for my traditional experts looking expert shot. They tried to look very expert.

Leaf Legal

Those readers who've seen lots of my photography know that I love red brick, and there was plenty of that. It was even labled.

Brick Walls

mobile madness on the north shore

Ever on the lookout for an opportunity to interact with humans instead of my laptop, I've been meaning to check out the North Shore Web Geeks monthly meetup for a few months now.  What better way to spend a snowy evening in March? After all, 'tis the season for March Madness. In this case, March Mobile Madness!



the crowd networking before the talk

 The group met at The Port Tavern in Newburyport (right next door to Taffy's -- great NBPT breakfast spot). Working from home, I don't often meet others of my kind, so the first thing that struck me was "these are my people."

The crowd was about evenly divided along male/female lines -- more like the real techie world than the media's image of the techie world. Yes folks, there is a world in which both men and women wear Drupal T-shirts :-) The age breakdown seemed to be mostly Gen X with many Millennials and one or two Boomers. Not that I asked people their ages, I guessed by appearance so it's possible that the few I thought were Booomers were actually Xers who had lived hard. :-)
 


techie conversation was buzzing

 
It was great to hear what people are working on and share thoughts about the challenges of developing content for mobile.

The turnout was excellent. Who knew that there was so much "web" development going on in Essex and Rockingham (NH)counties?

It was challenging to photograph the event in a crowded and dark room, even with my semi-decent camera. When I mentioned this to one of attendees who was taking photos with her iPhone, she told me that a reporter from the Boston Globe attended the last meetup and had a professional photographer with the right camera gear. Later, I checked out the article online, but there were no pix. I did notice that the Globe article also commented on the gender balance. Guess it must be newsworthy.




Dan Katcher about to begin his talk

 Dan Katcher of Rocket Farm Studios gave a talk titled Why You Should Give a $@#%! about Mobile.  So why should you give a bleep about mobile? It's the second coming of the web. I love the term "second coming" instead of Web 3.0. (Sorry Tim, but major versioning of the web ends at 2.0). BTW, I loved being able to discuss such things with people who know the difference between the Internet and the Web.




Look at that spike in Android handset sales!

 Dan's slides were packed with excellent infographics covering nine different statistics about trends in mobile devices, OSes, and apps. A few specific things really struck me.

Thing 1: Android share of mobile OS is just shooting up like crazy. Symbian declining, Blackberry peaking. Dan predicted: "Android will pass Symbian in 2014."

This infographic really brought home the dramatic increase in Android sales.



growth in mobile data consumption

 Thing 2: Mobile data consumption is growing and growing and it's mostly video with a small amount of VoIP.

The purple in the infographic is video.

This dovetails nicely with the statistic that actual phone calls are only about 32% of what people use mobile handsets for.  I wish someone would compare mobile use of VoIP with non-mobile VoIP, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.

Digression: I've always wondered why the Pew study of Internet and American Life Generations 2010  apparently didn't even ask about VoIP usage as a thing consumers do with the Internet.

I like it when I am full of questions when a presentation ends. The group moved downstairs to the main bar area for the questions, networking, discussion etc., but alas, I had to leave early and did not get to schmooze as much as I wanted to.

Mass Innovation Night at NERD (#MIN24)

Microsoft NERD was crazy busy last night with Mass Innovation Night overlapping with Xconomy Mobile Madness. Wow, that was a huge crowd.  I didn't get to talk with all of the innovators this time, but I did get to chat with VoKnow, Touchbase, Hello Ladies, and Luminaire Coffee. And then there were the mini-whoopie pies from The Chococoa Bakery. I loved the espresso-filled one.


Crowd enjoying the food



Mini whoopie pies

Another cool feature of this month's event was that all the exhibitors had QR codes on their booths, which automatically sent out a tweet. Alas, I don't have a smartphone yet and my iPod Touch doesn't have a camera, so I wasn't able to try it out.



Conversation Media talking about Touchbase -- with cool megaphone



Conversation Media had the best prop, a megaphone.  Their TouchBase family geo-location service helps parents know where their children are and involves the kids in improving family communication too.

Luminaire Coffee demonstrating their coffee brewer to @Krushtown from Blogcastr

Coffee lover that I am, I had a great time tasting fresh-brewed coffee and talking with Luminaire Coffee about their technology for delivering hot water for coffee at just the the right temperature and flow rate. This is the perfect solution for those new "pour-over" coffee bars trying to compete with Starbucks' Clover machine. Luminaire had the second best prop, an old fashioned tea kettle -- their biggest competitor in the hot water space. And I ran into @Krushtown from Blogcastr at the Luminaire booth. You can check out his live blog from #MIN24 here. He got a good picture of the Luminaire machine.

#MIN24 came right on the heels of International Women's Day, so it was great to see Hello Ladies there. I had a great conversation with Liz about Women's History Month, women's salaries, and feminisim. In the immortal words from Bread and Roses "The rising of the women means the rising of us all".

VoKnow

With the presentations about to start, I didn't have much time to chat with the guys from VoKnow about their personalized real-time audio magazine, but I did manage to get a photo. Fortunately, they were one of the presenters, so I got the skinny from the presentation. This is definitely wicked cool.

Crowd listening to the presentations

Other presentations I enjoyed were Mobinett's Plug  interactive mobile networking platform for linking online social networking to the real face to face world and Chipalizer functional verification software for semiconductors.

In the Experts Corner, I connected with Anna Goldsmith from The Hired Pens, Amy Hafensteiner from Winter Wyman, and, of course, Christine Sierra from Carlton PR and Marketing. Amy and Christine posed for my traditional "Experts Looking Expert" shot.

Experts looking expert

As if all that weren't enough, I ran into former co-worker Kevin Wiant of Spar Networks who was there for Xconomy Mobile Madness. We had a great time catching each other up on our respective corners of the telecom world and news of other former Boston Technology colleagues. It was great to connect with Kevin again.

But wait, there's more. The feminist theme re-emerged while talking with Dianne Williams, mobile educator, techie geek, feminist, and archaeologist.  We talked and talked about what it takes to engage young women in engineering and science, how things are now for women vs. how they were when we were growing up, what's cool about geeking out over engineering and taking stuff apart to see how it works, and so on. Dianne told me about a documentary she saw on International Women's Day, Left on Pearl. That's now on my must see list.

Quite a night.

Note to self: attend more events that feature both mini whoopie pies and feminists. :-)

part two: spring cleaning your facebook profile

When selecting a tool to help you clean  up your Facebook profile, it might help to know what prospective employers are looking for and how the tool can help with that. As I described in part one, the socioclean tool scanned text for words it deems inappropriate such as references to sex, alcohol/drugs, aggression, and profanity.

The Careerbuilder.com survey listed the following as reasons that the 18% of employers who hired someone based on their profile used:

• Profile provided a good feel for the candidate's personality and fit within the organization
• Profile supported candidate's professional qualifications
• Candidate was creative
• Candidate showed solid communication skills
• Candidate was well-rounded
• Other people posted good references about the candidate
• Candidate received awards and accolades

They also listed the following as reasons that the 35% of employers who said the candidate's profile caused them not to hire him/her used:

• Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
• Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs
• Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients
• Candidate showed poor communication skills
• Candidate made discriminatory comments
• Candidate lied about qualifications
• Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer

Of the negative criteria listed, the socioclean tool definitely targets drinking and drugs, can find discriminatory references if you use racial epithets, and might be able to find bad-mouthing of previous employers if you used profanity or aggressive words. You'll have to police your photographs, your communication skills, and your violations of confidentiality/non-compete agreements yourself.

The positive criteria are more abstract. A tool can't scan for how well your profile presents your personality, your communication skills, or well-roundedness.

The main thing I gleaned from the list of positives, was that employers are looking on Facebook for things that are usually posted on LinkedIn. The action I took on this point was simple, and not aided by a tool (although maybe I should develop one for this). I added my employment history to my Facebook profile and made sure it matched my LinkedIn profile. My LinkedIn profile supports the professional qualifications I list on my resume. The Facebook profile doesn't really have a section for recommendations and references or for awards and accolades. I'm not sure where the employers found that information, unless those were the minority who looked on LinkedIn.