enginous

It seems that the primary purpose of this tool is to add interactivity to designs. I don't think it replaces the need for mocking before you design for purposes of rapid evolution — I think paper still wins in this area.

I assume that the device entering an NIST evaluation process provides some preliminary assurances of the device's accuracy that MA is willing to make do with.

So is the state essentially trusting Uber's word that the device is accurate, knowing that if it turns out that it isn't, Uber opens itself up to liability?

I like the idea, but does the syntax have to be that terse? It's quite expressive but less readable than code (or JSON/YAML), and I'm not sure why that's useful in this context.

I think it's a valid concern, but I'm not certain it would be a problem.

The social networks are already pretty good algorithmic filtering -- displaying to users what's relevant and interesting to them -- and they'll likely become better. In fact, if I had to guess whether Facebook was in more need of better content or better filtering at this moment, my guess would be on the content side. (But this is hard to evaluate as a user: how would I ever know if I'm missing great content due to bad filtering?)

What worries me a lot more is the prospect of everyone becoming a walking camera. I can hardly have an honest session of drunk karaoke without someone filming it on their smartphone. I wonder if I'd ever do anything if everyone carried cameras on their head.

If Project Glass or its competing initiatives ever turn into a usable reality, perhaps we don't have to make the tradeoff between experiencing and documenting. (Even if it might be strange to wear those to your wedding.)

Maybe a strong MVP of head-mounted displays would focus on capturing and sharing, be it from Google or anyone else.

That's a great point: technology can be very effective at shaping human behavior.

You might want to check out the Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab's project on behavior design[0], which has some resources about how to use technology to change human behavior.

[0] http://captology.stanford.edu/projects/behaviordesign.html

We should be adapting computers to work for humans, not adapting humans to work for computers.

I agree that there are tons of improvements to be made to effective e-mail use in organizations. But many of the behaviors we exhibit are completely natural to us and difficult to change. For example, we check our e-mail on what psychologists refer to as a variable interval reinforcement schedule; we know that at approximately some interval we get an e-mail that is helpful or enjoyable to us, and we waste our time checking for that e-mail.

It's hard to change the e-mail we receive on a global scale in one instant. It's quite a lot easier to develop tools that change how the e-mail we receive is displayed to us. One such concept was the Gmail priority inbox: what if you only got notifications for the e-mail that was important and could buffer up the rest for later?

A complete theory of how e-mail could work might easily involve a hybrid approach. Why aren't people suggesting solutions that could work instead of debating approaches? Does it have to be one way or the other?

That's true, and an even more powerful response of a man in this position is to deal with the problem less passively by (a) pointing out the trend without making a big deal, (b) suggesting that the team rotate more often, (c) proceeding to lead by example by taking notes.

This may be even too subtle a message for a problem as severe as this one, but it at least signals that not everyone within the team will tolerate this behavior, without claims of sexism backed by little evidence.

You're right, office conditions are notoriously hard to research because variables are abundant. However, there are ways to measure it empirically. In the design of an experiment like that, you'd want to use metrics that are heavily dependent on the change. Measuring financial outcomes is no good, because they are affected in significant ways by a number of other factors (including a large factor of luck).

A better metric for this kind of research could be stress levels because they are significantly dependent on changes in physical working environments. Stress is affected by a number of other work factors, such as management, work/life balance and workload, but these can be measured and controlled for. The effects of stress on various performance outcomes are fairly well understood, so this relationship can be used in tandem with other variables to ensure that a change is having the hypothesized effect. Again, it's not simple, but it's far removed from having no comparison.

I wouldn't suggest using online communications for every decision, but rather recording the essence of each substantial conversation digitally. Tasking one person with sending an e-mail containing the conclusion of a discussion takes a fraction of the man-hours consumed by a conversation, especially if many people are frequently involved (which I still advocate against).

Further, summarizing by e-mail is an aid to people's memories, helps avoid miscommunication by establishing a mutual understanding, and chronicles decisions and progress for later review or lookup.

I'm glad this is working for you. I agree that different teams will probably respond in different ways to open-plan offices, and that not all such offices are created equally.

However, your claim that this has worked "really well" for you "for basically the whole life of the company ... by whatever metric" is not "plenty of empirical evidence." It's anecdotal, and most importantly lacks a comparison to a different arrangement (a control). You have no idea if any of your chosen metrics (however debatable for team effectiveness) would be better for your current team in a different set-up.

I also disagree that just because the conversations people hear are about the product, constantly overhearing conversations is therefore productive. If you need everyone in the team to talk about every decision at all times, this is probably either brought on by too few conversations or a lacking framework for productive communication.

> If you didn't hear those conversations, you'd be out of the loop.

Why aren't you keeping track of decisions and new information formally, e.g. by e-mail? How do you keep employees functional after they get sick or go on a leave? If you have processes for that, then it is not absolutely essential to hear those conversations; employees can read the important stuff at the end of the day.