RIP Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences (PGSS)

I have been quite fortunate over the years. I have received numerous opportunities that afforded me opportunities to go far and do amazing things. One such opportunity was the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences (PGSS). Much to my horror and sadness, I have learned that Pennsylvania has cancelled PGSS due to lack of resources. This brings me tremendous sadness.

During the summer before my senior year, I attended PGSS at Carnegie Mellon with 89 other students from around Pennsylvania. We were selected based on our potential and given a free summer at CMU to focus on science. We were taught classes that we weren’t taught in high school – molecular biology, inorganic chemistry, discrete math, computer science, modern physics. (A group of us teamed up together to master these topics by specializing in one and making sure that we could teach everyone else in our group what was going on when we collaboratively did homework together. There were five girls and five boys in our team; I was the girl rep for discrete math.)

For me, this program was critical. Up until then, my science classes had been beyond basic. This was the first time that I felt challenged by science and math and I LOVED it. Going into college, I decided to study math because of my experience at PGSS. (I quickly switched to computer science upon entrance when I realized that CS involved more fun math.)

What I got from PGSS went beyond the curricular structure. I loved the opportunity to spend a summer with brilliant folks who liked to solve puzzles and THINK. I developed friendships that played a critical role in keeping me motivated my senior year. I spent many weekends traveling to Philly and other places to meet up with the folks that I met at PGSS. My homecoming and prom dates were both from PGSS. I traveled by rail across the USA with a PGSS person after high school. While I was getting crapped on by my classmates, PGSS folks were keeping me sane and strong. (And they were also part of the reason that I got more deeply involved in Internet culture.) Governor’s School also taught me to function on all-nighters and have fun while working in the lab.

More than anything, Governor’s School made visible what college could be like if I went to a school surrounded by smart people. (It was through one of the people at PGSS that I learned about Brown.) When people would ask me what PGSS was, I jokingly called it the “ticket to the Ivy League.” For those of us who didn’t come from boarding and prep schools, PGSS was often a free pass into institutions that might have otherwise ignored us and our public school background.

Of course, this is also the challenge. Many of the PGSS folks that I know didn’t return to Pennsylvania. We used PGSS as a one-way pass out of the state to places where science and technology played a more crucial role in industry. And it’s hard for a state-sponsored program to consider that a success. But on an individual level, everyone I’ve ever met from PGSS benefited tremendously from that opportunity. It deeply saddens me to think that future students won’t have such an opportunity. Le sad.

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Does money equal time? (Regarding proposed NSF funding of qualitative research)

Following a conference about qualitative methods, the National Science Foundation issued a report that provided “general guidance for developing qualitative research projects” and “recommendations for designing, evaluating, and strengthening qualitative research” (along with a bunch of papers from the workshop). This report has made a bunch of social scientists giddy over the (very real) possibility that the NSF might start funding more qualitative social science research.

This week, the brilliant sociologist Howie Becker (best known outside of sociology for his article “Becoming a Marihuana User” and best known to panicked grad students for his book Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article) penned a critique of the giddiness over the NSF report in an essay titled “How to Find Out How to Do Qualitative Research.” His sentiments are wonderfully summed up in his concluding paragraph:

On the other hand, it may well be–time will tell–that the methods recommended in the 2009 report will produce one result many people have long hoped for: an NSF grant for their research. Anyone wishing for such good fortune should remember one of the other criticisms many times repeated during the earlier meeting. NSF has an apparently inflexible rule that grants will not be given for faculty time released from teaching. But the chief expense of any qualitative research is always the researcher’s time. To do what Whyte and Goffman and Duneier and Hughes and Vaughan and the others cited above did doesn’t really cost much. The materials for recording, storing and analyzing interviews and field notes are cheap. Qualitative researchers need money to pay for their time, so that they can make observations and conduct interviews and get those data down in a permanent form. And NSF won’t pay for that.

Grants are a messy element of contemporary academic life. For some disciplines, grants are necessary to get funding for lab equipment and grad student labor (for the benefits of the “lab” – a.k.a. professor). Yet, increasingly, grants are needed to prove one’s worth in the academic hierarchy. Given the high levels of overheard at most institutions, universities put tremendous pressure on faculty to bring in the grants simply to pay for collective resources. Thus, faculty are often scrambling to get grants. Unfortunately, grants benefit some disciplines more than others. And it makes sense to get many multi-million dollar grants when you need to buy a crazy contraption to do your research, but does the same thing make sense in the social sciences?

Should scholars who don’t need much funding to produce quality research feel pressured to get grants even when they’re not necessary for the work? Sure, it’s uber nice when social sciences and humanities can pay for grad students (and none of us from those worlds would complain about this), but does pressure to get many grants actually create more research in these domains? Or does the lack of high value overhead from the social sciences make work in these areas look less worthy to money-strapped institutions because it doesn’t bring in the bacon? In other words, are we recognizing the perceived value of research findings or the costs of doing the research?

And how does this relate to faculty teaching load? In the sciences, it’s quite common for grad students to also do the bulk of that labor and for faculty to simply teach the main lecture class. Because of the dynamics of social sciences classes, I would bet that they are more of a load on faculty than in the sciences. So do grants without options for getting teaching relief actually add more of a burden on social science researchers?

More than anything, I’m curious if any of you have been privy to these discussions and have thoughts on the matter. I know that many of you come from different disciplinary trajectories so I’d be curious what your response is to this discussion of NSF funding of the social sciences.

(Tx Joe and Yuri)

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discussion of “impact” at the CHI conference

Yesterday, I attended the CHI conference (an ACM conference for those studying and working in the area of human-computer interaction). I had the privilege of speaking on a panel discussing the paper entitled “Scientometric Analysis of the CHI Proceedings” by Christoph Bartneck and Jun Hu. The other panelists were Gilbert Cockton, Robert Kraut, and Louise Barkhuus. Because of the nature of this panel, I prepared seven minutes of commentary ahead of time. Although my notes from this are really rough, I decided that I should share them because others might find them to be helpful:

Remarks from Panel on “Scientometric Analysis of the CHI Proceedings” at CHI 2009

My main argument is that we should think about what kinds of impact we as academics intend to make with our work. Different scholars take different approaches, but we’re increasingly obsessed with how we can measure scholars’ “impact” and the focus on measurement distorts the actual impact being made. So, as we think about citation count, best paper awards, and the politics of our field, are we really talking about the way that we can have impact or the way that we can get tenure?

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upcoming conferences/talks

Now that I’m working at Microsoft Research, I’m doing a bit more public/academic speaking, but I’ve done a terrible job of announcing where and when. So let me take a moment to list some of the upcoming talks in the next four months in case you’re attending these conferences (or should be):

Hopefully I’ll get to see some of you at these events – they’re bound to be quite fun! And utterly diverse. Needless to say, I won’t be giving the same talk at each event but hopefully they’ll all be quite entertaining!

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Bernie Hogan: “Networking in Everyday Life”

One of the coolest things about being at Microsoft Research is that there are systems in place that make it very easy to collaborate with faculty at other institutions. I took advantage of this for the first time last week when I invited Bernie Hogan of Oxford Internet Institute to come and play with me. Bernie and I have known each other for a long time and vowed that we would work together when we got through our individual dissertations. The time has finally come to make real on that promise. So we sat down and started plotting some research that we’d like to do together.

If you read my blog and you don’t know Bernie’s work, you should. Bernie’s dissertation – “Networking in Everyday Life” examines how people leverage different channels of communication to connect to people in their lives. In other words, rather than focusing on just one genre (e.g., Facebook or telephone) or comparing specific genres to face-to-face, he looks at how communication is differentiated across these different channels. His argument is that each individual channel makes things more convenient but that, in sum, communication is far less convenient because we now have to remember who to contact through what means to achieve the desired result. Bernie’s diss does an amazing job at thinking about the role of technological affordances in shaping people’s mediated communication.

Bernie is a true sociologist (whereas I’m whatever label you paste on me today). He’s also a social network analyst. And he’s wicked smart. So I feel like a little kid in a candy store for having spent a whole week chewing on puzzles together. What is especially amazing to me is that we continue to circle in on similar topics from vastly different directions. He and I are both obsessed with context, inequality, communication choice, etc. but we think about these issues from VERY different perspectives. But now I get to play with him and I already feel smarter for that.

I feel like I’m writing a Testimonial. But what I mean to say is that those of you interested in social media, social networks, information overload, and other such related concepts should really read Bernie’s diss: “Networking in Everyday Life”.

I just learned that Bernie’s diss has won the Communications Dordick Award for Best Dissertation – ROCKING! That’s just way cool!!

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Seeking: Boston-based developer for prototyping work with moi

Back in the day, I used to build interactive visualizations and other tools to mark up and analyze data. My research agenda is leading me back there and so Microsoft Research has kindly agreed to give me the resources to try out working with a developer.

Thus, this is a call for a Boston-based developer interested in working as a contractor on a full-time basis. This is not a permanent gig, but there’s budget for at least the next three months. This position is being contracted through Talent Source and you would be officially reporting to someone who is more code-minded. You would be working in Kendall Square amidst a bunch of lovable researchers who speak in mathematical equations, physics models, and social science mumbo jumbo. Start date is effectively now.

The ideal candidate would be fluent in C# and Java, comfortable working with SQL servers, and have a penchant for learning new web technologies for fun. There’s a decent chance this project will involve a combination of Python, Processing, Rails, AJAX, etc. or whatever tool makes the most sense for the situation. This will also involve learning various APIs (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and toolkits (e.g., Guess, Prefuse).

The ideal candidate would love prototyping off of half-baked drawings scribbled on napkins in crayon. This is not going to be a good gig for someone who needs a proper spec or development process. The “products” are going to be research probes and will need to evolve with use. The end-goal is far more prototype than stable product and the goal will be to iterate quickly at the expense of stability.

The ideal candidate would be self-motivated and patient with an eclectic work environment. The work environment is a research lab and my management style is quite flexible (a.k.a. virtually non-existent). This is not going to work for someone who functions best through heavy management or direct intervention. Flexibility and patience are pretty critical and I expect a bunch of eye-rolling when I make crazy suggestions.

The ideal candidate would enjoy thinking about how to interact with data and coming up with new adhoc ways of scraping, aggregating, sorting, manipulating, analyzing, visualizing and interacting with online social data. Someone who loves social data and would enjoy understanding the patterns in large data would find this gig especially fun. The ideal candidate might even have a personal interest in research themselves.

If you are interested in this position, please reach out to the Talent Source Program Office via email at TSPHelp@microsoft.com and/or call 1-877-673-8877 and reference the Job ID 7819-1. Talent Source will connect you with an approved temp agency right away.

Feel free to pass this on to anyone who you think might be into this gig, especially folks who you think might gel well with my quirkiness.

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a random act of kindness

Due to poor planning, G and I were on different flights back to Boston from SXSW. I was already booked on the early flight and had already been assigned my upgrade. So when we reached DFW, we raced across the airport to get him on standby. Success, but of course, he got stuck in a middle seat in coach. Standing around waiting to board, I’m feeling all mega-guilty about being in first while he’s in coach so I’m more affectionate than normal. The plane boards and I proceed to 1A. The guy sitting in 1B looks at me and says, “Aren’t you traveling with someone?” After I nod, he says, “Why don’t I switch with him?” I explain that he’s in coach and he shakes his head to say “no problem” but I proceed to protest and point out that he’s in a center seat in coach and he protests further by saying that he flies all the time and no problem, no problem, I should sit with my partner… By this time, first is wide-eyed. I mean, what business traveler in their right mind wants to give up a bulkhead first seat to sit in a center in coach? But before I manage to protest louder, he grabs his stuff and heads back to coach. The woman behind me and I laugh uncomfortably with big eyes, verbalizing what we were thinking: “did that really happen?”

Sure enough, he proceeds to sit in coach. The flight attendants are astonished and find him a seat in the back with more room and continue on to send back ice cream and food and whatnot. At one point, I asked one of the flight attendants how he was doing and she smiled and said that he was an extremely kind man and that the flight attendants were all loving him. That she had never in her day seen someone give up a first class seat as a random act of kindness. We were all quite floored.

The truth is that I was completely flabbergasted and without a script in which to operate. I never caught the man’s name. I couldn’t find him after we landed. I never really got to properly say thank you. But, Mr. Nice Businessman, if you’re out there, I want you to know that your random act of kindness made me a giddy happy kid; flying home next to G was really wonderful. And you made a lot of people smile. So THANK YOU!

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it’s time for SXSW!!

After taking a break to finish my dissertation, I’m heading back to SXSW and I. Cannot. Wait. SXSW is one of my favorite-ist conferences evah. It’s filled with fun folks who are truly engaged with the web, social media, and other forms of culture. There’s such a large contingent of cool and interesting people that I’m always overwhelmed, overstimulated, and otherwise bouncy as could be. The parties don’t hurt either. Tehe.

Anyhow, I do very little scheduling at SXSW because I personally do better when I’m unscheduled and just go with the flow. That said, I find that it’s useful to show up at one’s own talks and parties. And it’s even more fun to attend said scheduled activities when your friends know about it and want to come and play along. Sooo, since all of my BIG events are on Saturday, I thought I’d take a moment to share these bits in the hopes that those of you attending might come along!

Panel #1: Is Privacy Dead or Just Very Confused?

  • Who: me (moderator), Judith Donath, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Alice Marwick
  • When: Saturday March 14, 10-11AM in Room A
  • Abstract: While many assert that “privacy is dead,” the complex ways in which people try to control access and visibility suggest that it’s just very confused. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, let’s discuss people’s understanding and experiences of privacy and find ways to 2.0-ify it.

Panel #2: Everything I Needed to Know About the Web I Learned from Feminism

  • Who: Heather Gold, me, Betty Flowers
  • When: Saturday March 14, 3.30-4.30PM in Room 9
  • Abstract: Last year’s panel on Gossip packed up via twitter word of mouth and was described by Get Satisfaction’s Lane Becker as “the best panel I’ve ever seen at SXSW.” This year we might top it and revive/re-frame feminism at the same time. Feminism teaches “the personal is political” and the web shows that the personal is now public. Christmas newsletters and recipes are the social media of their time, and women are the key social nodes of our culture. In her comic and though-provoking style, Heather Gold brings together amazingly smart women and the people f/k/audience to discuss what makes social networks strong and predict where they’re heading next online.

Party: StandardAnswer Launch Party

  • StandardAnswer is an online community built around questions and answers (think personality quizzes). This is a new startup; I’m on the advisory board and this is the launch party.
  • When: Saturday March 14, 8PM-2AM
  • Where: Red Eyed Fly, 715 Red River
  • Deets: all welcome, music by Black Joe Lewis, American Princes, and White Denim; RSVP is required

Sooo… if you want to see me be all serious, come to the panels. If you want to see me all goofy and bouncy, come to the party! Saturday is bound to be loads of fun so I hope you’ll join me!!!

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“Social Media is Here to Stay… Now What?”

Last week, I gave my first talk at Microsoft since joining MSR. This talk was part of the annual Tech Fest where researchers from labs around the world come and share their work to the broader Microsoft community. For the most part, it’s like a large science fair. There are booths and demos and posters and swarms of people descending to ask questions of researchers. It was pretty trippy to be thrown into this mix after only being with the company for a month. I had the privilege of “demoing” (a.k.a. waving my hands and trying to explain what I do) to Bill Gates. There was great humor involved because I gave my “demo” immediately following one of my colleagues’ (Henry Cohn’s) brilliant explanation of optimizing the Gale-Berlekamp lightbulb game. (Think: pure math to pure ethnography in under 60 seconds.)

Anyhow, I wrote up the crib of my talk in case anyone outside of Microsoft might find it interesting:

“Social Media is Here to Stay… Now What?”

This talk is intentionally not a research talk, but an applied talk. It’s a sampler plate of my work as it applies to developers, policy makers, community managers, product designers, and other folks who work inside companies like Microsoft. Enjoy!!

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I want to evolve to not hear the cell phone

Whenever I’m in a public space where folks are blabbing away on their phones, I want to scream. Trains, cafes, busses… they all drive me batty. I’m dreading the day in which cell phones are viable on planes. Or when VOIP isn’t blocked. When I’m forced to listen to half of a conversation, I start fuming. First, I mentally grumble about how rude the person is. But then I start berating myself, lamenting my age, and wondering if I were younger or from a different culture if half-conversations wouldn’t drive me so utterly insane.

Years ago, I read a study (that I now can’t find) about why half-conversations are so disruptive. Your brain is pretty good about tuning out conversations in a restaurant, but it sucks at tuning out just half of a conversation. Y’see – your brain wants to fill in the other half. It worries that it’s supposed to respond and so it listens even when you tell it not to. You can’t just close your ears and blasting other sounds into them may not achieve the desired serenity either, especially if you’re like me and the urge to dance kicks in with the music.

This all makes sense for those of us whose brains stabilized pre-mobile phones. But I can’t help but wonder if this is changing. If you grow up in a world where half-conversations are everywhere, does your brain cope with it better? Does it learn to tune it out? If you grow up in a culture where everyone is always rattling on loudly in public, can you tune out noise better than if you grew up in a culture where silence is more than norm? I’m always fascinated by cross-cultural events involving people from more quiet cultures (say Japan, Finland) and those from louder ones (say Russia, Israel). Do these cultural differences affect your ability to tune out noise?

More importantly, can I be retrained? Can I evolve to not hear those blasted half-conversations? I know that I can learn to tune out car noise after a few weeks in a new apartment. What will it take for me to stop fuming? I feel far too old and crotchety before my time on this one.

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