a different concept about connecting to people

Many of us have emails, facebook contacts, twitter accounts, delicious bookmarks... All of these tools are important, and they help order our lives in significant ways.

But I would think that these emails, facebook contacts, etc.. should be thought of as prostheses - things that help us connect to the wider world out there, and help us connect to other people. But when we do connect with other people, we are connecting with the emails, and facebook profiles of other people, not to the people per se. What we are, when we link to emails and all, is that we are linking a prostheses to another prostheses, one degree removed from the reality of the person that we are connecting to.

I would like to think that there could be another way about looking at the social connectivity that we have across the web. I would re-imagine that we are connecting to people, not to prostheses, and a whole suite of applications could be conceptualised based on that ideal. We connect to people, and its just that people are enveloped in our own webs of applications and devices, and we need to recognise that fact. It would be so much better, if we could organise our contacts in a people-centric sort of way, and linking emails and facebook profiles to that person, instead of the other way around.

A possible application could be like this...
(name1)
(gmail)
(msn)
(facebook)
(blog)

(name2)
(gmail)
(facebook)
(blog)
(twitter)
(delicious)
...

and so on... instead of

(email)
(name)
...

Would it be possible?

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elaboration of tweets

Academic subject unimportance and labeling. Knowledge, nt parochial. Depth AND spread. multidisciplinary is only a fluff term if you don't know the disciplines in depth...

I hit on this idea after I realise that all this talk about multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary is all fluff and that talk like that only make sense when people are able to get the different perspectives. I can imagine how that might look like for say, someone doing psycho-neurological research. That person would have to do BOTH psychology and neurology, and only after that, bringing those two perspectives into something more interesting.

Which brings me to the idea that the naming of fields of studies might be commutative, meaning AB is equal to BA. It wouldn't matter if its psycho-neurology or neuro-psychology, both are practically the same.

The unimportance of labels: move past ideology. Its not this ideo vs that ideo. Nowadays, it seems more like, this ideo is nice, combined with that component of another ideo... and then mash things up...

Here I am talking about labels and ideologies, and I'm not sure about all these philosophies, but I'm getting the sense that all of these labels fade away, and the thing that truly matters are the words that compose the labels in the first place, to examine details in every philosophies, and really understand what they mean. Its no longer liberalism vs conservatism, or or pragmatism vs idealism... all these -isms confuse people. And why should people get so stuck on their ideas? Yes, there are some fundamentals that should stay where they are, but after that, argument goes.
Design IS tech! You can't have good design without good technology (note: good, not BEST tech. very different things.)

People dont want tech! People want experience afforded by tech. Apple has been first mover, but MS catching up! Experience is design powered by technology! People DON'T want to know the technology behind their gadgets, they WANT the EXPERIENCE - and that can only be provided by DESIGN!

The two tweets are the result of realising that design itself is technology. Good design has to come from good tech, and there is no one without the other. You can have good tech with bad design though, but that just makes people turned off from the tech.

You have to differentiate between good tech and best tech. best tech refers to the technical advances that have made the performance exceptional. Good tech might refer to optimal performance, one that might not be performing exceptionally, but rather is compatible with the design and user requirements. Good tech also has this sense of optimising for the whole of the product, while best tech usually is about the sheer performance of something in a single indicator rather than throughout the entire product.

And of course, the aim of tech, in a very human-centred way, is to provide an experience. People want the experience of an easy-to-use touch screen, hence the iPhone. People might not necessarily want a device full of functions they don't use... So DESIGN is key!

Should have published this long ago...

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thinking about a different kind of journalism

One of the ways that I'm interested in, is how to bring the realities of the world into Singapore? And so far, the only way I can think of, is to travel around the world, and post it on a blog, and have it carried by the media.

Do something truly bold, that people will follow.

And for me, that means, going around to the worst places in the world, and see how people are coping, and how others around the world are helping. How are MIT students bringing their technology to the villages? How is the OLPC initiative working? How are the UN people doing their humanitarian projects?

By this coverage, I would hope that kids in Singapore begin to realise that what they study, what they learn, aren't simply facts or photographs to be browsed over, becoming just another byline on the CNA news channel, but rather, these stories become tangible in their minds.

Ok. So The New Paper has covered stuff like that before. Journalists from Singapore HAVE travelled across the world to bring these stories. Why would things be any different?

To that question, I have no response, other than the fact that being outside mainstream media, though perhaps augmented by it, that someone might have the freedom to share these personal stories to kids, have it followed by blogs and twitter, have exhibitions in schools and JCs, solely for people to get inspired.

Also, it won't be about the reporting negativity and suffering. These stories will be about hope as well, about the generosity of humanity... For the engineers-, and scientists- to be, to let them know that their research will not be trivial, their subjects are not trivial... To let them know that, for the biggest issues that we face, the solutions already exist, and it is a matter of action to get started. There is a difference to be made, and it is a good difference that can be done.

Ultimately, it is about changing the world, and it is about changing the world one person at a time, about the heart. It doesn't have to be some rural village in Africa or India, it could be inspiring the kid next to us, as well.

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My Ideal fantastic university education

I briefly mentioned my dream university curriculum but I couldn't develop it fully since I had to rush off to go somewhere. And so, more elaborated:

My dream university curriculum:

I'm wondering if I'm a Black Swan myself - the highly improbable freak event that, when happens, causes drastic changes to whatever system the Black Swan is embedded in. But that's just a personal opinion. What I'm really wondering about, is whether I'm a 'statistical outlier' - meaning, the dumb guy who refuses to play by the rules, and wants to do something different, or will I be the leading edge of a tide, the person who will set the trend for others after. But whichever it is, I have in mind, the idea of an ideal university education...

But just before I go on, something very quickly about NUS. I think NUS, in trying to accomodate British and American systems, has instead, become this weird creature that's really neither.The British system of majors works because it was created for industrialism, where specialisation was required. Hence the fixed programme, where once people went through it, they would have attained a high degree of specialty for whatever industry they are studying for.

The American system, however, emphasizes personal freedom and choice. So within the scope of the modular system, people could take basically, whatever they wanted, only focusing in their later years, and where intense effort is required.

So they are very different systems, designed with very different philosophies in mind. NUS, credit to them, has tried to balance the different impulses - by emphasizing the course - which means fixed curricula, and by implementing the modular system, which allows freedom of choice and whatnot.

For most people, it works out fine. Singapore's education system has been that of specialisation anyway, all the way from secondary school to junior colleges, and the entire process could be said to be a narrowing down of subjects. So it works, and I give credit to the people who made it work.

But well... there are this bunch of people who are just... active in their minds, who want to do everything, and are prepared, through their background, to do entirely new things under the sun. This bunch of people would have been really happy in the American system, but they are stuck in NUS. I am, actually.

But I suspect that I won't be the only one. I'm betting that there will be more people who will develop the inclinations that I have developed, who have read up on so much, that they are essentially graduates going through the universities just to get the qualification. But they are in an university, and some of them might see it as the opportunity to do the things they've always wanted to do, with the added bonus of having their efforts recognised. Or rather, that's what I've always thought. But again, I want to emphasize: the current system has worked for many people, and though tweaks are needed every now and then, I do understand that there are constraints, and that not everyone can have the education that they want. However, there is a emotional cost to that, that interests may be killed, bright young motivated people might just lose their spark, and something amazing might just be lost from the university, in spite of university.

So in my head, I fantasize about the kind of education that I've always wanted, and though people might not agree with it, well...

It could be something within USP. But this will be USP to the max, with the ideal of multidisciplinary endeavour pushed to the extreme.

It has to be uber-selective, in searching for students who can move across different disciplines with equal ease. Although there will be people who are aware, this uber-programme needs to have people who have genuine intellectual depth, who have done prior extensive programme before they could even be considered to be able to handle the workload. At the same time, there has to be strong institutional support - it is as dependent on the instructors as it will be on the dynamism of the students. It will be difficult, since good teachers are hard to find, and the context of NUS's priorities make it even harder.

Which leads me to another point before I go onto syllabus design. NUS is currently, almost, fixated on marketing itself as a research university. Which is unfortunate for undergraduate education since there will be many lecturers who will prefer to sit at their desk or at their labs crunching numbers for their experiment, or going through journals for their research. Which is ironic, since, if there are people who prefer to be elsewhere and teach really badly, then NUS is ultimately kicking itself in the foot - by discouraging students to do research, hence decreasing the number of students encouraged to do decent work in their respective courses. Now all of these are just conjectures, but so far, hearing from fellow students, this is what I'm hearing.

Ok, so its not that irrelevant. The system that I'm thinking of requires instructors who are extremely dedicated to the students, who are willing to either, set aside their research projects, OR, include students in their research projects in very close collaboration.

Now, given that there might be students who might somehow have the grasp to handle many many things in one shot... This could be the probable syllabus:

First year will probably be... doing exposures and fundamentals across the major faculties - physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, history, literature, philosophy, writing, statistics, computing... and maybe into second year. Depending on the students, they then start to explore and do research modules on their own, working closely with professors, maybe more than 1 instructor, especially if their research module is across different disciplines. Mashups would be highly encouraged since thats where all the new things are!

The research programme then becomes the main focus from yrs 2 and 3. Their research projects ought to be large projects, consolidating the connections between different areas of knowledge, and go from 8MCs to say, 16MCs. So every sem they might just do 2 or 3 research projects, but the workload required would be rather, large... Whatever they need to learn for their research projects, be it the technical skills to handle the necessary machinery, or the techniques of fieldwork, or the mathematics of statistical analyses - whatever they need to learn will be picked up while on the research project. It sounds huge, and yes it is. If this is impossible, then this dream syllabus remains just a dream.

And then in their final year, they do a uber-thesis, a consolidation of all they have learnt during the years in university.

While majors will not exist, there will still exist clusters - some modules students could do in a certain track in order to attain a body of knowledge they can apply. While they might sit in regular lectures, attend laboratory sessions, they will not sit for their final exams, rather, they will just keep doing research projects.

This idea will definitely have limitations. But then, this concept of education would not apply to the hardcore, focused researchers anyway... And yes, it might even be impossible to implement ever, but well, it is nice dreaming about it...

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hedgehogs vs foxes

Nicholas Kristof, in his column, wrote about Hedgehogs vs Foxes in American foreign policy... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/opinion/26Kristof.html

I love the idea of hedgehogs vs foxes - the idea that hedgehogs dig deep into single issues, are considered specialists while foxes are people who go from idea to idea, explore it long enough but not so deep, and back out again , venturing into other topics.

Kristof wrote about it in context to the issue of experts - how experts sometimes get things wrong because they become so single-minded that they fail to realise that the problems they study sometimes are complex creatures that require multiple angles to look at. Hence his writing that foxes ought to be better than hedgehogs.

I felt that such a simplistic dichotomy is fallacious. I mean, its difficult to classify hedgehogs and foxes in the first place, and there are still many problems out there in the world which requires specialists - years of experience in dealing with problems... there is still room in the world for specialised experts who have worked on specific fields for years, even decades.

But there are also obviously issues out there that are not specific, focused issues, and these issues tend to be the ones that plague our world right now, because specialists, by their simplification, might fail to understand the complexities, and by resorting to some simplifications might instead aggravate the situation. I can think of no specific examples, but again, there probably are many anecdotes about it.

Maybe foxes are prized today because of the large issues today - the credit crunch that led to the economic crisis, climate change, energy, sustainable development, poverty in africa, rural development - these are huge multifaced problems that require people who know how to work and coordinate across many disciplines, hence the jumping around that's required.

Alright then. But then I would actually highlight that hedgehogs are still required anyway - people who have been working on the ground, worked with tonnes of experience - these people are still required, and these are the people that education systems tend to produce. I guess now we see the importance of foxes because we realise that issues are too complex. Maybe the truth is, foxes and hedgehogs need to be in equilibrium in any kind of organisation. Too many hedgehogs and the big picture gets ignored, too many foxes and no actual implementation might be accomplished.

Meantime, our education is still going down the path of the hedgehog-centric style of education, with the emphasis of the major still important, if not utterly important. If we need foxes-type of people for the future economy, there really should be serious reconsiderations to the style of education that we give to our kids. Not everyone will be a hedgehog, and not everyone will be a fox. In the rarest of occasion, we might even see the rise of the hedgefox - people who have the capability to move across vastly different disciplines with equal ease. That will be utterly mindblowing.

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