Tom The Architect » continuity

Evolutionary systems

Tom Carroll — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 05:35:17 +0000

I have since I was a young boy been fascinated with building architecture. That interest was the foundation of my passion for architecture as it applies to information technology. Being the son of a carpenter gave me plenty of opportunities to see how buildings are built and evolved. I have taken that perspective and applied it to my work in information systems architecture. So as I was rereading How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand, I was struck by a most profound quote

A building is not something finished. A building is something you start.

In my years moving through the ranks of information technology I have seen the majority of professionals treat the thing they build as something that ends the day it ships, compiles or is deployed. The creation of systems of technology, be it for storing our stuff (thanks George Carlin) or for making our businesses more efficient, have always been intended to resolve some discontinuity we experience. Mr. Brand then goes on to write

Evolution is always away from known problems rather than toward imagined goals. It doesn’t seek to maximize theoretical fitness; it minimizes experienced unfitness. Hindsight is better than foresight.

Great businesses have been started from a problem statement and a desire to move away from that problem. The systems of technology we use everyday are applied to “minimize experienced unfitness”.

The first step towards building an evolutionary system is do something, if it hurts fix it, it its slow tune it. The key in creating a stable system is change. Change will bring mistakes and some of those mistakes might be painful but doing nothing is more painful in the end. Creating evolutionary systems can not be done in environments where change is avoided. In many of Tom Peters presentations he cites a quote “Fail Fast Forward” that’s the key to evolutionary systems in three words. Evolutionary systems are designed to allow change and then are used to fail fast forward.

I place How Buildings learn up there with The Timeless Way of Building by Christpher Alexander.

Attention economics, ah the possibilities

Tom Carroll — Wed, 10 May 2006 05:03:46 +0000

As I think more about the economics of Attention I am struck by the silos. Everyday of my life my attention is disrupted by the constant silo switching. I spend 2 to 2.5 hours per day driving to my place of employment. Today, that time is better spent thanks to my self programmed iPod. There exists a huge problem maintaining the flow of information into and out of my commute silo. I have to spend time to deliver information into that silo and its a pain in the neck, sync, plug in, navigate, unplug, plug in navigate, and unplug every day. So here is what I think would be nice.

In the evening as I review my schedule for the next day, iTunes detects my car as a device on my wireless network. iTunes updates my car with the content I have added and allows me to program my drive to work with content. My calendar also detects my car as a device on my wireless network (or as a client via EVDO, a nod to Steve Gillmor) my temporal data gets downloaded and is used to prime my navigation system. The car then could make suggestions regarding when and where to get gas based on price, route changes based on live traffic data, and provide access to my voice mail. The opportunities are all over the place. Why can’t I sync my contacts in Google or yahoo bidirectionally with my cell phone.

Creating attention efficiencies for people in their daily lives is just obvious. Jon Udell writes about the broader value of attention efficiency and effectiveness [1]. Technology has consistently increased the productivity of the individual within the context of a specific task. How about life productivity, how about increasing the continuity of experience of my life, I would be willing to pay for that. In the end, all the players (companies, customers ect..) will have to focus on collaboration, continuity of experience and increased situational awareness.

Links:
[1] Attention economics: by Jon Udell

Continuity of Experience Part 2

Tom Carroll — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:58:33 +0000

In the past I have listed the things that build a continuity of experience but I have not given a Formal (read Dictionary) definition. So here it goes:

conÂ·tiÂ·nuÂ·iÂ·ty of exÂ·peÂ·riÂ·ence
a coherent whole understanding of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind.

Via American Heritage dictionary

Examples of How to Build Continuity

Tom Carroll — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:14:35 +0000

I have put together a screen cast of web sites that are moving to increase the continuity of experience for their users. As the web continues to mature, the lines between local applications and web applications are going to slowly disappear. Companies Like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and others are making it clear that web applications are no longer going to be the lesser cousin to desktop applications. Enjoy.

Continuity Builders screen cast

Continuity of Experience

Tom Carroll — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 07:09:34 +0000

The Continuity of Experience is:
About making the experience more ubiquitous.
About making the experience more consistent.
About making the experience more understandable.
About making the experience more actionable.
About making the collection of our experiences more contiguous.

This web 2.0 thing is just one of the more visible increases in our computing Continuity of Experience. Its all about increased simplicity, integrated metaphors, greater collaboration, transparency and increased information composition. The goal is to make it easier for people to interact with the universe of computing platforms, applications, services and information. Increasing the Continuity of Experience for one user or 10,000 or 10 million (think companies) increases the capacity to transfer value during the experience. We need to think about the continuities we enjoy today and really focus on what opportunities we have to bring isolated experiences into a larger continuity of experience.