Dave's Whiteboard

Microsoft Word for DOS appeared in late 1983.  I’d started using a word processor only a few months before–WordStar, which at one time did bestride the computer world like a Colossus.  Relatively speaking, WordStar was geek heaven; its article on Wikipedia states, apparently with a straight face, that “WordStar is still considered by many to be one of the best examples of a ‘writing program.’”

That notion evidently comes from admiration of the small file sizes that WordStar produced because it didn’t fool around with things like WYSIWYG display on the screen or with formatting commands sent to the printer.  WordStar focused on text, dammit, and you were lucky it bothered doing that.

I got pretty good with WordStar, but when I came across a working demo of Microsoft Word for DOS, I was more than ready to switch.  Nowadays, the differences between the two seem minor (WordStar screen shot, Word screen shot), but the move away from technoid control codes and the inclusion of a few formatting touches (on-screen bolding and underlining) was a clear advance.

I use several obscure features in Word, like the seq field code, but I’m also painfully aware of drawbacks like its capricious approach to numbering paragraphs.  In general, software companies feel compelled to add features to their products.  I think that’s because they–and some of their customers–confuse “feature” with “benefit.”  There’s some relationship, of course, but over time it tends to be more hypothetical (if not downright fanciful).

Why?  As Naomi Dunford points out on the IttyBiz blog, “With very few exceptions (medicine and cutting-edge technology come to mind) you are wasting space and money by telling people about your features.”

This morning, one of the people I follow on Twitter shared this comment on feature-itis:

Track Changes is, as Senator Bob Dole said of another bright idea, is one of those things that seems great until you take a look at it.  I don’t know what aspect of Track Changes was making Chris shouty, but for me it’s always been quantity: the more changes (and changers), the more you feel like you’re being trampled to death by weasels.

One problem is that people try to cram several kinds of editing (for facts, for sequence, for syntax, for style) into a single Pickett’s Charge of revision.  A more dire problem is the confusion of “change” with “improvement.”  Shakespeare had something similar in mind in Henry IV, Part One.

GLENDOWER:
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR:
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?

The number of changes tracked doesn’t equal the number of improvements made, any more than the number of features added equals the amount of benefit delivered (are you listening, Quicken?).

Which points toward an inherent contradiction for training or learning in organizations.  You can almost certainly reap benefits when you help people move from “can’t do X at all” to “can do Basic Things A, B, and C” — assuming, of course, that those people see A, B, and C as benefiting them.

Working further through the alphabet of features (D, E, and F…L, M, and N…) means you’re getting farther out on the long tail.  Each addition becomes more specific, which means more contextual, which means has decreasingly less appeal to most people (even though potentially more appeal to a small number of people).

I rarely see much mileage for me in talking to others about customizing Word toolbars, let alone creating multiple templates for different kinds of outlines.  As for Google Docs, one less-than-obvious reason for their popularity is that the relative lack of features makes for easier collaboration among groups of people who might have widely varying levels of skill in more traditional word processors.  If you can’t add internal cross-references or sequence codes, you’re not going to frustrate or confuse people who don’t know what to do with them.

WordStar box and disks image from Wikipedia.

Twitter’s a great way to connect with people—or to fire off a wisecrack, which I’ve done a time or two.  Like last night in #lrnchat, when I said:

Every time someone launches another “elearning” with a Jeopardy game, a neuron loses its wings.

At 140 characters, Twitter encourages economy of expression, though you can’t easily come off as concise and nuanced in a single tweet.

Jeopardy games in on-the-job learning are a hot button for me.  Like someone on the bus whose MP3 music is just loud enough that you imagine a mosquito practicing the snare drums, that kind of interaction is mostly harmless but rarely enriching.

Monkey, see?

A Jeopardy game is often a quick fix, like a food-court burger, fries, and Coke when you’re slogging through the MegaMall.  At best, a mediocre choice.  Whatever kind of learning you’re trying to encourage, will dolling quiz questions up in the format of a 56-year-old game show  do the trick?

A more significant drawback is that Jeopardy‘s format unduly emphasizes recall and application.  You’re focusing learner attention on lower-value tasks.  And there’s the disadvantage that few jobs present people with “answers” to which they have to respond with questions.

Where to (re)draw the line

I’ve created interactions based on game formats, including Bingo.  Success came in part from listening to people like Thiagi (Sivasailam Thiagarajan).  One thing he suggests is that you play with, not within, the rules.

So if you must resort to a Jeopardy format, remember that no law requires people to answer with a question.  Nothing forces you to let the winner choose the next question.  It’s far more important to match what people do in the interaction with what they’ll do on the job.

Which explains Call Book Bingo.

Some years ago, a client replaced the paper “call book” used by its sales force with a custom computer application.  Most of the sales force hadn’t used computers before, so to them it felt like a huge change.  The instructor-led training stressed hands-on practice, which meant that by the second day the sales reps felt overwhelmed and unsure of themselves.

So we passed out the sophisticated learning aid you see here, then gave the directions:

• Write a number between 1 and 75 on each line that has a number sign.  Mix ‘em up.  Use each number only once.
• When the “caller” (the instructor) gives a number, check your card to see if you have it.
• If you do, write the answer to the question in that square.

That was pretty much it–except for the time we spent coming up with questions that involved looking up and interpreting things from all the important parts of the call book.  And phrasing them so there was only one right answer.  “What’s the weekly sales volume at International House of Widgets?”  “Does Myrna’s Accounting and Catering include Contract JT-42?”  “How many stores in ZIP code 66431 carry berm flanges?”

There’s a lot there that’s nothing like Bingo: no preprinted numbers, no B-I-N-G-O across the top.  Conversely, there’s a lot that’s very much like the real job: pertinent questions about accounts, and the need to research using the new, computerized tool.

No one complained about the variation from “real” Bingo.  In fact, most often the learners would ask to continue playing till everyone got at least one Bingo.   Often they’d start helping one another as “doing my job” won out over “winning this game in class.”

Play around a little

Mindlessly including a copy of a predictable “interaction” doesn’t make for better learning any more than riding the D train makes you a New Yorker.  As the noted instructional designer Mary Chapin Carpenter urges,

Show a little passion, baby, show a little style
Show the knack for knowing when
and the gift for knowing how…

If you’d like to acquire or strengthen that knack, try this advice from game designer Richard Powers.

Circle image adapted under a CC license from this original by Patrick Hoesly.

Jonah Lehrer at The Frontal Cortex talks about “feelings of knowing” — how we feel sure we know what we can’t retrieve from memory. He’s talking about tip-of-the-tongue things: you can’t quite remember who played the sheriff of Nottingham in Robin and Marian, but you know he had a short last name that started with S.

Lehrer suggests that this “feeling of knowing” is often highly accurate.  (I hadn’t considered this concept before, so I’m glad Lehrer linked to this study (PDF) by Janet Metcalfe.) This comes into play (as he notes) when Jeopardy contestants click the buzzer without (presumably) knowing the answer: they’re betting that they will know it (retrieve it) within five seconds.

And often, they’re right.

The larger point is that we won’t get a genuinely “human” version of artificial intelligence (not to mention more energy efficient computers) until our computers start to run emotion-like algorithms. What Watson needs isn’t a bigger hard drive or some more microchips – he needs to develop feelings of knowing, which will tell him that he probably knows the answer even if he’s still drawing a blank.

For decades, we’ve assumed that our emotions interfere with cognition, and that our computers will outpace us precisely because they aren’t vulnerable to these impulsive, distracting drives. But it turns out that we were wrong. Our fleeting feelings are an essential aspect of human thought, even when it comes to answering the trivia questions on Jeopardy.

In an update, Lehrer links to a later post by Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks, who sees the early-buzzing of Jeopardy players as a kind of metacognition. “It’s being able to manage your mental resources based on estimations.”

My previous post talked about goals related to a complex problem.  I even reframed the problem, from “losing weight” to “being in good shape.”  Yes, there are still covert qualifiers, but the main thrust is: poke and prod a problem statement for a while.  This is what Joe Harless had in mind with his dictum that an ounce of analysis is worth a pound of objectives.

You want to look for some evidence that the possible causes are in fact contributing to the problem.  Evidence is what helps prevent cause-jumping, charging full-tilt toward a solution based on the cause you’re sure is at work.

Outside of its meaning in Morocco, Louis Renault’s order to round up the usual suspects is not all that different from prescribing doses of training to solve some pressing on-the-job problem.

I’ve been studying Weight Watchers as one multifaceted approach to losing weight, whether as an end in itself or as part of an  overall goal of good health.  I see a cluster of “health skills” that are like constituent skills from Ten Steps to Complex Learning:

• Eat smart (when you’re in charge)
• Dine smart (as a guest, in a restaurant, at a party)
• Shop smart (at the grocery store)
• Cook smart
• Live smart (get along with those you live with)

I’m sure there are plenty of others, and not all apply to everyone: maybe you don’t cook much and don’t want to.  The various tools and approaches used by Weight Watchers work in different ways as part of a performance system.

For example, they rate food by points based on fiber, calories, and fat.  You calculate your own point allowance based on your age, your height, your sex, your activity level, and your starting weight.  My initial “point budget” was 33% higher than my wife’s.  That meant I didn’t start out feeling as though I was going to starve to death.

Performance standards: I haven’t yet done the math, but I’m pretty sure your point allowance aligns with the Mayo Clinic’s strategy of setting a realistic goal for weight loss.  To lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, they say, you need to burn 500 – 1,000 more calories per day than you take in.

Monitoring and feedback: By tracking your points, you’re increasing your awareness of what you eat.  I use a third-party app on my phone, but there are also paper checklists, including some with a grid to track your state of mind throughout the day (full, satisfied, hungry).

Social support: people like my wife participate in weekly meetings, with the benefit of both the meeting leader and the other people working through the program.  For me, it’s mainly the fact that the two of us have collaborated (for four months now).

Process change: in a series of 10 booklets, the program offers quick-start tips, menu ideas (with points already calculated), suggestions for increasing your physical activity, and even strategies based on the particular problems or setbacks you identify in yourself.

In a related change, we spend about 45 minutes each weekend picking out dinner recipes for the week, then building a grocery list based on those menus.  (An unexpected discovery: many of the recipes in Jacques Pépin’s cookbooks fit our “point budgets” just as they come.  This one I estimate at 6 points per serving; my daily allowance is 32.)

♦ ♦ ♦

I don’t want to turn this post into a dieting column.  Really, I’m looking at a number of ways to go about accomplishing what Tom Gilbert would call a worthwhile result.  And part of the point is that long-term, significant performance requires a wide variety of interventions.  Some are pretty straightforward, procedural skills: learn to manage portion size; always track points.  Some are more situational.

Most, if not all, have evidence to support their value.  Whether that evidence is pertinent to you is something else.  Evidence suggests, for instance, that frequent monitoring of weight (like weighing yourself daily) helps you progress and also maintain the new weight once you reach your goal.  Helps, not guarantees.  But stepping on the scale every day isn’t usually too strenuous.

CC-licensed photo of retro scale by teresia.