Patrick Gage Kelley

Selling a product is hard. Selling a product that is only half finished and doesn’t really work and is of marginal utility anyway is hard. Even if it is free.

I mean, lets say we have a class of students and wanted to convince them to do some user testing on our half-finished product. Now we sort of want the user test to have results that are publishable or at least interesting. But we only realize this a week before we need to start the test, so we throw together some instructions around a study that we are already concerned about getting good results for. Then we justify it by saying it is a “zero-effort” study.

There is no such thing as a Zero-Effort Study.

The ZES is a myth and a lie. Any technology someone just has laying around cannot be tested for free (even if it works well). Study design is a bit of an art and a bit of a science and it needs to be developed and iterated on. Especially in a case where you have seen in the past (three times!!) that even people you pay to use your product stop using your product.

This is when it is time to step back and re-think where you are putting your effort. What are your goals? What are the barriers to entry? Where is the wow factor? What is the benefit of the product?

So are the technological issues related to my current work really so large that they cannot be remedied? No. They just haven’t been, we don’t have the resources and we don’t have the expertise. But this doesn’t mean we can pretend they are solved.

We started the ZES today. After twenty minutes of introduction and signing the consent form, we began install. Of the eighteen students, install went perfectly for zero of them. Four had Vista and we seem to have never tested on Vista. The other fourteen each had the same problem, they were not able to self-locate. A configuration bug. Another twenty minutes answering questions and trying to explain why to use the product, followed by the server being brought to its metaphorical knees.

False explanations were offered:

• We are currently running another study and that seems to be negatively impacting the server. (Except, that one is actually working)
• We have never seen issues like this before. (Except for everytime)
• We have some really great technology which is current set to “off,” maybe later in the semester we will turn it on. (Except it is only in our heads right now)

And after a total of seventy minutes, the students were told they could go, and updated instructions would be emailed to them. Seventy minutes to explain to them how to use a website (has any website ever taken you that long to learn?). Seventy minutes trying to fix the problems they were having setting up our ZES. Seventy minutes to trick them into using a product that they will likely stop using within a week, because it is hard to use, buggy, low on features, ugly, and doesn’t improve their life at all.

Reporter takes all my time away. Even as I have been making things change around here I have been more busy with Senior Design Projects and Reporter and Student Government, so I hardly have any time to post.

However, I wanted to welcome you to May, and also paste communist propaganda on this website here. Anyway, other than that things are good. I am ready to leave RIT. I am ready to move on and have a good time cleaning the basement all summer. I mean what could be better. Nothing. Exactly.

Anyway. More soon. Enjoy the month of … schools’ endings.

Well. There she is, the new REPORTER Magazine site, currently hosted on my own private webspace ( undertheemptyingsky.com ). You can go check it out. It is completely re-done from scratch. It has .pdfs of every issue (working on back-archiving), new extended RIT Rings (585.IRK.KNEE – drunk dial away!), extended interviews, sports game reviews, and fresh new drunk-dialed-podcasts of glory.

That has been pretty time consuming, and these initial weeks are leading to a lot of modifications and expansions, but it has been a fun project. Especially, as compared to my other project sgvote.rit.edu which I am doing for Student Government, and really for Cory, Greg, and Blair – they tricked me! But the site isn’t too bad, mostly just updating. The big hassle was elections (last week) but those are over now so things should be calming down.

And that just leaves me with Senior Design, some writing classes, working on getting a second major, graduating, and getting everything ready for a great travel filled summer and CMU in the fall (Did I mention I picked CMU?).

Wow this was an optimistic post. I better watch that.

I went to Seattle.

Really, it was a few weeks ago now (three), but I did go. The idea was to interview with Microsoft. I interviewed with both the Authoring Services (specifically OneNote) and the SharePoint team.

OneNote is a journaling/digital notebook tool that seems almost necessarily intended for tablets and laptops. It was pretty neat, and definitely my favourite of the teams I saw.

SharePoint was pretty blah, it is corporate document management software, which to me, is super boring.

The experience was pretty interesting though, the campus was not as nice as expected. It was leafy and green, but the buildings were pretty ugly and were all about the same. It was large, but it was so spread out that it wasn’t overwhelming. It also didn’t have much of a sense of unity, people weren’t walking around and talking outside (actually no one was outside) and it wasn’t even raining.

They shuttled all their interviewies around one at a time in hybrid cars. I played a fun game with the different drivers of these cars called the “How Many Buildings Are On Campus?” game. It seems to be a tough question. Some say forty, many said around sixty, one said eighty. The building numbers went up to around one-hundred twenty, but it is possible they skip around.

It was really sad to me to see that they had no concept of the overall company. I am used to an environment where knowledge like that is discouraged, and it was sad to see that at a company where it probably isn’t actively fought against, people still don’t care. The employees also had an awful hard time explaining to me the corporate structure above their own team, giving me a full list of how many groups there are (or even a nearly complete partial list).

Overall though, I was impressed, everyone was friendlier and more open that I expected, they also do a good job maintaining a smaller group feel which I think is nice. However, they decided they didn’t want me, which was too bad, because I wanted them to want me so I could turn them down. But I suppose the end result is the same, I am not working for Microsoft.

The rest of the trip was quite nice, exploring both Bellevue (a ritzy suburb of Seattle, close to Redmond) and also downtown Seattle. Specifically I had a great time at the Seattle Public Library (picture above), one of the best libraries ever, designed by Rem Koolhaas which opened just two years ago. That was great.

We went out to dinner Tuesday night (the day after my interview), in Bellevue, at the P.F. Chang’s there. While we were waiting for our food to arrive, a cute young blond waitress came over and told us “Guess what guys, Bill Gates just called, and he said he is coming in tonight – in a few hours – and you two are sitting at his table!!” That was pretty exciting, and it was a good table. Corner window booth, out of the way, nice view. That was exciting. We talked about staying and taking a really long time to see if they would kick us out, because King Bill was arriving.

We never got to find out because just about ten minutes later, CYB waitress came back over and said “Sorry guys, I was wrong … he is already here, right over there.” And so we look, and there he was, four booths away from us, eating dinner with Melinda. We were told later by the Starbucks staff that are in the same mini-indoor mall as P.F. Chang’s that he eats their frequently, once or twice a month, they see him all the time. I guess the richest man in the world likes his Americanized Chinese Food.

Have a good time with this Reporter Choose Your Own Adventure Activity.

I remembered today that I cannot continue to work where I am currently employed forever. Even, under the wild assumption that I decide to become a Computer Engineer (ha), then I need to work somewhere that is making products that I care about, somewhere that encourages thought and creativity and knowledge. An environment that is developmental would be wonderful.

I also need to add that although I am beginning to look forward to returning to school, I still attend a career-focused institution and the momentary lapse in judgment that led to that decision was probably a young boy who did not realize the difference between a career and an education. Most of the school has not figured it out; those who have are only trying to get out (or build little bubbles of preservation).

Why read, if it will not help you get a job? You can’t put the books you have read on your resume. You can’t put your hobbies and interests on your resume (though, mine are). You can’t even put the classes that are not in your major that you have taken on your resume (though again, mine are). The co-op office loves to point out that a perfect resume is one page, and lists all sort of engineering related fun in black and white. Graphics? On your resume? What, you think you are an art major? Yes, it turns out I do; if that means I can suddenly do whatever I want, then yes, I am an art major.

Carolyn is applying for Grad school. Within a year I will theoretically be doing the same. Will my resume be one page, in black and white, in Times New Roman, possibly even the default Word template for resumes. No. Will I be applying for a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, definitely not.

I have been taking my computer into work the past few days, and decided today it was time to go talk to my system admin. to see what I need to do to put it on the network.

So, I go in to his office, which is mind you literally four feet away from the computer lab where I have taken up residency of late, and say, “If I have a laptop, I could bring it in, right?”

He answers, yes and that is all fine, he just needs to look at it and make sure there is virus software installed and so forth, and then he will set it up to have network access.

Well, my computer is a 15” Titanium Powerbook, you know old school, no light-up keyboard, wireless reception not so good because it is hard to get signals through a titanium shell, been dropped a few too many times, laptop. It is also a mac.

Does it have virus software? No. Will it get a virus? Probably not, no one cares enough to make viruses, and it is built of linux so the security is decent to start with. So, I bring it in to his office, he looks at it, groans, and says “oh, it’s a mac”.

Why, yes. How kind of you to notice! It is a mac. He decides he doesn’t need to look at it and I am then allowed to return to my desk with double network access.

But, really it is ok, because I slept in a bunch. Which I seem to have needed. This also means that I should get home from work today and go right to bed, but that is not going to happen, because there are things I would rather do than sleep in the evenings.

Today is the holiday party in the office. I baked a full (triple batch) tray of apple crisp. It seems to have maintained its juicyness which is good, so I believe it to be a success. I am glad that today is the holiday party as I will be able to meet a lot of the other people in the office. I am going to go down soon and see if they need any help, even though they told me yesterday they were all set. I am meant to help clean up though.

I still have not posted the pictures from NYC, but I plan to do that soon. Tentaizu launched a new site recently: amy.tentaizu.com which is just getting ramped up but it is mainly a place for amy to keep a forum. She thinks she wants other things but she does not know what.

In 7 days and 4 hours I will be home. That will be a nice treat.

I am at work.

You know when you first start out and everything is still getting organized and you are not really sure of the direction in which you are to progress. I am all over that. I think it means I will spend a good portion of the day at the library.

I went to NYC this weekend for the first time ever. It turns out the city is larger than two days. It was nice though, a good vacation. I ate a lot of food. I saw a lot of buildings. There were many people on the streets; I was reminded of what a real city was like.

I got this cd while I was there. It is nice, I like it.

Have a nice day, I will post NYC pictures soon.

I am back to work; as much as anyone can be back to work on the first day. Tomorrow hopefully begins two weeks of introductory chinese, followed by some quantum physics, which is really going to involve writing dsp drivers to control a microscope. Luckily, January will roll around and Brian will save me.

And it is cold outside so I wear scarves.

no too much, make it end

yeah so i didn't do much work.

i am half registered, and i come back in a few months they are going to pretend to register me for more i guess.

and work didnt really get done, even though i did do the prob and stat hw which i guess is great and stuff. and now i have to go to that class because it starts in 20 minutes.

constitution tonight since the CE Labs are turned off and they are being checked or fixed or improved or something, all i know is that because of that i don't have to do my lab.

ok so stuff lots of it needs to be done?
and i don't want to do it, oh well.

time to continue on…
(Flash tonight really!)

i am behind, in this sure yes writing thing

but in school work i feel slightly as though doing nothing last week was a bad idea, since now i have far too much to do this week. let's see:

prob and stat hw (approx 30 minutes) due at 6 tonight constitution (approx infinite hours) hopefully by tuesday at 11, if not by saturday circuits test (approx 2 hours) tuesday at 2 vhdl lab (approx 4 hours) due tuesday at 4 comp sci lab (approx 1 hour) tuesday at 11:59:59 circuits lab (approx 2.5 hours) wednesday at 1 prob and stat test (approx 1 hour) wednesday night at 6 poetry essay/5 pages/last weeks hw (approx 2 hours) thursday at 6 not to mention, finding out about the LEAD job, probably tomorrow and also deciding what classes to take next year and/or this summer so i can be registered like a normal human, or something. Only two more weeks of school and then vacation that will be happy, i am excited. ok time to go wander around down academic side, and see if i can find anything informational out about what classes to take… later

i feel a little bit behind,
slightly backwards in time,
tilted and spinning on my side

ummm cs project icky, who really needs a heating simulator anyway, that sounds completely unnecessary i think.

i will go work on it for hours i suppose…

umm far too busy can't talk long i have to finish an essay due at 6, and then re-write the SO mission rules, because they might be used here next year in a modified form, for a freshman Honors Engineering project, how fun.

I got a job for next year as an FYE mentor, and i am really hoping to get the LEAD mentor job too, but i think jacqui might win due to her not doing as much as i already am planned to. Ummm blah blah blah. dinner tonight at 7:30 at some restaurant for engineering.

Stuff and things, and we finished our Yang 24 step long form – in tai-chi last class, it was enjoyable, but i am glad we finished because i cant go next week, due to the lead dinner.

Oh and i take prob and stat with young mondays and wednesdays at 6 so i am not in that class – cathy.

ok must go write, at least i dont have much to do after that dinner tonight

i am sitting around, getting e-mail every 2 minutes, because today is voting for Honors Officers, in the Honors Program. And they are e-mailed through me, before they are checked, and recorded. And i have a circuits lab that i am avoiding because it may take time.

Oh and amy just came in and used my printer but she is gone now. They had some big bio report thing due and they have all been really stressed, silly bio people they should know better. Ok time to go do circuits lab assuming i don't get distracted by flash, before class at 4.