Evaluation and Design

If we were to re-design blogger kind of thing, we need to consider the following aspects, as mentioned in the mind map.

Besides these, there can be numberous other users, and uses of this application। Technology keeps changing, and so we humans also keep adapting accordingly। So for today's technology, focus should not be on covering all substances in our product, but to make it so adaptable, and upgradable, that it can be used with anything, and everything। Like, if we could link it with some of the existing applications, like facebook, myspace or orkut, then it will become more wide in reach, and more accaptable.

As an example for the same, the mind-map is developed in an application from the site "http://bubbl.us/" which has adapted itself according to the changing technology. The output of this application can be embedded and used with any other site. So in a way, this application has become more accaptable, and adaptable.

Our design should also follow this approach, to have more adaptable designs.

A real Life Video Conference.

Fig. A real life video Conference (Mr Jose, and other fellow members)

Here is an analysis of the real experience about the Video Conference that happened in this session, vs the theories read and put on blog after last session.

Conducting a real life video conference is totally a different experience from that reading in theories, or planning sitting behind table. When doing the real stuff, we don't remember any theory. There are no designs, or approaches in mind, but just one clear aim, to make them understand what we mean.

When we were there, trying to put system in proper place, all things were like.....uncertainity about what is going to happen. "Oh god, my slides are not visible to them, what to do now? Can we put it on the front screen, can we focus camera on the Laptop"...and all sorts of combination keeps going.

Then some intelligent guy helps us putting the slides on screen. Thank God ( & thanks to Anil). Now we can sit and think about proceeding for the conference. What was our theory....oh yes, Soft System Methodology.
OK, i have the notes ready, about the CATWOE...

So..Clients...The Trainers and Trainees(as per previous blog). That's us, and the people on the other side. But here, even the operator helping us this transmission, and the audience guiding and watching us, become the part of this conference. And hence, were the clients of this Conference.

Then it occurred like, let's check if they can hear our voice, or not. "Hello Simon....can u hear me."
"Yes..i am getting you. Are you getting me?"
Yes, voice can be transferred now. And video too. Lets get started with talks; we'll see the Theory later.
And when we started talking, one point lead to another, one topic bought another. Introduction, then contact details, then schedule...everything kept flowing. There was no Soft System Methodology anywhere in the talks.

Actors were all the members, taking part in the conference, not only the trainer. Because every one was teaching something, and everyone was learning from others.

Owner, in the notebook, we mentioned as Parent Company. But here, everyone owns the video conference because activity of each member affects the conference. When the designer allows everyone to make changes in systems, everyone becomes the owner. If parent company proposes some schedule, but child company do not agrees, how can parent company alone be the owner of this training system? All users, having permission to make changes, becomes the owner.

Environment, was it only the seminar hall, or the meeting room in both companies?....NO. One team member was not available that day, might be due to bad weather. So bad weather in this country affected the conference going in some other country. The length of Mic wire also had an impact on the ease of people in conference. So Environment should include the climate, the physical things, and even the aroma of the company.

Transformation: changes that are affected by this system. The training do has a huge transformation on the skills, but the thing that we all were trying to achieve was, to make ourselves clearly understood to the other person. Be it about any technology that training is about, or the culture, or even the time-difference between two locations. The main aim was, to bring them on a common ground, to make them understand, what we have in mind.

World View, or, how the system is perceived in a particular root definition. It's this whole blog, with our views about the Video Conference. And also the comments put on this post, which gives views of other people about the conference.

Soft Systems Methodology for Video Conferencing

As an Employee of Company Q, we need to provide training to employees of company U.
For the same, we need tp considering the SSM(Soft Systems Methodology)(checkland & Poulter, 2006). Need to use the technique called CATWOE:

Description :
The training to be given, should include the following things involved:
1) Inducation program about the company.
2) Methods for using existing Systems.
3) Cultural/ Best Practices Training.
4) Training Related to Work / Technology.

CATWOE:
T: Transformation : The people should work with new people, new company, new rules, technology, and culture. So there is a need to smooth transition, so that they dont feel too much uncomfortable.

C: Clients: Trainers, & Trainees.

A: Actor : Trainer.

W: Worldview: The best possible method for this training would be through Video Conferencing.
Because it provides
1) face-to-face communication, which is very much effectice than on phone.
2) World wide scope,
3) Time & Cost effecient.

O: Owners : Parent Company.

E: Envirnment: Some seminar hall, or meeting room in both companies.

Activities for a meaningful training.
1) Intractive - people should take part in it.
2) Should inculde interesting Presentations, Videos, and if possible, games.
3) Information about the products, equipments, technologies, tools, if provided by parent company & ways to use them.
4) Belbin Questionair, & understanding & alloting roles to employees.

Session 6 Workshop

Background
Your group produced a narrative about how to organise a video conference between two companies. You were encouraged to use ideas about co-ordination (session 5 lecture). Now you can grasp some concepts for co-ordination design.

Part A
Our group played the company Q role, we have discussed about how will we better manage emotions and language, and how will we better communicate.

Emotion: We shall stay calm, and we shall be patient, for the reason that the people from company U might have a bad mood. And assure them about job in company.

Language: Use some common language like English, and we should include persons who have UK ascent, as translators. Another point is that everything should be in written form, like slides, so that people can read it, while someone speak.

Communication: To use video conference for a face to face talk.
To have a talk about culture, supporting things, along with business, to provide them a comfort level.

Part B

Explain:

Common Ground - Refers to common things/knowledge/language as experience between people communicating.

Affordance - Any object, along with its surroundings/content. Eg. Tools, along with their use.

Space - Complete scope, extension, barriers. eg. Using background screen for discussion or using different angles or views in conference, or different place/room/world.

Deictic - Point out. To 'point to' or 'refer to' something.

Part C

Instructions:

1> Get information about resources at the other end.
2> Tell our requirements to them, vice versa.
3> Plan about the meeting venue, time, duration.
4> Have a common plan/flow of conference/schedule, mention specific time slots for each activity.
5> Fix the agenda.
6> Check the equipments, try connection.
7> Action

At last
In session 6, we learnt about how to better manage emotions and language, and how can we better communicate with others. Video conference is a good way to communicate with people far away, because we can talk them face to face. Every tiny change on their face can we notice well, so we know well how they feel, and then, we can better decide in which way to mention the things we want to discuss. Time managing is important too, before we set up an real video conference, we should consider about what kind of things should be done before. Also, we realized that utlizing well the environment sometimes can give us a big help in communicating with others.

Video conference

Session 5
Your comany are going to set up a video conference with another company (they bought your company). Your are going to discuss how people will be re-assign some staff to other jobs.

- Preparation:

1> Book the room
2> Check equipments, PC. Test them once. Try connections.
3> Assign a host for meeting, and someone to take minute of meeting. Can call some technical assistant, if available.
4> Confirm the timings with the other team in parent company.
5> Make sure recording is in place, or have to request for it.

- Content/ structure

1> Decide an agenda, & people going to attend.
2> Alot time slots to different sections / people in meeting.
3> Brief intro about things that will be discussed.
4> Prepared with data(slides, data sheets, video etc. )
5> Set up around 5mins for response time.

-Closing

1> People who are re-assigned, should be clear with their new job.
2> Some person to contact, in case of anyone has some doubts.
3> Well documented MOM.

-If not achieve

1> find the reason/ problem.
2> find the solution, discuss with Parent company team members.
3> Re-assign another meeting.




above note is which we make in class time, please every member leave comment or what you want to add into the note to finish it.

PS: thanks Vishal's note.

Merging two companies(session 4)

Wednesday 22/10/08

There are two companies: company Q, which is based in India and company U, which is based in the U.K. Company U, which has 15 employees, wants to merge with company Q of 200 employees.

In the case like this some emotional aspects would happen, such as:

In company U

Employees: They have to work with a new boss so they might feel unhappy. There may be some fears of reducing staffs and for losing their jobs. They will have some stress for their future position and lots of problems because of living in the new country with a different culture, doubts about their salary, environment changing, assigning new roles, changing of their work habits, a new timetable and so on. On the other hand some good feelings due to working for a bigger company.

Managers: Some bad feelings because of the fear of losing jobs or responsibilities and some as above.


Owners: They earned money so they might be happy but due to losing the company may feel sad.

Shareholders: The prices will go high so it is highly likely that they feel happy.

Customers: They feel sad and unaffected.

In company Q

Employees: They might have some fears of losing their jobs or their previous positions but they have chances of more work. They will have more responsibilities.

Managers: They may be worried about the performance.

Owners: They will have more responsibility but their business will expand so it makes them happy

Shareholders: They might have some fears for the performance.

Customers: They will feel happy.

To improve communication on each side: Training events for company U about work practices, cultures, communication skills and their new roles can help. Some social activities, get together, throwing parties can help.

Support of information technologies: Video conference, emails, phones……….

In addition to that there are some strategies to make this merging smooth:
At first they can arrange some meetings for the managers and leaders of both companies to get to know each other .They should explain to employees of both companies why they do this merging.
Company Q can give assurance to the employees of company U by saying for example we won’t fire you in the next six months, try to give them the same salary, use some of company U work experience for the new company so they will feel that they are useful. Try to give the sense to company U employees that the environment hasn’t changed. Company Q should understand company U requires and provide some equipment for them.
Company U employees should share their experience and their customers with the new company and follow the new roles and timetable and the things like that of the new company.

Session 3___Note(move from Abis's)

---6 similarties
a.Cook by ourself
b.Need to communicate
c.To complete work fast, better
d.Managing time, even if it takes longer
e.Same purpose
f.Team roles

---6 differences
a.Send letter instead of E-mail.
b.Time(Longer)
c.grtting lost, not clear about the direction & distance (no car, GPS) & Time.
d.The way we cook.
e.Transportation, walking, horse, instead of trains, bus, cars.
f.for food: No shops there. have to hunt / fish, picking fruit, veg from trees.

---What do you learn about human beings in general from this comparison of collaboration nowand in the past?

In some wats it was more difficult in the oast and in others easier. For example they couldntjust buy food from supermarkets, they had to hunt/fish. But now people can buy things by usingInternet without goingout but they have to study and work harder.

---Tools?

In the past they had to rife a horse or walk but now using trainsm buses, etc. So now it's moredangerous but faster and sometimes easier.

---Communication?
In the past it was very difficult to communicate around the world but now its easier and faster.

---Cultural change and innovation.

Now wecan learn other cultural by traneling to other countries and so some things from the pastmight change. In the past people followed the rules of their cultural more then now.

Activity Theory: Implications for Human-Computer Communications

Communication, for any individual, is the essence of existence. To communicate, is a symbol of life, desires, or emotions. Creatures without communication, are like dumb piece of furniture kept aside.

And as we see in present scenario, communication has rather became an Art, a thing to learn, and practice, and to improve upon. Proper communication channels has always been the basic necessity for a progressing community, since many centuries. But now, communication has gone one step further. Need of effective communication has become vital element, not only for human-machine, and even between machines.

As is described by Mr Victor Kaptelinin in his theory about Implications of Activity Theory in Human-Computer Interaction, rate of development in technology is directly related to improvements in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). All people working with computers, including not only the graphic designers, or software engineers, but even people from Medical, Psychology or even finance streams, face serious problems in putting their thoughts into the actual practical implementation on the system. They find it difficult to communicate to system, about how to respond to certain situations. These dumb systems do not has minds like humans, and it understands only a specific set of commands, as designed by the architects.

So instead of treating computers as just a tool, which Mr Kaptelinin did in his above mentioned theory, we need to keep Humans and Computers into a single 'community' under the Activity Modal. And hence, we must be interacting with computers as like another human, understanding what they say, and telling them what we want. And the tools may include the hardware, or even the logical code used by the systems, for its analysis over the objective.

And like said in the Diversity Modal, 1989, by Fig . Kaptelinin, Victor(1994)
Hirschheim and Klein, this communication can
be kept in the first quadrant. This communication will have a clear objective, computer should understand very clearly, what is it told to do.And to complete the said task, it can use its analytical ability, to find an orderly way to achieve its objective.

Fig. Hirschheim and Klein(1989)

With limited set of rules to interact with systems, the other dimensions also gets bounded. Due to these limitations, even the best modals find it difficult to put the effectively designed systems in place. And this gap in communication becomes the hindrance for an efficient society, where humans and computer can coexists at same level.

And hence arises the need for an effective way of communication between humans and computer.


References :

Kaptelinin, Victor(1994). Activity Theory: Implications for Human-Computer Interaction NATO ASI SERIES F COMPUTER AND SYSTEMS SCIENCES

Hirschheim and Klein(1989) The Diversity Modal

The Medieval Meeting

Event : A Dinner Meeting @ a cave near Niger river waterfall, in some jungle of Songhai Empire (near Egypt) North Africa.


Time : The fifth Sunset after lunar eclipse, 1500 B.C.


Situation : A group of 5 people having dinner in a cave near Niger River Waterfall, sharing there food, knowledge, and experiences. (Fig. Taken from google.com)


People Involved : Allan & Echo (farmers turned to wanderers), Abis & Vishal (The hunters), Sepideh (wood cutter)


Course of Action : Allan & Echo, once farmers in the Yoruba village, were forced to leave the village. A deadly 'Diarrhoea' engulfed whole village into its claws, and forced people to migrate to new places. So to find a new better place to live, Allan and Echo kept wandering in jungles for three days, eating fruits, and sleeping on trees.
On fourth day of there travel, they reached near the edge of jungle, and heard the water falling near by. Tired by long travel, they thought of resting nearby water for a day or two. But when they reached near the waterfall, they saw a huge well built human being (Abis), with clothing of deer skin. A bow in hand, and arrows in quivers, with a net for animals, he looks like a hunter, sitting nicely on a rock.
Allan & Echo got bit afraid at starting, but hunter just looked at them, and neglected them as if they were very normal harmless creatures for that well equipped giant. Echo moved towards the river for a sip, while allan went bit closer to Abis. But Abis was not at all moved, knowing that these creatures cannot harm him. Then Allan collected a bit confidence, and said "meeng-gah-bou" (means Hello). This started a chain of talks between them. Allan told him his story. And Hunter told, that he's waiting for his another hunter friend, Vishal. Vishal & Abis had departed from same place a month ago, in search of nearest village, and had decided to meet at same place after 30 days. Now when Vishal din't arrived, Abis had no option, but to wait for his friend. Echo also joined the discussion, but her talks mostly consisted about locations for food, and water nearby.

Suddenly they heard a scream of a woman, as if attached by some wild animal. All three rushed in the direction of voice. Lady was still screeching in fear, so it dint took them much time to reach her. They saw a wild jackal wildly attacking the lady. She was unarmed, helpless, and bleeding. All that she could do, was to cry for help, and that's what she was doing. Without wasting time, Abis straightened the bow, drew arrow, and charged on jackal. Shot was perfect, but not fatal for that wild beast. Seeing so many people, it dodged into the forest.

Allan & Echo picked up the lady, but she was already fainted. Abis said that it was not good to stay here in open, as the hurt beast might come back with his pack. He knew a cave nearby, which would be safer place to keep the lady. Everyone agreed. Soon they reached the cave, a bit down side the river. It was nice for safety, but very cold. They thought of putting some fire. Abis and Allan collected some woods, while Echo took care of her wounds. Soon, they were had collected enough woods for night. By this all time, the lady under attack (Sepideh) got up, and described herself as a woodcutter from Ghana, which she left because of too strict traditions of their tribe. She wanted to live free, and so she was looking for a new home.

Before they could lit the woods, Abis saw some smoke up side the river. He became happy, and told Allan, this was the signal, his friend Vishal used to indicate his location. So the smoke means, he has arrived to the place. He rushed to meet his friend, saying that they will return soon.
Very soon, he returned back, with his hunter friend, having same clothing and tools as Abis.

He told everyone, that he succeeded in finding a new village, at the foothills of third hill towards West. It will take four days to reach there. But since it was dusk, they all decided to stay in same cave, and start the next morning. Abis and Vishal went for some hunting for food, and Abis went to get some water in a goatskin-parchment from Vishal. Abis and Vishal returned with a deer hanging on back. Allan also managed to catch a fish from the river. Echo had collected some fruits from nearby trees, while Sepideh had cleared up the place using a leaf made broom, for a neat and tidy dinner. (Fig. Google.com)

They all collected there foods, and cooked it, and shared it with their experiences.

Initiatives: To have a safe place to spend night.

Communication: Face to face, gestures, body language, shouting, smoke.

Tools used in process: Bow and arrows, wood, parchments, leave made broom.

Outcome: This meeting gave a nice experience of life. Different people come together, and meet each others, and then moves towards a same goal. Now everyone will have a new, better and safe place to live.
(All figures taken from google.com)

Our first meeting

Event: Dinner @ TOMMY’S PUB, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK.

Time: 8:00 PM, Thursday, 09.10.2008

Situation: In Thursday’s afternoon session, Mr Simon has allotted the groups to all students. One group decides to know each other, socialize, and shares each other’s culture, tastes, skills & roles by means of an informal dinner as mentioned above.

Purpose: To discuss about name of team, project subject and title, to decide dates for future proceedings and meetings, and of course, to enjoy and have fun.

People Involved: Sepideh, Allan, Echo, Abis, Vishal

Action Proceedings: After the project groups were allotted to us, we met in the class, and a small session of introduction, and exchanged e-mail ID’s and phone numbers. Then to become more familiar to each other, & to decide about further steps of action, we all decided to have an informal meeting at some non-academic location, like some pub. Since most people stayed in university campus, we decided to have the meet in TOMMY’S PUB.
Then a group mail was sent by Vishal, to remind everyone about the meeting, and to collect the RHUL ID’s of whole group. Echo & Abis took the responsibility of getting all stationary items (diary, charts, markers etc.) that might be needed during our meeting. Allan, since living in-campus, was supposed to book the table for us in advance, in case there was too much rush that day. Sepideh would take down the minutes of meeting. Vishal would manage & take charge of meeting proceedings.
And also, everyone decided to cook and bring the food from home, so as to share the real taste of everyone’s culture, (and also to save costs, food at TOMMY’S is bit costly!!!)
Then on Thursday, we all were very eager about our first informal meeting with our colleagues, with whom we would be working for rest of the year. All well dressed up, and ready to have fun, started for the destination TOMMY’S PUB. Everyone reached almost around same time, except Allan, who was already waiting for us on a table nicely placed in a corner, bit away from rest of the crowd. And also, except Echo, she was late as she missed her bus. When we called her, she was on her way, and reached a small bit later. The meeting started at 08:15 PM.

Agreements/ Outcomes: In the meeting, we all had nice discussion about ourselves, our lands, families, the food, cinema, and little bit about project also. We came up with the following roles for each of us in the project:Sepideh (Complete finisher): Typing, Documentation, Organizing meetings.Allan (Compete finisher): Researching, Managing information, and accounts.Abis (Shaper): Manager, Planner, and Leader of team.Echo (Resource Investigator): Collecting information, funds.Vishal (Plant): Presentations, preparations, Documentation.

And with the following Deadlines:Understanding, and developing concept – 1 week,Planning & Development - 3 weeks,Implementation – 3 weeks,Close-out – 1 week.Hence, to finish off the project two weeks before the original, official deadline.

Initiatives: To have a feel of real world working environment, get experience, learn, and also to get good marks, and an A+ grade.

Communication: Face to face, then though e-mails, phones, SMS, message passing, and sometimes, just by actions (gestures).

Tools used in process:
Technologies: Internet, Telephone networks.Physical tools: Computer, Mobile Phones, pagers, Pen, Paper.Public Transport: Trains, Buses, Cars.

Outcome: Our first meeting was a real success in terms of achieving the targeted goals. We all get to know each other well, and have a nice free-flow communication between us. After this meeting, we felt like we will certainly do good in our project, and will have a nice time with each other for whole year.