The Epistemist

Ever since my site was hacked, I am seeing some really bizarre comments  caught by spam filter.  They all have embedded .ru URLs, and the texts read like some post-modern poetry. I am feeling almost compelled to deconstruct them…

Here are some of them:

#1

I am sorry, this variant does not approach me. Who else, what can prompt?
Today I read on this question much.
I recommend to you to come for a site on which there are many articles on this question.
You commit an error. I suggest it to discuss. Write to me in PM, we will talk.
I can consult you on this question. Together we can come to a right answer.

#2

I am assured, that you are mistaken.
I perhaps shall keep silent
I think, that is not present.
))))))))))))))))))) it is matchless
Should you tell it — a false way.

#3

In it something is. Many thanks for an explanation, now I will not commit such error.
Has casually come on a forum and has seen this theme. I can help you council.
It is exact
I know a site with answers to a theme interesting you.
I apologise that, I can help nothing. But it is assured, that you will find the correct decision.

Google Voice is a very useful service and has many cool features, including voice mail transcription. It is also endlessly entertaining when it attempts to transcribe messages in foreign languages. I frequently get voice mails from my Russian-speaking friends and family, and the Google transcripts are hilarious. Here is what Google thinks the callers were saying:

Vaguely business-sounding:
I was on yesterday was and schedule before the use of the estimate based on the body of it because the designation weather or what the yeah she doesn’t look good. Lunch Program.

Sinister:
Well I’m Linda all my money right now. I’ve been watching for you on your.

International flair:
Well, I’ll talk with each other. I just want to discuss poorest via Samos messages and Campbell. Bittel horrible. And don’t worry I’m not. Hey I’m on my telephone so is the voice him that he said he said lucky session resources. David’s you really my cellphone, Hi, this is the voice in just left, so if you have a Steven off of the Lebanese if you bye.

Project Runway :
Or  you  read  this  all  otherwise  have  several  show.  Yes,  you  assume  you’re  at  it.  I  know  that  quit  their  intention  is  going  great.  I  would  really  love  her  so  go  ahead.  Sorry  you  and  we  are  a  model  you  know  that  they’re  celebrating  again.  You  know  we’ll  see  if  she  was  because  yo  dude,  I  was  hoping  for  a  couple  of  Appointment  door  sweating  new  address.  Andrew,  which  is  restrictions.  How  are  you.  I’m  gonna  send  it,  couple  of  minutes.  Okay.

And finally – existential:
Well  I’m  calling  in  life.

David Kay and I presented at Technology Services World conference last week.  The topic of our presentation was “Creating Strategic Alignment Across a Large, Complex Organization” – covering the process we went through to bring multiple business areas at Intuit together to create a comprehensive Knowledge Management Framework. This was a very interesting journey, and the lessons learned were not just about Knowledge Management processes, but also about change management.

Below is the session description, and the text of the presentation is available here.

Wednesday 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Location: Grand B

Some time last month, my site was hacked by some imbecils for some nefarious botnet malfesance. To add insult to injury, the attack was apparently coming from Russia. Probably some dropout from my old high school in Moscow, with IQ too low to become an oligarch and too high to get accepted into KGB (or whatever they call themselves these days). Google Webmaster Central helpfully flagged the site as malware,  but neglected to notify me that it did. I could not even access the site admin panel from FireFox, had to go use  a computer with IE which was very nonchalant about allowing me access to  malware-infested site. Ughh. I had to rebuild the entire site (and put it on automatic backup).

“Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.”

David Sedaris, Reflections, Loggerheads, The New Yorker, December 7, 2009, p. 42

  Swarms:  Spontaneous Collaborative Problem Solving Events

One of the ideas for my research

Unlike the well-structured traditional problem resolution process, the  collaborative problem resolution that I am  interested in is frequently ad-hoc. Groups self-organize around a problem, and dissolve after the solution has been identified (hence the “swarm”).  In fact, the most successful problem-solving  results are produced by highly diverse groups from different functional areas.  The activity of joining such group could be considered a social ritual. This unarticulated ritual includes the trigger for group’s creation, the explicit or implicit permission for joining the group, the level of information-sharing in the group, the norms for using the knowledge generated in the problem-solving process, and, finally, the protocol for exiting and dissolving the group.  Traditionally, these ad-hoc groups are observed in an open face-to-face environment, where people can easily join a conversation that they happen to overhear. Collaboration becomes more challenging  in the digital environment, where participants are not interacting face-to-face. What are the new social rituals for collaborative problem-solving in the digital domain? Is it acceptable to forward and email with the question to another person who many have insights? Is it OK to quote any of the participants and what level of attribution is expected?  And so on.

The type of collaboration I have been talking about so far is the collaboration between members of the same organization. In the last decade, a new type of collaboration has emerged  –  Internet-facilitated collaboration between complete strangers providing  value to an organization they are unaffiliated with.  This type of collaboration is frequently referred to as “crowdsourcing”.  In this type of collaboration, large groups of people may solve problems through interaction in online forums (Microsoft Usenet forums or Novell Sysops forums) , generate encyclopedia content (Wikipedia.com, Mahalo.com) ,  offer tax and accounting advice to each other (Intuit Live Community), write literary reviews (Amazon.com, LinraryThing.com), generate entertainment (or what goes for entertainment these days – YouTube.com) and so on. Collaboration of this type is purely digital  and has different social rituals around it.

Today, I was wading though layers of voice IVR options to get some questions answered on a cryptic letter from my brokerage. After one of menu selections the robotic voice responded: “Due to the type of the account you have, I feel you will be better served by talking to one of our representatives”. Really? This IVR feels?  So that is where the missing emotion chip is installed!

In designing technical  support processes, it is critically important to understand the difference between issues and incidents. There is a subtle but clear difference,  but the teams often mix the two together, causing churn and wasted resources.

An incident is a problem report from an end-user; it generally describes the specific symptoms being experienced that may be unique to a particular environment or setup. Incidents are all about the customer; they are managed at the Tier 1 support level and tracked in a CRM system.

An issue is the underlying problem that caused the incident; it may impact more than one customer. Issues are all about the product, and are managed at Tier 2 level.  All issues should be captured in a Knowledge Base; they are worked on in a CRM or a bug-tracking system.

Issues are resolved by Tier 2 or Tier 3; associated incidents are closed by Tier 1 – with  a loop back to the customer!

The churn occurs when incidents are handled one after another without consideration of what the underlying issue may be. This is why it is so important to use KB with every customer interaction, so that every incident can be traced to its root cause through an issue.

I have finished the writeup for my dissertation research design (deliverable for KA 753B); here is an excerpt with the problem statement and the method overview.  This will go into my concept paper.

(Full text here).

Research Problem

In most cases, when a person is faced with a challenge or a problem, he resolves it through an individual cognition process, and by accessing his personal knowledge base, which may include known facts, information and existing experience in solving similar problems, plus the knowledge about how and where to access additional resources. This type of problem-solving is a solitary and slow process, and may be quite inefficient, especially in a time-sensitive situation. It may also be ineffective if the prior experience or readily available resources are not adequate for the particular type of the problem.  In some environments, people are beginning to turn to collaborative problem-solving instead. More often than not, this collaborative problem-solving is not a part of a structured, well-defined issue resolution process, but rather is a product of self-organized, ad-hoc collaboration between weakly connected, cross-functional team members.  Experts and non-experts “swarm” over a problem until it is resolved. Only one person in this group has the actual responsibility to resolve the problem, and yet the group assumes collective ownership of the challenge. The groups are typically very small – 3-7 people. None of the participants in this collaborative problem-solving event may have the complete knowledge set that would allow them to solve the problem individually, but by integrating their individual experiences and knowledge banks, they co-construct the new knowledge about the problem at hand that gives the group the tools to solve the problem.

I am interested in understanding and describing the qualitatively different ways that the participants in these “swarms” make meaning of their experience. My main research question is: “How do people in collaborative problem-solving groups understand their experience?” If we knew more about how the individuals involved understand their experience, it might help us understand the genesis, operation, dissolution, and re-emergence of such groups.

Method

The method I am planning to use is phenomenography. The reason I am considering this method is that it is well-suited for understanding the experiences of people, and especially for uncovering the differences between the ways people process their experiences.

Phenomenography is a second-order research method. In the first/second order dichotomy, first-order research describes the phenomenon as the researcher experiences it, while second-order research method focuses on other’s descriptions and experiences with the phenomenon.  Phenomenography originated in Europe as a method to explore students’ conceptions of a learning process (Booth 1997; Marton 1981a; Marton 1981b; Marton and Booth 1997; Marton and Pang 2006; Renstrom, Andersson and Marton 1990). The method has since been applied to other group learning and sense-making scenarios (Andretta 2007; Collin 2006; Osteraker 2002; Paloniemi 2006; Prewitt 2005; Vallee 2006). A particular strength of phenomenography is its focus on the differences between the way individuals experience a process or a part of a process. As a result, the variety of points of view can create a rich fabric of meaning. In addition to enriching our knowledge of the meaning-making, phenomenography offers a strong practical application: since some ways of understanding the experience are more productive than others (Marton 1994), focusing individuals on understanding their experience in these more productive ways will help them   to contribute and cooperate better. With this in mind, an ordered and prioritized list of people’s conceptions may help managers coach and mentor employees to support and promote the valuable mindsets. It also may help create better problem-resolution outcomes by focusing participants on a particularly productive way of framing the experience, and accelerate knowledge transition from tacit to explicit.