Perhaps there are really interesting and important problems in this space, but I’m not entirely sure that we, as designers of future technologies, should impose this on any household.

First, I have a practical concern. Perhaps that homework maybe helped by going online to look up references and resources. Of course copying may also occur, but its still not clear to me that turning off the Internet wouldn’t lead to more difficulty in doing a good job with the assignment.

But that’s not where the majority of my concern lies. I think of my own teenage years, and also the teens I met as part of my research. There’s a creativity that comes with the ability to use technology unseen and unknown by parents. For example, I once met a son who had managed to run Ethernet all the way from his parent’s office to his room in order to covertly use the network. Another time I met a sister who texted her younger brother to let her in when she came home sufficiently late and sufficiently drunk that she couldn’t open the front door. She knew that even though he had a curfew for stopping using the phone that under the sheets he’d be online texting his friends. In these and other cases there were rules about technology and its use, and rules were made to be broken.

It seems like an imposition of our values onto those who use the Internet. We think technology can be used to constrain and even terminate access, so why shouldn’t we impose that on everyone? I really find myself uncomfortable with the idea that we should. Are their other ways, are those ways good enough.

I resist this example because it feels too comfortable. I think it allows us to overlook and potentially ignore a set of practices and counter practices that perhaps are really central to the experience of being in a family. I wonder whether this example is as dangerous as the one in which a woman is portrayed as a naive technology user (my Mother/Granny couldn’t ).

But I also know it because slowly over time some of them have taken a bit of time after the class to hang out with me and chat. And I’ve enjoyed that its a reward to have people just open up and talk a bit rather than scurrying off to the next class, or away from the current one.

I turned out the light in the classroom I’ve been going to for 16 weeks, twice a week. I was the first one there on that first day and the last one out on the last. As I turned it off I ended another chapter of teaching, another set of memories and experiences. And these have been good and I will not forget them. And I will be excited about the next set I will create, but right now, I’m feeling some loss for the ones that are now past.

One thing that has helped me in the past is a spreadsheet where I can see what’s due, and what I have to do to submit the letter. I’ve had a variety of spreadsheets. What works best for me is the least amount of information I need to be able to make the submission. Name of place, department, means of submission and deadline. That may well be different from what the candidate needs, but I need to be able to see the entire critical content in one screen on my laptop, because frequently that’s where I am sending letters from.

Some institutions have electronic systems that trigger letter requests which also helps me manage my process. It does so because when I receive the request I can process the letter and usually I remember to update the letter tracker. Other institutions do not actively prompt the letter writer to send the letter. Then I like the applicant to send me an email with the submission instructions, which prompts me to submit that letter.

So, I’m asking job applicants to help me help them recruit. I need a place where I can quickly see what’s due and log what I’ve done. I also need reminders about what does not trigger automatic letter requests. That way I can do this in a timely manner while still coping with everything else I’m doing!

It [contemporary technology trends] isn’t just about computer science anymore, either. That isn’t where you go to find out how technology changes people’s lives, and where it fails them, or how to make it less intrusive and more humane. Those are the questions people are taking up at the Schools of Information that have sprung up at research universities like UCLA, Toronto and Washington — iSchools, for short. It’s a different i-, but it too stands in for a connection between technology and the social world.

Striking to me is the first two lines: that Computer Science isn’t where you go to find out about the relationship between people and technology. That’s a strong statement, and not one that I either agree with or do I think characterizes some of the work that does go on within Computer Science departments. But I think it is fair to say that its the less commonly travelled road for Computer Science today, and that’s a choice that I think the discipline and its practitioners may want to revisit in the face of the future.

Mr. Carnevale said that in surveys of employers, one of the biggest complaints about technical workers is that they “can’t talk and can’t write a memo and have horrible interpersonal skills.”

Setting aside the interpersonal skills portion, I teach a class that involves a substantial writing component. I see this too. Some years are better than others, but the ability to write is not uniform. And neither is the belief that it matters. I try very hard to explain that it does, but this year I found a new way. To introduce the students to the idea of the Annual Performance Appraisal. I was surprised how few students knew about something that they will write each year as part of their retaining their employment. There’s no programming on that form but there are sections not just for written words, but for making arguments that justify their accomplishments for the previous year. I have no idea whether this will work, I’ll find out when I get my course survey responses back. But I keep trying to find ways to explain why writing matters and so far this seems to be the most concrete one I’ve found.

Just lately I’ve been reflecting a bit on just what work/life balance means for me and for those around me.

Recently someone alerted me to the importance of treating weekends differently from week days. It came up in the context of an email being sent out at the weekend and responses being solicited in a pace of time that was more appropriate for a weekday. There is a work days/non-work days balance. Of course as soon as I say this I feel compelled to add that non-work days maybe work days, because that’s the pressure of the system at work. And because it’s true, I can’t get all the work I am expected to do done in the work week, so it bleeds out. Perhaps work/ weekend balance involves being able to openly talk about taking a weekend day off. And certainly it involves not feeling pressured to respond to work requests on a timeline that is more common on the workday.

I have another example. There is the work/sleep balance. The other day I woke up at 7am. I think that’s a reasonable time. When I awoke, I found a meeting request waiting me, generated at 5am in the morning and to which some other attendees had responded before 7am. Um, since when did sleep become less important. People have told me in the past that the key to being a successful administrator is insomnia or the ability to sleep only 4hours a night. Again this seems like one of those advantages that is borne from either what is an awful condition to have, or a stroke of luck. But when we talk about this as being the key to success, we set the standards for everyone. I wonder when I’ll feel as uncomfortable admitting to waking up at 7am as I am to discuss the day I took off from work.

A final one that I think has gained more traction involves the beginning and ends of the work day. Particularly with respect to scheduling meetings in the times when children are dropped off at or picked up from school. I’ve been involved in meetings (and teaching) in areas that are in the zones for child pick up/drop off since being here. But I’ve also been grateful for colleagues who remind us that those times in the day are reserved for important non-work activities. Not just because I hate to have meetings early in the morning, but also because its an open advocacy for life in the work/life balance.

p.s. why don’t we call it life/work balance. That would be in alphabetical order. Is it that work takes priority and its life that’s to be balanced in….

I want to say from the outset I agree with a number of the author’s points, and clearly so do others given that its a report from a conference and also has been reposted in several places.

But here’s the open question: how should we evaluate non-traditional forms of impact? The easier task is to argue that a problem exists, the harder one is proposing alternatives. Take the case of blogging. Reader counts are attractively numeric (always good for a metric) but it doesn’t answer the question of who the people are? Nor does it address what forms of impact that reading the blog might be having? Is it enough that it’s a completely unknown but large group. Should that group have to *do* something based on the post?  One thing that is rather nice about the traditional peer-review citation practices is that it’s concrete (we can compute the h-index if we chose), but we can also see the impact of our own work in that of others.

Perhaps we don’t want to reduce it to metrics. But I think the question that’s still on the table is what are these new forms of impact, where do we find evidence that something has happened? (And another set would be can everyone agree that this new form of impact is an appropriate form of impact — another open question, but without agreement I don’t think the form of impact will “stick”).

Last week was a particularly nice example of some.

I received an email from an undergraduate student who was preparing to take his GRE. He would miss my class, one for which I keep an attendance register. I wrote back to him and said that I thought sitting a GRE was a very reasonable excuse and did not dock him attendance. He wrote back and not only told me that I had more than exceeded his expectations for reasonableness by a faculty member, but some about how his GRE went. I am at least 20 years older than most of the undergraduates I teach, I feel the gulf created by that time, and when someone reaches across, I value it in ways that are hard to put into words.

I finished a class early, and told everyone they were free to go. Six students stayed to talk with me, a conversation that lasted for some time. Time I spent learning about their aspirations, about their vocations, and yes, I did answer a few questions about class. At an Engineering school like Tech we might be expected to have a few people who like dungeons and dragons, and we do, although I am now far more aware of the multi-day games of zombie killing that go on on campus. But there are so many other experiences of campus that involve sports, adventure, discovering a passion for research. There’s a lot of talk about the role of the brick campus in the digital era, but it is a place to create a magical set of different experiences, I’m glad to know a bit more about the possibilities that Georgia Tech the campus makes space for its students to create.

I received a thank you note from a graduate student. I had written on his particularly nice piece of work, “Very nice. Thank you!” He wrote to tell me that no professor had ever written that on a homework of his before (and judging by the quality I would imagine he’d produced a good selection of worthy candidates). This was such a positive experience for him that he showed it to his wife, and then spoke to his parents about it. All received his news with joy. And then he told me what had happened. It took me less than a minute to write that on his homework, but it lead to all these other things, and ended here with me.

A graduate student, knowing my enthusiasm for WaffleHouse gave me her saved collection of WaffleHouse t-shirts. She didn’t have to, but I was so excited and shall be flagrantly abusing the Georgia Tech dress code in the next week to proudly wear them. And another former graduate student started mentoring a student in her office. Watching her take on the mantle of advisement was a moment of joy.

This is an unusually high number of unplanned student interactions, but I want to share them not just as an example of why I like being a faculty member so much. But also to encourage students to reach out. I suspect I am not alone as a faculty member in enjoying these sorts of interactions. So thank you to all the students and keep the good work up. You may never know quite how much it means to the faculty member that you interact with.

Last year I wrote about all the wonderful women I work with and have worked with and who continue to inspire me in a myriad of different ways.

Today I want to tell you about my Mum.

Long before my first class in Computer Science. Long before the three degrees (B.Sc., M.S., and Ph.D., all in CS) there was my Mum.

When I was quite small she started her own business. One that required her to go back to School to take classes and pass an exam (to be qualified in her area, she’s a licensed translator from German to English). She’d take me a long to some of them, particularly when my Dad was working late. She worked really hard, not just in class, but also at home. I remember that. Then there were the years when she had to grow her business, enough for it to be sustainable and profitable. Those were hard times for her, working at the business as well as marketing the business and sourcing new leads and all the rest of those things. She had passion and determination, and I remember that too.

The business was successful, it still is (although there is less of it now and my Mum is enjoying her retirement built in good part on the proceeds of that business).

My Mum originally had a typewriter for her business but she upgraded to a computer at home when they became affordable (the BBC). I remember seeing her working hard on the machine. I remember her complaints about what it didn’t do well, like explain its errors and whims in an accessible way. Perhaps that influenced my decision to move into Human Computer Interaction, because at home I certainly watched some Human Computer Ire.

And then there was the typing class. She told that to be able to type was a key to the future. Whatever I did, typing would help. There was no doubt in her mind. She doesn’t know that even despite taking this week long course I still can’t touch type. Perhaps she does but she’s been kind enough not to mention the fact that I hop around my keyboard using just a subset of the available ten digits. But, she was right, an ability to use a keyboard is central in modern life.

In a 1000 different ways, my Mum is the reason that I’m in Computing, and have chosen a career that is at once consuming and rewarding. I learnt about a passion for individual career success from her. I learnt about machinery and purposing it to be successful. While it’s probably true that my Dad had more influence on me becoming a scholar (he’s an academic too) I just wouldn’t be the person I am without my Mum.

So this Ada Lovelace day I say thank you to my Mum, thank you for your encouragement and unwavering support on top of your presence as a role model in my life. That to me is your love, and I love you too.