I Believe in Miracles

by Pearl Jam from Live in New York

Hello again. Have a few things to talk about for a change. First off, the obligatory update on what has been happening. I spent a low key Valentine's day with the special lady. For you long time Dave-blog readers, it was a welcomed change to my past Valentine's days, some of which involved having to take very difficult midterms, falling off my bike, getting very sick, and yes, getting into a car accident. I must say this and last year were both pretty good as in last year I watched two hours of Lost. Speaking of which, I was crest fallen last Wednesday when Comcast screwed up and I didn't have ABC when Lost aired. Rest assured I plan on watching this week's catch-up episode. Finally, I made my triumphant return to the Broomball ring this past weekend. I took part in a broomball match that put on the by the Silicon Valley chapter of the University of Michigan alumni club. The game was fun and I scored a goal (granted I gave up two goals when I was playing goalie). The game ended in a 3-3 tie. Suffice to say, the high sticking and no kicking rules were gratuitously ignored.

Work wise, I am about to undertake probably the largest and most complicated study I have done so far at Google. Speaking of which, I've noticed something interesting about how others perceive how I do my job as a researcher. By my own admission, I am pretty meticulous planner when I comes to the studies I run. I am constantly checking my script, the participants being recruited, the technical set-up, physical lab space, the communications to the participants and team and all the other million little things that are needed to be checked on in order to produce a quality study. My hope is that with all the planning, the study will run smoothly and that I'll get informative results. Thankfully, most of the time this happens which is great. However, I noticed a little unintended consequence of this is that many people come to observe the studies think that my job (aka running studies) is easy because well, it looks easy. And the only reason why it looks easy is because so much hard work went to make it that way.

This past October I was in London to coordinate a study. This study was put together somewhat at the last minute but went smoothly. The team members that attended all said that it was fun and definitely informative. What they didn't see is that the day before I was being yelled by facilities because I was trying to get the study space altered, frantically working with the tech guys to make sure the technical set-up worked, emailing back and forth with security to make sure the participants were cleared, making sure we had gift bags for the participants, and at the same time preparing all the study materials. Like I said before, I ran myself ragged the day before so that on the day of the study things would run smoothly and to look, well, effortless. I can't say that the team members were all oblivious to the effort involved. This study involved me training engineers to interact with users of their product. They had questions about "What if they don't do X" or "What happens if they don't do anything?" When I responded that we had specifically recruited people who did X and that the script had tasks they could give just in case the user froze up, I think it dawned at least on some of them that yeah, I thought this shit through.

The latest incident where I saw this unintended consequence was that someone on my former project team decided to do their own field studies. I have no major problems with non-researchers doing their own research but I make sure to point out that the devil is in the details. Details such as knowing how to conduct a good interview. Yes, for all those uninitiated, interviewing is a skill and yes, I did take classes where we had to learn how to interview. Plus in my years at Google I have picked invaluable on the job experience doing it. I am always concerned that my interview "flows." What I mean by flows is that in normal conversations you have with people, the conversation somewhat naturally flows from one topic to another. I try to build in a flow into my interview script by carefully paying attention to the ordering and wording of my questions. In addition, I really try to have the participants use related artifacts or demonstrate tasks they are talking about during the interview. My interviews aren't so much Q & A, but more show and tell. I find that participants provide much more informative feedback if they have an artifact or something they use related to what I want to find out to react off of. So if everything goes off well, the interview doesn't really seem like an interview but more like a conversation. I thought this would evident to people watching but apparently not. Because I saw the script being used for the above mentioned field studies and there is no flow and almost relying completely on the participant's memory rather than having them demonstrate tasks or use artifacts. The person organizing these studies has watched me countless times do similar type studies so I am guessing that maybe it is due to the fact that is looks like I am not doing anything when in fact everything i am doing is scripted and well-thought out ahead of time. Basic point: The easier it looks, the harder it is to pull off.

Enough about work related stuff, here is another idea that has been popping up lately. The idea of massive, big wins/changes versus small wins / changes in the right direction. Vishnu was back in town a while back and we got involved in a pretty long discussion about the middle east and world affairs. Vishnu is much more liberal/progressive in his thinking than me, which is pretty far left considering that I am pretty liberal myself. He justifiably pointed out that the situation in the middle east has been really messed up for a long time so drastic action was needed. For example say completely and immediately defunding the state of Israel among other things. While I agree that major change needs to come to the middle east, I don't believe that grand changes or actions will realistically work. As much as we hunger for big, quick wins through broad decisive action, in reality those tend not work very well. It is usually small victories, the close attention to detail, and nudges in the right the direction that eventually all accumulate into a change for the better. There are plenty of examples of this. There is a perception that Barack Obama won the past presidential election because of a sweeping grand movement powered by his charisma and oratory. Or at least that's what conservatives would like you to think they criticize him for being all show and no substance. If you look at it closely, Obama won the election through accumulating tons of little victories. He had an army of well-trained community volunteers who fanned out to convince their neighbor or family member to give Obama a chance. That's how he won Ohio, Indiana and other swing states and thus all adding up a substantial margin of victory.

Getting back to the discussion, I argued that bold changes/victories are hard, messy, and although sometimes necessary. I instead offered that we should actively push for the little victories and steps in the right direction as much as possible. Because they do help, although probably not as drastically as people desire. For example, I try to ride my bike to work a few times a week. Now realistically, me forsaking my car a few times a week does not really make a massive dent against global warming. However, it is still better than driving and you know what, it helps keep me in shape and makes the air a tiny bit less smoggy. So my point is that instead of pushing for say a solution of defunding the entire state of Israel (which I am not totally against - I think we should make funding to Israel contingent on progress towards the peace process) which is a bold yet politically suicidal decision which would inflame the tensions over there even more, I say if you care about the Palestinians donate $25 bucks to a charity that helps them. It may not result in Middle East peace but it hopefully makes one Palestinian's life a little less miserable. I think about the discussion in Before Sunset, where Celine talks about how people get into non-profit work with grand ideas but really, it is the little things like getting pencils to the country villages that actually matter. I tend to agree especially when it comes to personal growth. I have known people who want to make drastic changes in their life (this has included myself plenty of times in the past). However, I think the reason why many people don't end up making the change they want in their lives is that they get too caught up in the enormity of the change to realize it is all about the small steps to get there. Whatever the goal, it is the small steps that lead to the top that really matter. For me a few years ago it was making a career change which involved many big things like say going to grad school but it really involved small things like waking up early, grabbing the bus in the freezing Michigan winter to go that morning class or going to yet another company presentation and polishing yet another resume to end out or hell, even volunteering to take the first stab at that group project deliverable that represented only 5% of my grade. It all added up to something and thankfully that something turned out to be much better than where I was beforehand. Right now, I am trying to improve my health and fitness. Well what does that actually means. It means doing a lot of little stuff like not having that desert, dragging my ass to bootcamp even when I don't feel motivated, hopping on my bike and riding 30 minutes instead of taking that car ride for 5, and a whole slew of small things that I hope will add up to something better. But the point is that I still do them even though I can't really see the ultimate, drastic change at the end.

So that is enough of my rambling for one night. Until next time, peace.