It’s been a little over a month since I left Nokia and started principally instigating at MyStrands, Seattle. Most of my time thus far has been devoted to talking with people and looking at places, as my top two initial instigative goals are to attract a dream team and setup shop in a dream space. Eventually, we’ll make progress on other p’s – prototypes, papers and patents – but not without the right people and only (or, at least, more easily) in the right place.
I’m making some progress on these initial goals – I will be making official announcements when formal transitions take place – but meanwhile I thought it would be helpful (to me, at least) to write a little bit about what kinds of innovation – and what kinds of innovators – I hope to facilitate with this great new team and great new space! Taking a cue from one of Glenn Kelman’s pearls of wisdom – "We never say ‘I’" – during an inspiring presentation at my crash course in entrepreneurship (NWEN’s Entrepreneur University 2005), I’ll be using "we" liberally below, even though "we" is, technically speaking, "I" at this particular moment.
The mission of the Seattle Innovation Team for MyStrands is
To design, develop and deploy technologies that weave together the various strands of our activities, interests and passions to bridge the gaps between the digital and physical worlds and help people relate to the other people, places and things around them in ways that offer value to all participants.
That’s quite a mouthful (even for me) so I want to unpack that a little:
- weave together the various strands of our activities, interests and passions: MyStrands started out as MusicStrands, a web application that can recommend new music based on the music you listen to ("what you play counts!"). Since then, the company has branched out into other types of media (e.g., MyStrands.TV), and we want to further extend this extension to additional types of media, as well as other digital representations of our activities, interests and passions.
- bridge the gaps between the digital and physical worlds: with the growing wealth of digital representations of our activities, interests and passions, and the proliferation of mobile devices and wireless connectivity, there are increasing opportunities to create new value by opening portals to that wealth in the physical world, either through mobile social computing (MoSoSo) applications or more situated social computing (SiSoSo) applications, such as proactive displays.
- help people relate to the other people, places and things around them: we all long to feel a sense of belonging and connection to other people we encounter, the places we inhabit and the things we see (or at least some of those people, places and things); our technologies will be designed to help real world communities better enjoy the benefits of virtual communities, digital communications and electronic commerce.
- offer value to all participants: one of the things I learned – the hard way – during my earlier entrepreneurial endeavor (Interrelativity, Inc.) was the importance of aligning innovative social technologies with viable business models; although our primary focus will be on technical innovations with significant – and positive – social impact, we want to do so in an economically sustainable way that enriches all stakeholders.
As for the types of innovators (we don’t call ourselves researchers – or developers – at MyStrands, though we will be doing both) we hope to attract, the primary criteria will be a passionate commitment to the mission of the lab. Of course, following the precepts of Joel Sposky, we also generally want smart people who can get things done. Among the more specific types of smarts that we value are insights into and experience with social computing, mobile and ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction, many flavors of design (user interface design, interaction design, user experience design, visual communication design), web programming, rapid prototyping, personal and social psychology, economics, business models … and, of course, recommender systems.
I’m planning to follow the lead of Lars Erik Holmquist with respect to [one of] his goals for the PLAY Research Group: build a multidisciplinary team composed of multidisciplinary people. As Anne Galloway relayed this idea (in what may be an unexpected recursion based on something I may have sent / said to her about Lars Erik’s CHI 2000 organizational overview talk):
Alan Kay once remarked that he was attracted to the MIT Media Lab
because of the…"attempt to collide technology with the arts, rather
than [to] collide technologists with artists," and continued "You’re
always better getting people who have already had that collision in
themselves." In PLAY, rather than composing a multi-disciplinary group,
we try to have a group of multi-disciplinary people … No
group member specializes in only one topic. A typical member has a
degree in a relevant field such as computer science, informatics or
fine arts, but a strong interest in several other fields such as
electrical engineering, linguistics, literature, film, or music.
Whether accompanied by academic degrees or not, a wide range of
interests is seen as a vital factor in the composition of the group.
Ideally, we will compose a diverse group of diverse people, with a variety of skills, from a variety of backgrounds, who respect each other and work well together, even though – or perhaps because – we may not always agree with each other (indeed, I hope we won’t always agree with each other). I have enjoyed many conversations with many talented people so far, and I welcome the opportunity to initiate or renew conversations with other talented people. If current trends continue, we may be able to assemble a dream team without ever having to compose or post a formal job description.
As I mentioned in my review of First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, I subscribe to the philosophy of Bud Grant, former head coach of the Minnesota Vikings:
You can’t draw up plays and then just plug your players in. No matter
how well you have designed your play book, it’s useless if you don’t
know which plays your players can run. When I draw up my play book, I
always go from the players to the play.
Given my commitment to multidisciplinarity, I’m going one step further and not even specifying player positions at this early stage, hoping that we will be able attract just the right people with just the right talents to accomplish our innovation mission.
[Update: I forgot to mention that we have a number of more formally specified job openings at many of our other sites around the world. The (Senior) Mobile User Experience / Interaction Designer position may be of particular interest to some of my international friends.]
Comments
5 responses to “Innovating at MyStrands, Seattle”
Hi Joe! Quick post while I wait for a student but I think a lot about this whole disciplinary thing, and I often change my mind about it. For example, in the past I advocated multidisciplinary groups, where we all got to do what we do best. As it turns out, this is really difficult, not least because different skills are differently valued or have different powers. For example, I’ve worked with artists who wanted to do research, but not by any standard that I recognise as a social scientist. But why should only my discipline have the right and the ability to define what constitutes research? Or, rather, when do we get to do this and when do we not? Then I went through a phase where interdisciplinarity seemed to fix that problem. We worked *between* disciplines in an attempt to flatten the power relations. But that also proved to be a bit misguided because we still fought over whose methods were best for which tasks. Now, I’m in a phase where the best option seems to be transdisciplinarity. Where only new methods and new theories offer the kind of flexibility and hope that I desire. I’ve become much more radical, I’m told. More anarchic, some have said. And yet, I’m finally seeing things happen that I’ve never witnessed before. Spaces where everyone can become something, someone, they’ve never been before. The opporunity to grow or evolve together seems much more open. But then again, ask me in a year and I’ll probably say something else 😉
Hi Anne – thanks for the intriguing and provocative comments!
transdisciplinarity … I like the term, and your description of / prescription for new methods and new theories. FWIW, I [also] think of you as radical, but in a very positive way, as you regularly (invariably, even) help me think about things in new ways … this comment being the latest installment in that series.
I am hoping that multidisciplinary people will have a keener appreciation for the breadth of perspectives and methods that might be used – and valued – in approaching problems and developing solutions.
Your note also got me thinking about the root word discipline, for which Merriam-Webster offers the following definitions:
This suggests to me that transdisciplinarity – the quality of transcending discipline(s) – would, of necessity, be anarchic, or at least non-orderly.
I’m also reminded of a presentation I saw (and blogged about) regarding passion and discipline being required for successful entrepreneurial endeavors … and my recent rediscovery that the definition of passion is “to suffer” (closely related to the “punishment” definition of discipline).
Your vision for “Spaces where everyone can become something, someone, they’ve never been before” aligns with ideas expressed in The Prelude to The Dance, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:
When I put these together, I get “spaces where everyone can become something, someone, they’ve never seen before: themselves”. This is the kind of space I want to create at MyStrands, Seattle, so that we can design, develop and deploy sociotechnical – or perhaps spatiosocialtechnical – innovations that will offer this kind of “warmth of encouragement” for others to unfold in other spaces.
Finally, I just saw a great talk by Clay Shirky last night on his new book, “Here Comes Everybody”, in which he led off with the inspiring admission about why he wrote the book: “I’ve changed my mind enough times that it no longer fit neatly into an essay”. Oscar Wilde also offers encouragement to be open to changing minds (and hearts): “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
So I welcome your changes of perspective, and am always glad when you share them with me / us. I will likely be changing my perspective on innovations at MyStrands, Seattle over time … I certainly wouldn’t want us to suffer from unimaginativity (!).
As someone who has studied computer science, biology, chemistry and is now practicing journalism I can’t help but echo your thoughts on the importance of being transdisciplinarity these days.
Just like a piece of art looks different every time you view it because something in your life has left an impact on your mind, viewing a problem with a new school of thought and a fresh set of knowledge can change your perspectives to a delightfully addicting degree making that desire to spread yourself across fields nothing short of a powerful drug.
You’ll be glad to know that Nokia recently hired Adam Greenfield to head the future of Design Direction, he has his head wrapped around what you discussed. I’m glad you’re having fun at you’re new role at MyStrands.
Stefan: given the nature of what I’ve seen you write in comments here and on your blog, I’m hardly surprised that you have a multidisciplinary background, and a transdisciplinary orientation. Thanks for contributing your thoughts on this topic!
Thanks, too, for letting me know about Adam’s new role! I’ve enjoyed several engaging discussions with Adam, and while I agree we have many of the same goals and aspirations – for ourselves and for the world – we do come from different backgrounds, offering a rather transdisciplinary trajectory to some of those discussions. We have disagreed over some things, e.g., the merits of magic and playfulness (at ETech 2007) and the relative risks and benefits of mobile surveillance technologies (at Pervasive 2007), but those disagreements have proven far more enlightening than many of the more agreeable discussions I’ve had with others.
Having read your post about Adam’s new position at Nokia, I see that you and he also have some differing perspectives (in the area of radical transparency, where I suspect you and I have more in common with each other than with Adam). I’ll pop over to Adam’s blog to catch up on how we agree and disagree on things these days.
It sounds like another social networking site, but I like the idea it’s only focused on interests and having a niche is what will get you to stand out.