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28 years…Two wonderful Children

Oh So Much Learned ( Posted Early)

 

            I just read over my 7-blog posts, some of the comments and realized for these 8 weeks, I was a blogger. Seriously, the fact that I blogged was take away number one. Several of my friends have blogs; one using her blog as a platform to support her research another just  spouts off about what ever grabs her that day ( and she is hilarious so she has many readers). Why this is a takeaway for me is I used to only see the power of the blog for writers.  Today I see it differently. I am not a writer, per se, but I can influence and spread information through blogging.  The feedback or the continued discourse from one post can be intriguing and as a leader, I think this is a great way to get the pulse of a group of people, or to find more threads of discussion. Being able to tap into blogs, even from time to time planting blogs, could be great research tools for marketers.   

            Using blogging as a leader can aid your understanding as much as deliver or obtain information. Blogging is something I plan to continue doing, what direction it will take I don’t know, but Profonamission will be in contact with my students sharing new insights and ideas. My leadership will change to incorporate this tool now that I have seen its effectiveness first hand. My classroom will change too.

 

            The second thing that will stick with me is that technology and leadership, especially when working with certain populations can bring social issues. An example of this comes from our University. At the university, we expect students to have a computer. We use Moodle to help manage our course work and we expect papers to be handed in via the program. Last year I had a freshman student who would never bring her computer to class when asked. I later realized she did not have one.  When you plan and develop strategies for students, we cannot be structurally excluding a population based on our approach, especially when a financial constraint may be involved. If all of our instruction is delivered through technology, we need to make technology available for all students requiring or desiring the instruction. When I travelled this last month, I noticed how unfamiliar the personal computer phenomenon is in the West Indies. We asked our taxi driver to help us find an internet café so I could log in and our taxi driver told us “only rich people or criminals have computers.” 

            So to finalize my post for this class, I will go back to the flat, spikey or wavy world.  As leaders we have the responsibility to understanding the demographic, the people, the culture and the community we are leading. We must understand how when and why to use technology to either enhance a situation or solve a problem. We must be sure our approaches and decisions are not widening a gap or leaving people out. Today, leading in education means not being enamored too quickly with the latest and greatest tool, but aware of how the tool will be leveraged in an inclusive way. 

          We will also have to find a way to keep students engaged during class and off devices unless what is on the devices helps the classroom. I for one know many of my students use their devices to trip me up in class with questions and comments. I wish all students in the class had devices and that I could leverage that curiosity for our discussions.

       Education, leadership and technology are three big things that go great together, however, you cannot leave out the middle word. Without leadership in education technology we would move forward without any concern for the environment we are teaching in, the needs or limitations of community resources and without a plan for leveraging the tools that should be used. Leadership is the one imperative in those three words. Having a technology plan is not only smart it is necessary in order to use funds wisely. 

     Bill Gates once said “Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important”. Leadership keeps us from acquiring the wrong technologies and focused on the end game, with wisdom and prudence. 

Where will all this lead?

 

              Anind Dey and Gregory Aboud, two Georgia Tech researchers coined the phrase “Contextual Computing”. The next step for computing is to decipher our feelings, our wants, and our concerns. On a very cursory level, Amazon, Facebook and Netflix are watching out steps, our visits and trying to determine what we might like, or what our tastes might be. Pandora radio does the same with our thumbs-up or thumbs-down assessment of the music being played. “The adoption of contextual computing–combinations of hardware, software, networks, and services that use deep understanding of the user to create tailored, relevant actions that the user can take–is contingent on the spread of new platforms. Frankly, it depends on the smartphone.”

( http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672531/the-future-of-technology-isnt-mobile-its-contextual).

         This article goes on to explain how the company Jump has developed a four layer interesting graphing system that can figure out quite effectively what we like, who we have as friends and what our behaviors are on a daily basis.

         The smartphone is always with us, it’s on our person, and we know very quickly when it is out of reach. We play games, we purchase, we communicate we live on our phones. I read a book last year that had me thinking about how people know where we are and can keep track of us. The book was “Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shteyngart. The book is science fiction but pretty much takes all the fears of a technology obsesses big brother world and brings it to life. One writer explains “ I’m no science fiction expert, but Shteyngart projects our present day obsessions with devices, data, social networking, and the like into a dystopia that feels uncomfortably possible. Everyone is judged by their credit scores, their youthful appearance, and their ability to gather attention from denizens of an always on, always connected data sphere (those that are particularly good at getting attention are dubbed “very Media!”).” The book rates your social connectedness at the same as a credit score. You walk by poles on the street that reports out to people your credit score and connectivity score. It is of course, in many ways absurd but in this we see the change from our current computer terminal connections to ever more easily obtained mobile devices.

         Technology is changing, continuing to get faster, more portable and more connected. It is nearly impossible to be in a place where you can truly escape in North America. We have the joy of being a cyber vortex at the top of my hill giving me a great excuse to stay unconnected.

         I did on our last trip that there are countries still very behind in the portable computing devices. Flip top cell phones are still the go to device for communication and Internet café’s remain the local hangouts for connecting. Restaurants use the connections to entice clientele in to eat and use the net. Though we are connected at an ever increasing rate, the less developed nations are still lagging and I think will be behind for some time in the future as committing to the technologies cost money and being able to change or invest in the less developed countries is not possible.

         So, is the world flat? There are pockets of flatness and pockets of spikes, and pockets that still do not have the infrastructure to support the newest technologies. It will be this way for some time in the future I am certain and many economies will still grow at a much faster rate due to natural resources and human resources. The future will still be very spikey. 

Ethics and Open Source Software; Programming For The Good of It

This is an interesting topic for an ex COO/Co-Founder of a software company to be reporting on. My income, and the wealth of many investors relied on software development being proprietary, controlled updated and managed by our own set of programmers.  It is compiled and the executable state is released to the public, or those who purchase it.   How the times have changed, and today many people are still creating wealth through programming, using crowd sourced or open sourced software as part of whole of the model.  Business models have changed to accommodate, add and support Open Source.  Today, we will discuss business ethics and the open source movement.

Ethics are “standards of behaviors that tell us how human beings should act in the situations in which they find themselves” as business people, programmers and owners. http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework.html

 Now that we know what ethics are, what is Open Source software?

Open Source is free source code. A programmer can add or modify the code to increase productivity, effectiveness or add a new feature.  That is not the full definition though. According to the Open Source Initiative, Open Source licenses must also include free redistribution, derived works (the additions from other programmers) allowed under same license, integrity of author’s source code, no discrimination of people or groups, no discrimination against fields of endeavors and license cannot be specific to a product, cannot restrict other software programs and be technology neutral. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition.

To get this definition I went to the most readily used Crowd sourced (and Open Sourced as well) platform known today, Wikipedia. One thing that is important to remember is even though the source code is open, the program is still copyright protected and not considered Public Domain Software.  Additions will get coded into next release and updates.

Now that we have a definition and operating terms, what are the ethical implications? I am going to discuss motivations (of source code authors and businesses) as an ethical consideration and then finish with a summary. The summary will include an assessment of business ethics from the Common Good and Utilitarian perspective.

Motivation of Programmers and companies

I consulted with a company that had proprietary software.  During the consulting gig we realized software would be a delivery system for our services and would not make money on the software but rather the services. As software development became less expensive and more prevalent, using Open Source software applications along with add on proprietary add programming seemed ethical.  It was ethical because we could keep the criteria developed by the Open Source movement and make the money on the services or value added propositions of the company. This also gets into the Free Software movement that is taking hold, which though different from Open Source, suggests all software should be free and accessible by all.

In the end, this company gave away software for free, allowing the companies who purchased to modify the software as needed to work in their corporate environment. This worked well for us, but did remove a major stream of revenue in program customization. This was a business model transition as we recognized a sea change. It also meant we had to be very clean in our programming.

As the author of the Open Sourced program, there are many issues. Ethics come into play when one has to make a determination as to whether the new code should be included in next release.  If you do not add updates, you run the risk of shutting down collaboration on your program.  The reason why open source started as a movement was to further the profession. If one owns an open source software program, you have a responsibility to advance the profession of computing.

How do this affect proprietary software developers and what are the ethics involved for these big guns. In the beginning Microsoft saw open source as a huge enemy, however today Microsoft is embracing the developing in the gaming division. While they lock down a certain part of the source code, other is open, allowing gaming enthusiasts, who are programmers to improve the interface software for controllers.  MODS to the Microsoft programs have become part of the next release, allowing Microsoft to compete well in the market.  We see other programming companies giving up parts of their code to keep the enthusiasts engaged and are finding this practice delivers better programs.

We use Open Source software for our university online program. We use Moodle. At first the program discouraged me as 7 years ago but today I find it does everything I need it to do. Students seem to have some ideas for enhancements and I encourage them to send these forward to Moodle.  Most students do not know Moodle is being used because the university renames the program.

There would be ethical concerns for the author/owner if the program was installed and then the support or development did not occur. In the early years of using Moodle, this was my fear. Patches and improvements were not made rapidly but today, that does not seem to be a problem.  Support issues, once a system is installed and running could cause significant ethical issues if a company is built around Open Source platforms.

Summary

When we look at ethics, we need to determine if an action could be damaging to some group. In the case of Open Source, not having a process or program documented well could cause some concern.  Another thing we must consider is using Open Source involving a choice between a good alternative and a bad, or two goods? I think that there are times when choosing a less costly approach is a good alternative because the less costly is what the market can bare. Because of this, I do think there can be an ethical decision as to how and when to use Open Source.  One more thought about ethics and Open Source comes when a question as to whether someone is doing what is easiest, using an Open Source approach, or what is right. Does a program require more controls in order to maintain the safety (such a medical devices or stop light management)?

Additional link: In our ethics classes, we learned about the different perspectives of ethics, this link is great at putting all of these into perspective when considering open source development. This link from Santa Clara University provides a great description of the Utilitarian, rights, fairness, common good and virtue perspective: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/open-source.html