@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

cornazano

@cornazano@hachyderm.io

Project Lead @ Ubisoft • organizer @ DevOpsDaysMTL • math / linguistics / cogsci afficionado • views and opinions are mine • he/him

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recursive, to random
@recursive@hachyderm.io avatar

An unexpectedly pleasant result of teaching myself some abstract algebra and number theory is that I get to properly indulge my inner child, who is deeply resentful that anyone ever demanded that she believe something based on appeal to authority.

Despite being moved into "two years ahead of most kids" math starting around age 13, until I hit some theoretical computer science stuff in college, it was mostly practical technique and very little proof and hard for me to fake interest in.

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@recursive Most work with proofs doesn't start in the academic sequence until upper-division university.

Lower-division calculus and differential equations courses drove me away from math for nearly a decade. (I have since done a BS in Math and three years of graduate work.)

cornazano, to random
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

This is neat! Wish there was more tech education via dance...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn0EgXHb5jc

matthewskelton, to random
@matthewskelton@mastodon.social avatar

Do the USians who work on the green owl app even speak English?

In what world is this wrong? "I am free only on Tuesday morning" 🤬

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@matthewskelton

Languages are more supple and variable than these sorts of systems are capable of encoding.

Even if they could do so at a moment in time (they can't), the would still fail in the face of language variation and change and novelty in communication.

matthewskelton, to random
@matthewskelton@mastodon.social avatar

Is the main purpose of your organisation actually Exec enrichment or truly customer success?

Because the behaviour of many orgs suggests that Exec enrichment is the real purpose.

🐉💰

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@matthewskelton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@matthewskelton

I have made comments before about a system of work whose purpose was to create burnout. It was better at that than at its intended purpose.

cornazano, to random
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

"Anyone who has worked in a formal organization — even a small one strictly governed by detailed rules — knows that handbooks and written guidelines fail utterly in explaining how the institution goes successfully about its work. Accounting for its smooth operation are nearly endless and shifting sets of implicit understandings, tacit coordinations, and practical mutualities that could never be successfully captured in a written code."

— James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State

impactology, to random
@impactology@mastodon.social avatar

Michael @cornazano how might a game designer approach designing a library, using principles that they use to design gameworld interfaces

https://mastodon.social/@impactology/112133336838624498

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology Library as in information collection of some sort (traditionally books, journals, etc.) or library as in software API design and dependency management?

cornazano, to random
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

"Design changes can disrupt human patterns and relationships. Especially when the problem solver, whether an architect, designer, engineer, or business leader, presumes that their own professional expertise supersedes the life expertise of people who are affected by those changes."

— Kat Holmes, Mismatch

impactology, to random
@impactology@mastodon.social avatar

@cornazano Michael can I post some of the insights from our conversation on twitter?

This is what I'll post

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. 🙂

Although I just noticed a typo, I misspelled Alicia Juarrero's name in there. 😅

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology In case it wasn't clear with the way I phrased that - yes, you have my permission to post that.

impactology, to random
@impactology@mastodon.social avatar

Ruth, I have a question for you @RuthMalan how might you teach software architecture to academics from fields like this who want to transition to tech by translating their domain knowledge into products?

In what way can we design a syllabus or a roadmap for them that helps them practice all the skills required for them to do that but also to do that in a way that connects their knowledge with our syllabus's assignments/modules/exercises

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan For someone with a mix of all of those, or is this more of a "pick one from the list, these are examples" question?

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan Ok. I can't speak to all of the interactions, but I have done software/systems architecture work and have a multidisciplinary background (both formal and self-directed studies) that includes cognitive science (and mathematics, and historical dance, and a variety of other things).

One of the interesting challenges when stepping into a new domain is trying to connect it to things we know, without good guideposts.

1/

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

Traditional syllabus construction is necessarily generic, in that we can't assume specialized backgrounds beyond what we declare as prerequisites. This is akin to declaring your dependencies in software, and to creating ADRs that specify what you take into account.

This process is about an abstracted concept of a person, a sort of template. As with all templates and interface declarations, it washes out the fine distinctions.

2/

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

Incidentally: Bowker and Star's Sorting Things Out and Scott's Seeing Like a State both speak to this genericization.

So does metaphor theory and the study of natural categories (Lakoff, Rosch, etc.).

3/

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

As a multidisciplinary academic or practitioner, we span boundaries. The washing out effect of traditional syllabi actively excludes the ability to leverage our pre-existing knowledge. The way we head into this, if we want that, needs to accept and embrace the individuated, contextually-specific people we are.

(Juarerro, Context Changes Everything is relevant here - yet again.)

4/

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

Part of what this means is that the syllabus (roadmap, plan, exploratory direction, whatever we want to call it) needs to be either fully self-directed, or co-created between the novice learning their way forward and a guide with some overlap of experience.

5/

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

The experience overlap is important here, I think, since we need to account for transference effects between domains. These can be either reinforcing or interfering, and the experience overlap can accelerate the development of knowledge and expertise.

(See e.g. Hoffman et al., Accelerated Expertise for discussion of these effects.)

6/

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

I wouldn't expect the core of them to be. I think the useful piece to extract from it, in this context, is that the interweaving of domains involves transfer across them, and the reinforcement/neutral/interference effects apply to what we're doing. 🙂

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

I don't do it formally, but I definitely apply aspects of both to how I continuously learn to learn. They have both contributed to my ability to spot patterns and cue constellations while doing incident response work for software systems.

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology

That sounds similar to how I approach the challenges. I don't need to know everything about a domain, but I need to understand the portion that interacts with and informs the work on a particular topic of interest.

It sometimes leads to awkward assumptions - like people thinking I have expertise in philosophy, when I have a couple of very specific lines that I have encountered and can't talk about it broadly at all.

Got caught on this in a graduate lit class once. 😅

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology

I look at it this way - In any given group I'm working with, I will never be the deepest expert in any one of the domains I draw on. However, I will frequently be the deepest expert on how they interact, and the consequences of those interactions.

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

Good question! I'm playing with it in my head, and realizing that it has become partially "cognitive infrastructure" for me.

Cue constellations, for example, are things I'm deliberately watching for in various meetings to know when to shift phases - exploration, to clarification, to identification of a direction/leading idea for us to explore.

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

I didn't used to think of it in these terms, but I need to help the leads reporting to me learn how to do this, which means I need to learn how to observe and articulate what I'm reacting to so that they can also learn to perceive those cue combinations.

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

Indeed.

I've started to organize the broader range of managerial topics I'm concerned with around two layers: "Practical expectations" (the things most people will accept as being part of practice) and "foundations" (the things most managers will tune out as "Michael's too theoretical").

The foundations are the part that managers on my team need to be learning so that we can co-create the working environment for the team in a coherent, intentional way.

cornazano,
@cornazano@hachyderm.io avatar

@impactology @RuthMalan

Most managers, IME, don't do this well.

Looping back to the start of this thread - this is, fundamentally, architectural work for the sociotechnical system.

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