A brief history of computing technology

I believe, as innovation scholars, that we must acknowledge where our history, or starting points, rather than indulge in the unjustified belief that new ideas, that creative acts, begin with a blank canvas.

The three presentations below highlight the context and milestones in the history of computational technology:

1. Timeline of Computing History (by The Computing History Museum link)
2. Some Milestones in Computer Input Devices: An Informal Timeline (by Bill Buxton link)
3. (A History of) Mobile Computing (by Jesper Kjeldskov link)

They help us to understand something of the history and context from which we begin. An understanding of our history forces us to acknowledge the resilience of certain ideas, concepts, aspirations, and observe the often selective couching of seemingly incontrovertible "facts" surrounding the design and development of technology. These beliefs are a subtext to the unfolding history of computing technologies. For example, the pace of technological centred development and innovation ever increasing (where in fact it is faddish and gyrates; transformational change creeps up on society before seemingly bursting onto the scene).  The resilience of various beliefs and assumptions held by managers, designers, users and others also demands scrutiny, for example: belief in the agency of technology; the presumed rational/irrational behaviour of users; appealing to the efficacy of management structures; the aspiration to acquire control knowledge; the oft stated belief that technology should “just work”.

But technology initiatives are also political actions, people creating value, new resources, contesting for new properties. Yet the creative spark that ignites the art of designing, developing and applying technology is elusive and unmanageable. Technology, innovation, organisation, society, knowledge; so many questions arise. What is management's role in motivating change? What is the impact of each wave of newer and ever better technology? How does innovation advance? Incrementally, slowly, abruptly, diffusing, drifting, adapting, evolving? What are the actual trajectories of innovation as it happens? We know fads and fashions come and go but society is in thrall with the 'new', the radical shift, that more often than not fails to acknowledge its own past or pedigree, its reliance upon older things, systems and ways of knowing the world.

About our Academic Writing Centre

Writing Workshops

The UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Academic Writing Centre is run by Dr Megan McGurk. The UCD Academic Writing Centre in Belfield can be found at 
https://www.ucd.ie/writingcentre/

Academic Writing

Any topic you wish to write about has already received a significant amount of academic inquiry. Scholars communicate through citation as a method to trace how ideas develop through research. Learn the basics of argumentation, how to paraphrase research and how to cite your sources in the Harvard referencing format.

Persuasive Writing

Writers often labour under the misconception that if they just collect enough data they can persuade an audience. Yet people are rarely convinced by facts alone. We’ll investigate strategies to distinguish your writing from the default ‘officialese’ prose that dominates business practitioner style, but rarely inspires or encourages an audience to action. Persuasive writing incorporates stylish prose, an angle of vision, emphasis and storytelling.

Business & Report Writing

Business writing is transactional. People turn to writers who can help them to solve problems and make decisions. Practitioner style requires writers to be clear, concise and coherent when offering recommendations. We’ll cover report style, format and presentation.

Collaborative Writing

Group writing assignments can pose a major challenge for post-grads. Currently, more than 80% of writing produced by companies and organisations occurs through a collaborative effort. Learn effective strategies to balance and negotiate your team projects.

Be your own editor

First draft submissions will never garner top marks with lecturers, employers, clients or stakeholders. Develop a revision habit that allows you to benefit from building upon a tentative piece into a polished whole. Skilled writers do not leave projects to the last minute and they do not hesitate to delete and re-write. Learn how to identify problems at the sentence level in order to professionalise your writing.

Exercise: design and planning game

Goal
To demonstrate and experience one particular process of planning in a team environment where knowledge and expertise is distributed among team members.

Roles/Identities:

• Product Owner: Product owner judges the trade-off between value and timing of features. Will engage in discussions at the PLANNING GAME, prioritising and valuing features. Is authoritative to accept a feature as developed or NOT.
• Architect: Architect identifies links between features, architectural/design and delivery elements. Creates diagrams linking Features (F) with architectural elements (A) and deliverables (D).
• Lead Developer and extra developers if available: Developers provide estimates of effort and risk for design-delivery elements. Have important domain knowledge and suggests needed features. Is authoritative on estimates for effort or time of a design-delivery element.
• Scrum Master: Scrum master (or someone assigned) will turn feature and development stories into a planning chart and highlight the critical path.

Activities 
The Scum master keeps the PLANNING GAME focused by:

• asking “what (F) features do we need?”
• asking “what (D) deliverables satisfy (F)?”
• asking “how does (A) architecture link (F) & (D)?”

Allocate approximately
Feature Discussion (5 minutes)
Design-delivery discussion (~5 minutes)
Architecture discussion (~5 minutes)
Decide backlog (~10 minutes)

Debriefing
~10’ Discussion: group pairs report progress to the whole class.
Was there a perfect solution?

Research and Further Reading

• Agile Game Development with Scrum
• What sort of Games can we play with teams?
• What electronic scrum/kanban board do you use and recommend for distributed teams?

Who was Winston Royce?

(from Wikipedia)

"Winston W. Royce (1929 – 1995) was an American computer scientist, director at Lockheed Software Technology Center in Austin, Texas, and one of the leaders in software development in the second half of the 20th century. He was the first who described the Waterfall model for software development, although Royce did not use the term "waterfall" in that article, nor advocated the waterfall model as a working methodology.
...
His son is Walker Royce, Chief Software Economist of IBM's Rational division, and author of "Software Project Management, A Unified Framework", and a principal contributor to the management philosophy inherent in the IBM Rational Unified Process."

Is it reasonable to interpret Royce in terms of agility? Emphasizing communication, design/coding as the central activity, responding to change, refactoring design, visibility, and on-site customers?

---

Walker Royce at IBM -  Walker's article on peoples' aspirations to become more agile (drdobbs.com)

How says software engineering doesn't have humour? Watch the Rise and Fall of Waterfall; with more than a touch of the truth (link).

Exercise: (c) Design for search by smell

(a collaboration with Norman Su) A variation on earlier design exercises (exercise a and exercise b)

Objective
Theory: To demonstrate the design dynamics surrounding paper sketches, digital sketches, and speculate on the implications for digital design environments.
Practice: To gain practice at creating sketches and digital design artifacts to display and test technology use/interaction ideas.

Materials
Sheets of A4 paper, post-it notes, pens and pencils of different colours.
Online access to the Balsamiq Mockups wireframing tool. http://webdemo.balsamiq.com/ (accessed: 2015-05-22. Also see http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups (accessed: 2010-2011)

Instructions Part 1
1. In groups of 2 or 3 use paper/pencil sketch a mockup of a new kind of App that uses 'scent' or 'smells'! (allocate 10")
2. Assume there is some way to capture 'scent' or 'smells'.
3. 10 minutes
4. Let me know (raise your hand, etc.) when you’re done

Instructions Part 2
5. In the same groups use Balsamiq to create a digital version of the design. The new design may vary from the paper/pencil sketch.

Tips:
Mockup → Download as PDF (to save a copy of your finished design)
Mockup → Clear Mockup (but don't mistakenly wipe your mockup before you save a copy)

6. 15 minutes
7. Let me know (raise your hand, etc.) when you’re done
8. Discuss the following reflection points (in groups first followed by class discussion). (allocate 5")

Reflection
Your own thoughts/observations?
How many design possibilities were sketched on paper? In Balsamiq?
Consider the difference between paper/pencil sketch vs Balsamiq.
How did the tool used shape, constrain or enable your design thinking?
Comment on the discussion dynamics within the group.
Did someone take responsibility for driving the group forward?
Describe your feelings and thoughts on the process of translating your ideas into different concrete representations.
Can you identify 'who contributed what' to the designs?

References
Digital nose teaches machines to smell - Turck duotec acquires a stake in SmartNanotubes Technologies (link)

The science of smell (link to article on brainfacts.org)
Intel Neuromorphic chip demonstrates smell functionality (article from intel.com)
"Sniffing Entrapped Humans with Sensor Arrays" (link) & NewAtlas article (link)Chat Perf for smartphone. Intro article on Gizmag (link)
SAPER app (link on gizmag). Not quite an electronic nose but close.
Wongchoosuk et al, (2009) Detection and Classification of Human Body Odor Using an Electronic Nose. Sensors, 9, 7234-7249. (doi 10.3390/s90907234 - resolve via dx.doi.org)
How Internet Odors Will Work (howstuffworks.com)
Related imagery and concepts on the Edible Geography blog (ediblegeography.com)
Want the nose of a Sommelier? (Null, 2018 - article on wired.com)