Jim Panttaja

I have moved this post to my genealogy research blog: John Miller Camron.

Several years ago, Mary and I gave a presentation on problem solving techniques. I would like to highlight a few of these techniques. These techniques apply in general to problem solving, and in particular to debugging of software. The first one is the buzzsaw moment. This technique applies especially to those instances where you have a production system that is down – or that you know if about to go down. It also applies when you have made a mistake, that is going to have bad consequences, and you are trying to figure out how to undo it.

You are sitting on the log – the log is moving toward a saw – and you can see what the problem is. The problem is this darn rope tying you down. So you focus all of your attention on untying that rope. You know deep inside that it isn’t going to work – that you can’t do it fast enough – but there it is – a rope that needs to be untied.

But – it turns out that there is another option. Close at hand (pun intended). Up to your right is the ‘off’ button. All you need to do is a) see it b) realize that it could result in a good result and c) HIT IT.

The really good news about this technique is that many people can apply it (more on this in a subsequent post).

One of my favorite instances of the buzzsaw moment was when I was looking over the shoulder of a database system administrator. We had some data to clean up, and were going to selectively delete some records. This is one of those moments that require care. Usually another cup of coffee first, and always another set of eyes. I was the second set of eyes. The person at the keyboard entered his DELETE tablename WHERE… command, then selected DELETE tablename (but not the WHERE clause), and hit enter. And at that point the damage was done – all of the rows in the table were being deleted. The really good news was that there were a lot of them. In this case, the off button really was the off button. We were sitting next to the server. The rows were being deleted, and logged. I reached over, and threw the on/off switch, interrupting the delete. Since it hadn’t completed (ok – there was luck involved), all the rows were there (ensuring a consistent state) when we brought the server back up.

[The cartoons were done for us several years ago by Marc Schmid. His website is www.cartooncity.net ]

PCs and now the web have offered many powerful ways to visualize data. On the PC Excel (and its predecessors) have given us very powerful ways to view data. The web has contributed to this ability in several ways. New visualization tools have appeared, but data is also becoming more available. Some of this data is ‘public’ data that people are making available on the internet (government data among others), and some is now individuals create data and making it available.

I have looked at a lot of analytic tools in the past, but in this entry would like to present some information on some web based visualization tools.

We had dinner with Bob Zurek of IBM over the weekend, and one of the things that he pointed us at was IBM’s Many Eyes, and the somewhat related Swivel.

Many Eyes let’s you upload data (which becomes public), and then use your dataset, or another existing one to apply various visualizations. Some of these are the usuals (pie charts, bar charts), and some are creative and experimental. I am attaching two below.

One of my hobbies is genealogy. I have been creating my genealogy (and the genealogy of various ‘related’ (pun intended) families for about forty years, ever since my two grandmother’s each independently gave me a family bible, along with other documents and notes. I now have about 8000 people in my database (at some point I will write more about the tools that I use, but the core database is part of Family Tree Maker).

I decided to take a list of the surnames from my database, and display them using two of the visualization techniques.

The first is called a tag cloud. It displays each surname a different size, based on the number of occurrences of that surname. If you click on the following snap shot, you will be taken to Many Eyes, and can view, and interact with the visualization. Note – on a Mac, this will work better if you open it in Safari rather than Firefox.

A Couple of insights here. The first is that the surname that stands out is Scudder. This is my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. It was the place that I started – with one of the family bibles that I was given. In addition, the Scudder Association has tracked back the family to the 17th century. So it isn’t surprising that I have the most data there. Somewhat surprising is the occurrence of Mary. This is not a surname in my database, but when I extracted the data – Family Tree Maker tried to determine the last name based on a single name field that include first, middle and last names. The occurrence of Mary on this list means that I have lot’s of Mary’s for whom I do not know the last name. I am surprised that it is as many as it is.

My second example is a bubble chart. This based on a similar data upload – essentially the surnames, and the number of people with that surname. These bubbles are to scale – so it allows you to compare instances where the data varies dramatically in scale. In this particualr example, there are so many surnames, that there is not room to display the names themselves on most of the bubbles.

These are instances trying to get insight in to data that I have. Many of the examples on Many Eyes are of data that is interesting to a larger number of people. And a major goal of the site is to have lot’s of people look at the data, and try to gain insights from it. There is also a commenting feature that let’s people manipulate and annotate their insights.

Mary has also blogged on Many Eyes.

Mary and I are in the process of figuring out what we want to create next. The process is an interesting, somewhat daunting, and definitely exciting one. We read blogs, read the newspaper, read books, talk to our selves (yes – sometimes talk to myself – but also have conversations with Mary), and talk to friends, acquaintances, business associates, and investors. Frankly – anyone who will listen – but even more important – anyone who will talk to us and with us. We also write (Mary is much better at this part than I am).

This trip to New York and Boston has included conversations with two investors in Sapias, Inc., a meeting with a former associate of ours at Netcentives who is chairman of the board of a company he founded, dinner with a former associate of ours when we were working with Powersoft, and their PowerBuilder product 10-15 years ago, and a visit to Talking Points Memo, a political blog portal (our nephew is associate editor).

All have been great conversations. Some with advice of specific companies, some with advice on questions to answer about anything we get into (see my earlier post), some have included discussions of their favorite potential investment possibility, or current project.

My own thoughts (I was going to say ours – but I can’t speak for Mary) are swirling – what is the right way to dig in to this. And the answer so far is to keep digging, thinking, probing. And Mary and I need to start filling in some of our ideas of what we might want to create.

We attended A Moon for the Misbegotten in New York this week. There were many plays to choose from, and only one night for theater while we were in New York. We appealed to our daughter and her boyfriend for advice, and looked at the listings. Through intelligent processes – or luck, we chose A Moon for the Misbegotten. This production was brought to Broadway from the Old Vic in London, and stars its artistic director Kevin Spacey, Colm Meaney and Eve Best (who I had never heard of – but who is nominated for a Tony award for this performance).

The production was wonderful – with incredibly strong performances. The first act was full of caricatures – which had me put off a bit at intermission. But the caricatures in the first act were essential to the second act.

What surprised me about the play – were the sets. They reminded me of the magic that is the theater (or at least can be). When we walked in – the main set piece was striking. It is a rough cabin – whose angles defy gravity and the rules of geometry. But when the lights came up – and some music and sound effects started – you were in a different place. We weren’t in Manhattan anymore. That transition took seconds, and was accomplished well before the first actor appeared on stage.

To be clear, the actors did their part as the evening went by. The intermission arrived with a bit of a jolt – had we been there long enough yet?

It was a worthy production regardless, but it reminded me of the magic that the sets, lighting and sound create.

Thinking more about the SVASE event earlier this week – it becomes clear that technology is not enough. It is always interesting (especially as someone who considers himself a technologist), but it isn’t enough.

Several of the companies presenting at Launch Silicon Valley had no customer related problem they were trying to solve. This was reinforced yesterday with a meeting we had with Chris Brody in New York yesterday. He was an investor in the company I have recently left, Sapias, Inc.

We have received much advice as we discuss what we are going to do next with our favorite investors, VCs, colleagues and advisers. But the best is focused on making sure that we know who the customer is and what problem we are trying to solve. As technologists, that isn’t always the easiest advice to follow – you want to do something that is ‘way cool’.

To be clear, sometimes you think you know who the customer is, and what problem they have that needs to be addressed – only to find that your solution is for a different customer and solves a different need. But you need to make sure that these filters are applied early and often: Is there a customer? Does he have a problem that you can address?

Chris Brody, offered us his set of ‘five questions’. Without explanation of the numeric inflation involved, there were seven questions on the list of five questions when he handed them to us. The first two were the two listed above.

His list will be tacked to my wall – and the rest of the questions may be fodder for future blogs.

On Sunday I attended a performance of the Healdsburg Community Band at the new Gazebo in downtown Healdsburg, California. (Pictures of the event from the Press Democrat) I attended this in the saxophone section where I now rehearse (on those Tuesday nights when I am in town), and perform. The band is 30 years old and accepts any adult or high school student who expresses an interest. Some members have played for years, and some haven’t played in years when they join the group. And some of us move among sections depending on our favorite instrument du Jour. My son played in the group through his high school years and played three or four different instruments in those four years. After ten years playing in the flute and piccolo section, I have now played about four years in the saxophone section.

I enjoy concerts – but I particularly enjoy them from the inside. I once was on a business trip in Amsterdam, and mentioned that I would love to attend a concert at the famous Concertgebouw. One of my hosts told me after lunch that there was a ticket waiting for me that eveing at will call. I asked what it was for – and he didn’t know – and I didn’t care.

When I arrived for the performance, I discovered it was to be Handel’s Messiah. When I walked up to my designated door to go in to the theater, there was a long line of men and women in tuxedos and black dresses. I thought ‘they sure seem to dress up more in Amsterdam’ – I got to the back of the line, and then realized this was the choir. Much to my surprise – and pleasure, my seat was one row behind the choir. Perhaps not the best place to ‘hear’ the piece – but an incredible place to be part of the piece. Every time the conductor queued the tenors I felt like joining in – because he was signaling me. Fortunately I resisted that impulse. But I did get a very different sense of the piece, and a feeling of the energy generated by the conductor and the singers that you would never get ‘out front’.

And it is this same feeling I get in the saxophone section of the Healdsburg Community Band, reacting to the queues of the conductor, noticing the energy of those around me (sometimes anxious over a coming entrance – or over standing to play the piccolo solo in The Stars and Stripes Forever; sometimes looking forward to a favorite riff). I sit there and think about important musicians and people who enjoy music in my life and about my own entrances and favorite parts. And I play my instrument – trying to sound better than I every have – and perhaps better than I ever will.

Yesterday I attended Launch Silicon Valley sponsored by SVASE (Silicon Valley Association of Entrepeneurs). It was a sort of beauty contest, with about 30 companies making brief presentations (plus a three interesting keynotes – each very different – but each with some interesting insights). It was a particularly eclectic set of companies in very different fields. They were also different stages, some with cool ideas and technology but no apparent business model, or a business model, but no idea of how to market it. But to be clear, there were were several that are fully formed, and several with good technology concepts that need just a little more thought to get them positioned in the right space. Here are notes on a few of the companies that caught my eye.

Datamash Corporation allows you to share data in spreadsheets (with more sources and targets in the works). For a spreadsheet – this means that I can have a spreadsheet – which rolls up data from other people. As they update their spreadsheets, the data is reflected in my spreadsheet the next time I open it. For a sales manager, this is quite powerful. This creates an interesting database management system, and I can picture a number of issues that need to be explored – but it is a powerful concept.

Jaxtr is one of several services that connect callers – reducing their telephone costs (some use a local phone number), and connecting you without your caller knowing your phone number. Others include Jajah, Jangl, and, from Panttaja Consulting alumni Mahesh Lalwani, CCube. Different capabilities (depending on the company) include the ability to block specific calls, send some to voice mail, and limit what time calls are allowed.

ShapeWriter is a text input product that is based on gestures over a diagram of keys. You draw on the diagram going from letter to letter. You are able to learn the gesture for a given word – and if you are closes enough, the system figures out what word you had in mind. In seems especially timely with the announcement from Microsoft of Surface, and also seems like it would be useful with cell phones (especially iPhone).

TelID was a particularly simple, but compelling idea. It provides an alternative to local search based on a phone number. They are initially working with Yellow Pages companies – to include ads that indicate that there is a TelID link available. You then enter the phone number as part of the URL: www.telid.com/4155551212, and you get a web page about the company (or individual – allowing an insurance agent to have their own page – easily accessible on the web). This takes an existing, well known identifier – the phone number, as the search tool. Clever idea, and clever to link it to Yellow Pages as a first attempt to get critical mass.

Mary has also blogged on this event at mary.panttaja.com.

In the last week I have been looking at a couple of new development tools that support the occasionally connected user. I am particularly interested in these – because I am one of those users. When I am in my car, or on a plane, I still want to be able to do my work. But if I am using applications that require connectivity, I may be in trouble (I do have a portable router and cellular communication for my car – but I am not always in range).

Two of hese tools are, Apollo, and Google Gears. Both provide the ability to work with a local database on the client on the client machine when you are not connected. But neither address the design patterns required to manage synchronization between the client and the server.

A couple of examples of the design patterns are:

• An RSS feed client – that just views the current entries. When you next sync, overwrite any data on the client with the current data from the server.
• A data entry application – that allows users to add or edit data. But for a given data element, there is only one authorized writer/updater. When you next sync, overwrite any data on the server with the new client data. There are still potential conflicts – for instance if the user syncs from a different session (typically machine) and the first machine hadn’t yet done its sync. Any individual sync without apparent conflict is allowed. But updating an already deleted row will obviously be an issue.

The examples get more complicated – and have to be thought through carefully for a given application. These tools are making it too easy for people to walk in to synchronization issues in application implementation.