Mike Oren.com

After much resistance, I finally started using Twitter a few weeks ago and now have about 150 'tweets'. Despite that, I'm still not quite ready to pass judgement on the service since I don't think I have enough (active/non-spam) followers to really be making proper use of the potential of the service. If anybody is interested in following me, my twitter page is http://twitter.com/mikeoren. I can see potential in the service, but only with an active group of followers and with limited use cases. Currently I am using it in probably a worthless way--mostly giving updates on what I'm up to, but part of that is just to get an active account going. Finding random 'local tweets' and replying to interesting ones has proven hit and miss as well. Following the CHI conference from a distance (to follow the progress of the student design competition--the Iowa State team got 3rd place, in case I forgot to mention that) proved to be semi-fruitful since through that I found somebody complimenting the Iowa State team on placing technology as secondary to actual user needs/desires--which was precisely the point we tried to hammer into people in 521 last semester (so it looks like that group got it, at least).

In other news, my abstract for the European Sociological Association annual meeting was accepted (but only as an oral presentation). I've also started prepping for the summer arrival of the research experience for undergraduates by looking into affinity research group literature and suggesting ways to improve the overall experience for the undergrads in ways that will help encourage their future research/graduate school pursuits. Not sure how many/if any of those suggestions will be incorporated into the program this summer, but I'm mostly pushing for the graduate student project mentors to play a more active role in serving as project managers and generally being more active than just providing technical support compared to the past efforts (at least what I'm aware of).

Last week I finally cobbled together a web site for the summer course (HCI 596), it can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/hci596s09/Home

It's still a work in progress so if you find anything off about it then let me know. Also, there are still plenty of slots open if you are interested in taking this course on campus or as a distance education student. If you have any questions about it then let me know.

This is a follow-up to a post from the beginning of March where I gave a few tips to be a successful student/academic. In thinking about this topic some more, I realized there are a few practical tips I should add beyond those higher level tips:

1. Take a public speaking class, join a speech team, or a debating team. My previous post talked about the importance of becoming proficient and comfortable writing, but it is equally important to become so comfortable speaking about a topic that if you are asked to give a presentation for a conference, class, or work (if you ened up in industry) that you can quickly form an outline and, essentially, pull the talk out of your rear end (yay for self-censorship). A lot of this has to just do with the idea of becoming comfortable talking. I, personally, was terrified of public speaking when I was younger (my speech impediment didn't help that fact), so I ended up taking public speaking, acting, and being on the speech team (primarily doing improptu speaking) and all of that ended up helping tremendously so that I am now at the point where I barely blink when I have to give a talk.
2. Diversify your education (or at least your social network). Our educational system really encourages, although it does not completely force, individuals to specialize as soon as possible and as much as possible. Through this increasing specialization, we often lose view of the wider spectrum and get "stuck within the box", making it difficult to connect within interdisciplinary teams and find new, "outside the box" solutions. If you diversify then you may find a new way of solving a problem and "change the world".
3. Network. Always, always network. No matter where you end up, always try to help people along the way and don't be afraid to ask for a favor on occasion (but be prepared to return the favor in the future). Almost everything is decided behind closed doors and you need a network and a sense of politics.

That puts the list at 9, maybe I'll add a 10th item at some point in the future if I think of something. Hopefully somebody out there finds these tips somewhat helpful.

Microsoft Research has a guide to writing and presenting on research that might be worth check out, if you're looking for more of a guide as opposed to general tips.

This was my 3rd year being nominated for Iowa State's HCI student of the year award (each year I've been here, I've been nominated) and this year I finally won the award (I have a nice plaque to prove it). I finally join the ranks of my friends and colleagues Kim Weaver ('07 winner) and Jeremiah Still ('08 winner). It's not so much that I care about the award as that it was nice, after I was given the award, to be congratulated by a variety of people and to feel like I had really contributed something and that I wasn't just doing things out of my own selfish intersts (since there is often a fine line between my own self-interest and my desires to give back to the community/program). Here's a picture from the award presentation where I am indicating that my victory had 'a little bit' to do with the fact that people think I look like Jack Black:
In other news, the CHI Student Design Competition team from the HCI 521 class that I helped mentor has moved on to the next round of competition (they are in the top 4). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll place in the top 2 (hopefully first) and bring some recognition to Iowa State's HCI program in the process. The end of the semester approaches, so I'll be swamped with work over the next few weeks (including prepping for my summer course and prepping for my mentoring work with the group of Research Experience for Undergraduates that our coming this summer). It'll be a somewhat busy, but fun summer for me. Oh, I also got into the preparing future faculty (PFF) program for the fall, so that'll be another great experience/forum for me to better hone my skills.