Cross-Disciplinary%20Collaboration

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Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
Confessions of a Technologist who has worked with
Psychologists, Artists, Designers, and other
Creatures Who are Strange to Me

• Randy Pausch
• Professor of Computer Science, HCI, and Design
• Co-Director, Entertainment Technology Center
• Carnegie Mellon University

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We must focus our energies on the right things
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Outline

• Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration -gt Creativity
• Carnegie Mellons HCI Institute
• My eyes get opened Walt Disney Imagineering
• Extreme Collaboration Carnegie Mellons
  Entertainment Technology Center
• General Thoughts on Collaboration Disciplines
• Building Virtual Worlds course my Petri dish

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Furby
Four times as much code as the Apollo lunar
lander!
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• We are living in the future.

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Creativity Comes From Putting Different Kinds of
People Together

• They see the world differently
• Partly innate, partly training

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Quick Test...

• Count the green squaresyou will have three
  seconds

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• How many were there?

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Diversity by Gender

• CMU CS majors are 35 female
• Utility, not Political Correctness

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Caitlin Kelleher
A marvelous moment.
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Caitlin Kellehers talk at CHI

• Stencils-Based Tutorials Design and Evaluation
• Wednesday 230pm, Educational Help Systems,
  Ballroom 204

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Diversity by Point-of-View

• Learn to see the world from as many viewpoints as
  possible
• Creative is more valuable than smart if you're
  in the top 1, there's only 60 million people
  smarter than you...

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Advice Dont be afraid to be silly
My official home page at Carnegie Mellon
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My Dad, age 80
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Me, in Zero-G, aboard NASAs KC-135
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Dont be afraid to look silly

• It might just launch your career!
• Virtual Reality on Five Dollars a Day, CHI 1991

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Advice Think out of the box
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My Collaborations with Real Scientists

• Denny Proffitt A great psychologist, and a great
  man
• Dont try to become an expert in other area
  learn enough to converse and trust your partner
• Neal Kassell
• Watching neurosurgery first-hand

Ken Hinckleys
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Carnegie Mellons HCII

• Human Computer Interaction Institute
• CS
• Psychology
• Design
• The worlds premierplace to do HCI work(okay,
  Im biased)

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Current Carnegie Mellon HCII Faculty like the
1927 Yankees

• Vincent Aleven
• John Anderson
• Chris Atkeson
• Daniel Boyarski
• Albert Corbett
• Mark Derthick
• Anind Dey
• Jodi Forlizzi
• Susan Fussell
• Jason Hong
• Scott Hudson

• Pamela Jennings
• Bonnie John
• Sara Kiesler
• Roberta Klatzky
• Kenneth Koedinger
• Robert Kraut
• Jennifer Mankoff
• Bruce McLaren
• James Morris
• Brad Myers
• Christine Neuwirth

• Randy Pausch
• Carolyn Rosé
• Steven Roth
• Richard Scheines
• Jane Siegel
• Daniel P. Siewiorek
• Scott Stevens
• Alonso Vera
• Alexander Waibel
• Jie Yang
• John Zimmerman

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Major Areas of Effort at HCII

• Learning Technologies
• Tools and Technology
• Human Assistance
• Collaborative Environments
• Arts and Entertainment

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Its nice to have an HCI Institute.
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1995 My Eyes Get Opened
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Aladdin
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Extreme Collaboration

• Could you do Walt Disney Imagineering in a
  University?

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Entertainment Technology Center (ETC)

• Creative Artists Innovative Technologists
  working in small teams to make things
• Two directors one from CS (me), one from Drama
  (Don Marinelli)
• 2 year professional degree Masters of
  Entertainment Technology

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Keys to the ETCs Success Freedom

• No deans to report to
• License to Break the mold
• Project-based collaboration
• Intense, fun student experience

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Edutainment

• Developed with FDNY
• Networked simulation to train 1st responders to
  chemical spills and terrorist attacks

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Alice

• Novel way to teach Programming
• NSF studies on at-risk students
• grades go from C to B
• retention goes from 44 to 88
• Over 100,000 downloads, textbook, over 20
  universities now using
• Help stem the 23 drop in CS?

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Quasi

• Interactive Animatronic
• Designed,
• Fabricated,
• and Programmed
• Including new show-control software
• 14 weeks
• 6 students

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Communication ToolMessyboard, by Adam Fass
Incredibly low overhead to use type
www.messyboard.org/frodo
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Adam Fass,Author of Messyboard (shown here
with another recent project)Adam is graduating
and is available in the gift shop as you exit
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Carnegie Mellon ETC 2004 Class Went to
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ETC is succeeding

• Masters program (85 students) with a focus on
  collaboration is clearly working
• Admissions Yield
• 51 offers
• 47 accepts
• All pay full tuition

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General Thoughts on Collaboration
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Teaming

• Like any marriage takes work
• R-E-S-P-E-C-T
• Each side must be there for their own vested
  self-interest
• Neither side can be in there in service of the
  other
• You dont have to like each other, but it helps
• Amortize your opinion over a minimum of six
  months - double that for artists!
• Working up via the students
• They have neither turf, nor axes to grind

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General Thoughts on Collaboration

• When putting student teams together start with
  the very best otherwise, peoples worst fears
  are realized about those other people
• The first person over the wall has to really
  kick butt

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Jodi Forlizzi

• First Junior Designer the HCII hired
• Black belt in TaeKwon Do and Karate

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Jodi Forlizzi

• First Junior Designer the HCII hired
• She really kicks butt!
• Black belt in TaeKwon Do and Karate

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My Thoughts on Disciplines

• By understanding what motivates other types of
  people, you can get along better

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From Rich Golds The Plenitude (unpublished)
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Right Brain
Left Brain
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People whocan draw
People whocan do math
TENSION!!!
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Search for truth
Problem solving
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My Thoughts on Designers

• Great talents treat training
• Great training is a 2 edged sword
• You design for the old medium
• Undergrad course on UI design
• spell casting
• I take away fonts, color, etc.

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My Thoughts on Artists

• Vegetarians who smoke?
• Story of the CD that was definitely art
• Everything is personal everything is tied
  together
• Know in their guts what the rest of us can find
  via experiments at extreme cost (if ever)
• I am in complete awe of their talents

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"Plywood Sheets, Painting by Chriss Pagani,
www.chrisspagani.com
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Bowl of Fruit Painting by Ron Fly,
www.appletreegallery.net
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My Thoughts on Psychologists

• At their best, incredible insights into what is
  really causing a phenomenon and how to prove it.
• At their worst, obsessed with measuring things
  right, rather than measuring the right things.

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My Thoughts on Engineers/CS

• Good helpful people, problem solvers
• Bad Arrogant, Dilbert
• Lack of Empathy
• Design for the disabled

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Engineers/CS and Critique

• ETC walk around process
• object vs. subjective Well, I like it
• Im critiquing the work, not you
• humor to lighten. Didnt

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The Building Virtual Worlds Course
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Building Virtual Worlds

• After Sabbatical at Walt Disney Imagineering
• 2 days to cross-list Art, Architecture, CS,
  Design, Drama, HCI
• Building, not talking about or designing

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Why I use Virtual Reality

• No discipline/field owns it
• Engineers think its an engineering field
• Artists think it is a medium for artistic
  expression
• The important thing is having teams of different
  kinds of people work together

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Building Virtual Worlds

• 50 students, selective admission What can you
  do?
• Randomly chosen teams, change per project
• Two weeks to design, implement, and test
• Five projects during the semester
• Different teammates each round
• I need five rounds for this to work

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Campus-wide Exhibition
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Campus-wide Exhibition
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4 students, 2 weeks Samples from
Show Performed real-time, live videos are
available at http//www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/bvw
.html
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Tons of examples

• Weve been doing this since 1997 !
• Over 60 example worlds at

• And follow the Building Virtual Worlds link

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Mechanical Things that Matter

• Never let them pick their own teammates
• Four is the magic number you cant vote!
• In class critique two faculty who dont disagree
  with each other
• Students write up the crit, not me
• Sit in groups at tables, 60 second file card
  feedback

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Randys Tips for Working in Groups

• Fundamentals, completely obvious
• Just like where you sit a famous day in class

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Grades

• 2/3rds of the grade comes from projects on each
  project, they all get the same grade (sink or
  swim together)
• The other 1/3rd of the grade comes from their
  peer evaluations (students are asked to evaluate
  each other).

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Why Feedback Must be Blunt

• We all interpret any grayness completely to our
  benefit when hearing feedback
• Story of Quartiles and hand gestures

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Anonymous Peer Evaluations Not seen by the
professor

• Dear ____________________
• The best three things about working with you
  were
• __________________________________________________
  _________________
• 2) ____________________________________________
  _______________________
• 3) ____________________________________________
  _______________________
• The worst three things about working with you
  were
• 1) ______________________________________________
  _____________________
• 2) _______________________________________________
  ____________________
• 3) ____________________________________________
  _______________________

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Summary

• Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration -gt Creativity
• Carnegie Mellons HCI Institute
• My eyes get opened Walt Disney Imagineering
• Extreme Collaboration Carnegie Mellons
  Entertainment Technology Center
• General Thoughts on Collaboration Disciplines
• Building Virtual Worlds course my Petri dish

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