Tag: Social

I work in a fast-paced environment where everyone on the team is assigned several tasks to be accomplished in an allotted time. Many of these tasks are complex, but everyone on the team is a skilled, experienced professional and we do a great job of meeting our individual commitments. Except when we don’t. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes a system crashes. Sometimes something that was thought to be easy ends up being complicated. Sometimes someone with a critical task gets sick (or their child gets sick). Sometimes something doesn’t work and nobody knows why. Sometimes during the daily standup someone reports being blocked. When we encounter these problems, we swarm.

Usually swarming begins by getting everyone on the core team into a [virtual] room. If other expertise is required, we will pull in other people. Solving the problem is what is important–I never hear blaming or see finger pointing. Solving the problem becomes everyone’s priority. We all help. Even as we divide out work to reach a solution, we typically keep the video conference going even though people may leave awhile for things like dinner or putting kids to bed. Sometimes we shuffle around assigned tasks so that we can have the right people focused on the problem. Having everyone on the team swarm together takes time and effort, and it certainly isn’t a sustainable pace, but when we solve the problem we all share in the sense of accomplishment (and relief).

My family also swarms. We don’t gather together to fix a “defect” or implement a “business requirement,” rather we swarm together to support an individual. Here’s an example of how we swarm together.

A couple weeks ago my wife bemoaned having married me because, having taken on my last name, it moved her significantly forward in the alphabet. Even though it was only the second week of the term she had to put together a project worth a quarter of her grade (the presentation dates were assigned by last name so had she kept her maiden name she would have had three more weeks). This presentation was on top of the regular coursework and of course she still had to work at her job and do the myriad of things she does to run our home. All of the research got completed and the project was in the works, but my wife expressed during our family standup that the submission deadline was looming and she was stressed. So we swarmed.

In this case “swarming” meant planning and following through how we could support my wife. Dividing out pieces of her project wasn’t a viable option because of the concept of academic integrity, but we could support her in other ways.

The next evening, the kids made dinner. My daughter made bacon (she learned how to make it in the oven from an online video) and also a fruit salad. Boy#2 made scrambled eggs. Boy#3 made toast. My main contribution was cracking the eggs (I can do two at a time). My wife was able to come down, eat dinner quickly with the family, and get back to her schoolwork. After dinner the kids took care of the cleanup (which they usually do anyway).

Part of the project required my wife to use a specific piece of software and this created difficulty. We are mostly a Linux household (including my wife’s laptop) and the software was Windows or Mac only. Fortunately Boy#1 does have a Windows laptop so he and I cleared some space on my disheveled desk and he set the laptop up with mouse, headset, etc. so that she had an environment in which to work.

“Quiet” is not an appropriate word to describe my home. My kids take various music lessons and thus regularly practice piano, saxophone, trombone, or clarinet not to mention the more casual strumming of a ukulele, banging on a drum, or causing odd noises to emanate from my father’s old trumpet. There are also various loud communications, chases, squabbles, and bouts of laughter. The project presentation needed to be recorded meaning background noise was frowned-upon. During the time my wife was “on air”, the family quieted down a few notches, kept activity to the other end of the house, and refrained from conflict.

After our family standup that evening, one of the boys tucked in the girl child while I provided my wife with technical support. The boys found quiet ways to pass the time before going to bed. My wife finished up and submitted her assignment a couple hours before the 11:59pm deadline.

There are many other examples of our family swarming to help each other, but this is a recent one and I like how it shows the kids being involved in family success. I’m proud of my wife earning a perfect score on her project. I’m proud of my standup family swarming to support her.

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Last October I described how my family started including a daily standup as part of our nighttime routine. This works great when everyone is home, but that’s not always possible. Occasionally I travel for work such as to Chicago last November and Florida last month. But just because we were geographically separated doesn’t mean I couldn’t participate in the family standup–again I looked to how things function for my work team standups.

Everyone on my team works in a different place; mostly we work from home. Of the four members on my core team, we are spread out in three different timezones and four different states. In order for us to have our daily standup, we utilize video conferencing technology which allows us to communicate verbally and with facial expressions and we can also use screen sharing so that we can all see the same thing. Another important factor taken into account is finding a time that works for all of us–my teammates are kind enough to not schedule anything at “o dark thirty” my time and we also take care not interfere with anyone’s family responsibilities such as picking up children from school.

While in Florida, my family used similar strategies to make our family standup work. We don’t have access to enterprise level online meeting tools, but free “social” video chat tools are available that meet our needs. We also had to account for the three hour time difference which we did by moving up our family standup to 8:00pm left coast time which was 11:00pm in Florida. The adjusted time allowed me to participate in the evening activities at the summit I was attending and also get to bed at a reasonable time.

Normally we all sit in the living room, but we had to change that in order to allow everyone to see everyone and also avoid audio feedback from too many mics in the same area. As such, I was of course in my hotel room (mostly lounging on the bed), my wife and Boy#1 were at the kitchen table on one device, Boy#2 and the girl child were upstairs on another device, and Boy#3 was typically in the teen room on yet another device.

It may seem like needless effort and that it would have been fine for me to have missed a few days of family standup, but I believe it was worth the effort and and the value of my attendance was even greater than that of a “normal” standup because there were updates that couldn’t have happened through other informal channels such as around the dinner table. Here are key updates that were shared during these remote standups:

• Boy#1 announced he finally decided which college he will attend in the fall
• Boy#2 described on his progress in his exhausting life guard certification course
• Boy#3 reported on things he was doing with friends and something he was working on on the piano
• My daughter can make an adventure story from almost any experience (and she did), but I mostly remember her saying she loved and missed me
• My wife reported her grades earned in her graduate school class and where she was on her final paper
• I was able to share the experience I had eating dinner beneath the Space Shuttle Atlantis

Every morning at work, I participate in a team stand-up meeting.  During this fifteen minute meeting, the kanban is displayed and each team member briefly answers these three questions:

• What did I do yesterday (towards sprint goal)?
• What am I doing today (towards sprint goal)?
• What is blocking me (from sprint goal)?

It doesn’t take very long for as many as 20 people to report and we are usually done early.  If someone is blocked, a subset of people may remain afterward in order to figure out how to remove the block.  But this post isn’t about stand-ups in the tech world rather how my family is also having a daily stand-up.

For many years my family has had a bedtime routine.  It has evolved over the years as the children have aged, and a few weeks ago we added a stand-up where everyone reports:

• What did I do today?
• What am I doing tomorrow?
• What is blocking me?

It has taken some time to get the scope correct.  For example, breakfast menu typically doesn’t need to be reported and being tired is not a blocking issue.  Now we are more likely to hear about accomplishments such as a song being passed off at a music lesson or blocking issues such as a child needing to be somewhere and lacking transport.

I’ve seen benefits from having the family stand-up every evening:

• More accurate calendaring–we have a shared family calendar that displays on the BakBoard and is available on our various electronic devices, but sometimes activities and appointments aren’t added to the calendar.  When someone mentions something for the next day that isn’t on the calendar, we get it added.
• Everyone is better informed–there usually isn’t anything that is new to everyone, but often there is something that is new to someone.  We now have fewer situations where a subset of the family is ill-informed as to what is happening.
• Offers to help–when someone reports being blocked, other family members often immediately volunteer to help resolve the issue.
• Positive reinforcement–when someone reports a worthy accomplishment, the family promptly provides proper praise.

Even though both my work and my family stand-up meetings follow the same pattern, the implied context of the questions is different.  While work stand-ups are focused on the sprint goals, family stand-ups deal a lot more with schedule synchronization and individual well-being.  Also, blockages reported in a family scenario are more likely to include details of interpersonal squabbles.  This perhaps suggests that the family stand-ups could benefit from defined goals rather than the implicit “make it through the week somehow.”

I am glad that we started having daily family stand-ups–it has made some things easier.  I expect that over time the family stand-ups will continue to evolve as we see what is most effective for our needs.

Unlike Talkie Toaster, the Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator is a real product and it has some interesting features.  The product page lists features such as:

• Food Management (knowing what you have)
• Family Connection
• Entertainment
• Apps

It’s not until the “More features to love” section that there is any mention that this contraption can keep food cold.  Perhaps that ability was considered obvious, but it’s interesting that the main purpose of the device is the last thing listed even though it does have some innovative cooling functionality such as FlexZone(TM) which lets you use the bottom right section as either a freezer or a fridge and a “Triple Cooling System” (apparently there are three separate evaporators to better maintain temperature and humidity).

I’d take the Family Hub Refrigerator if someone gave it to me, but I’m not going to rush out and buy one for $6,000.  I think most people could have equal smart-fridge-satisfaction by purchasing a similarly sized high-end fridge for thousands less and then slapping a Triby on the door.  Still, I think it’s worth looking at the “smart” features.

So the fridge doesn’t really sing, but it can stream music from Pandora or TuneIn.  From how frequently the Amazon Echo is used to play music during chore time, I concur that it’s nice to be able to easily play music in the kitchen.  However, this is a problem already solved in multiple ways and I’m not seeing the benefit of shoving that capacity into a refrigerator.  I certainly know of no relationship between music and food cooling.  I suppose it is possible that the size of the fridge could be used to improve sound quality (a big woofer in the bottom or using the full width to separate speakers for a better surround sound), but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.  Something I see useful in some situations in a first world problem sort of way is screen mirroring–it can mirror your TV so that when you run in from the other room to grab a snack you don’t miss what’s going on in your show.

The Family Hub includes a clock, calendar, photo display, and notes–all features that are on BakBoard and are nice, but the only benefit I see putting it on the fridge is that it provides screen real estate in a convenient location.  The screen can show weather information and some of the pictures suggest displaying the “word of the day” and “on this day in history” factoids.  There’s a “Family Bulletin Board” display and a “Morning Brief” as well.

What’s more interesting are the food related features integrated with the Family Hub. Since a refrigerator is for food, I think making a smarter refrigerator should improve that relationship with food.

Putting cameras inside and letting you view the contents without opening the door (or even being in the vicinity if using the cell phone app) is a good attempt to make refrigerator a better refrigerator.  My refrigerator is always more densely packed than the pristine Family Hub examples, so I’m not sure if it really is practical, but I would prefer it if my kids could look at a screen on the door instead of standing with the door open staring inside for minutes while trying to decide what to eat.

I won’t go into detail about the ability to search recipes or order groceries–I think those are fine and at least related to food, but not exciting.  The obvious missing piece is that the Family Hub doesn’t really know what’s in it, so it can’t suggest recipes using ingredients you have, nor can it automatically order something when you are almost out of it.  One video I saw mentions the ability to track the age of items in the fridge, but only if you always put the items back in the same spot–there aren’t any smarts to track item movement.

I think the main problem with the Samsung Family Hub is that it’s trying to be the hub of things instead of a thing in the Internet of Things.  I want smart solutions for things like food management, but a picture of the inside where I don’t see any ketchup only tells me there is no ketchup in the fridge and doesn’t tell me whether there is any in the pantry or garage.  The refrigerator is not the central hub of my home, it is merely one of many things in my home and any truly smart fridge will know its place–no matter how well it can sing.

When I saw the word “Triby”, my mind jumped to a classic Star Trek episode and I imaged Captain Kirk and a bunch of fuzzy things.  A quick search revealed that those are “Tribbles” and that the Triby is very different, but the similarity in name grabbed my attention enough that I put forth to answer the question, “What’s a Triby?”

Last month I commented (perhaps bemoaned?) that all the fancy gadgets aren’t very family friendly.  Apparently Triby is a new product which is all about “Connecting you with the music and people you love”.  I find it interesting that music is listed before people, but it does seem to be a step in the right direction.

The core of Triby is the Alexa Voice Service.  This means that it is a lot like the Alexa on the Amazon Echo.  However, it doesn’t seem to support everything Alexa has to offer such as some music services (Spotify and Pandora) and home automation solutions (WeMo and Phillips Hue).  Even without those, the core Alexa functionality and numerous skills available (such as Nanny State) provide many features useful to a family.

There is also some “internet calling” capability in Triby.  This allows for hands-free calling.  It appears as though it is configured so that calls can only be made to/from specified contacts–this suggests that a kid could easily call Grandma but there wouldn’t be concern of telemarketers calling.

Triby goes beyond voice communication with a small display and a few buttons.  By default, the screen appears to have a clock, the day/date, weather information.  Some pictures show the Triby displaying information about what music is playing, or displaying virtual sticky notes sent from the phone app.  The buttons are shortcuts to call people or play specific stations and do other tasks like answer a call (but presumably those things can be done with voice as well).

To me the Triby looks like a toy radio for children.  It has a magnet on the back so that it can be attached to a fridge.  The buttons are also have a toy-ish appearance.  The screen is a small e-ink display–probably to reduce power consumption (the battery lasts about two days on a charge).  The neatest physical aspect of the Triby is the mechanical flag that pops out of the side when a new message is received.

I’d love to have a chance to play with a Triby, but I don’t see myself forking at $200 for one (or even the current $169 sale price on Amazon).  I think Triby has good intentions, but I’m not seeing a WOW! factor.  I wouldn’t be surprised if soon there is a new and improved Triby available that is flashier.  For now my family will continue using our BakBoard and Echo combination, but I’m glad that companies are starting to produce family-friendly tech products.