Sunday, November 28, 2004

Adventures in audio Inspired in part by reading up on podcasting techniques, I made the big leap (for me) today by loading up some open-source audio-recording/editing software (Audacity), buying an RCA-to-miniplug cable, and recording from cassette tape to digital audio on the PowerBook.  I chose to experiment using a recording I made from KUSP's broadcast of a John Adams piece from this year's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, "The Dharma at Big Sur." I succeeded in digitizing the piece, then encoding to MP3, and finally moving it to the iPod for repeat enjoyment. And I'm happy with the result! I feel so clever, but of course it's the folks who develop the software that makes this possible who're clever. 8:16:57 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Another TC journal TC from the academy: Orange: An Online Journal of Technical Communication and Information Design. "The growing field of Technical Communication once primarily focused on the communication of technical information through manuals and help systems. In recent years the field has expanded to include a variety of specialized disciplines that utilize technology to communicate -- and has adopted much more sophisticated theories of communication to accomodate these changes. The Orange Journal of Technical Communication and Information Design is a graduate student journal that strives to foster critical thinking and discussion on a wide variety of topics and issues important to technical communicators." (About Orange) [InfoDesign: Understanding by Design] I'm looking forward to reading the article in Volume 3, Number 1, entitled "Just a Cog in the Machine? The Implications for Technical Communicators." I often refer to myself and my coworkers as cogs, which is what we're treated as most of the time. As opposed to thinking, innovative, creative professionals capable of unique contributions. 8:02:51 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Problem-solving strategies More wisdom from "The Don" at OK/Cancel: "The Don" Reveals All: Part 3. . .  The most important consulting rule that I follow is: "Never solve the problem as stated." Why? because it is invariably the wrong problem, usually being the symptom rather than the cause. Find the root cause and solve that, and then the original problem usually disappears. . . By askdon@ok-cancel.com (Don Norman). [OK/Cancel] Don said the same thing at the BayDUX event last month. Which reminds me of a technique I learned when studying constraints management (Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints) in which one works back from whatever appears to be a conclusion to find the underlying assumptions. On examining the validity of the assumptions, we can determine if the conclusion (or accepted fact, or problem definition) is valid. And we usually find that it's not. Which bears some relationship to Lakoff's thinking about politics and the framing of discussions. Look at the beliefs and assumptions (or values) from which our positions derive, and we can learn about how we got there. 7:51:25 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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