Diversity and Collisions: A Problem-Solving Strategy

Last week I had the privilege of attending the Global Business Forum sponsored by Baylor's Hankamer School of Business. One of the most intriguing presentations was by Will Cukierski of Kaggle. Kaggle uses a competition model to engage data scientists in the development of predictive models. Cukierski indicated that Kaggle has seen that the groups most likely to solve a problem are frequently those most distant from the problem. Cukierski pointed to the work of Karim R. Lakhani. The company InnoCentive, much like Kaggle, provides a platform for crowd sourcing scientific problems. In "The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving" Lakhani et. al. (2007) found that "the more heterogeneous the scientific interests attracted to the solver base by a problem, the more likely the problem is to be solved" (p.7).

On a related note, I heard a story on NPR last week highlighted the work of Richard B. Freeman and Wei Huang on the effects of ethnic identity on authorship of scientific papers. In their paper "Collaborating with people like me: Ethnic co-authorship within the US," Freeman and Huang examined the surnames of authors between 1985 and 2008. The focus on the research was the impact of homophily ("birds of a feather flock together") on the quality of science produced. I was most interested in their final interpretive remarks, in which they hypothesize, based on their data, that "greater diversity and breadth of knowledge of a research team contributes to the quality of the scientific papers that the team produces" (p.19).

A related point, and the biggest takeaway for me from Cukierski's presentation last week, was Kaggle's approach to combining predictive models, from different teams, and often different academic domains, to come up with even better predictions. When they take the top two solutions and combine them, they tend to get better results than if using only the first-place model. Adding the third result will likely make the model even better. It is only after some number of approaches (the example graph put this n at 15) that additional models make the overall model less accurate. Better models come from combining multiple solutions, from multiple perspectives, not from selecting the one best solution.

There are likely several factors at play here. First, by bringing together multiple research teams from around the world, Kaggle is playing the part of the weak tie in the social network (Granovetter, 1973). Second, in a more diverse network, one is more likely to find those outside of the "normal science" (Kuhn, 1962), and therefore not bound by associated disciplinary constraints . Third, the competition model takes advantage of what we know about brainstorming and individual creativity (Cain, 2012, ch.3).

As I've written before, I see the research library of the future playing a key role in facilitating these kinds of interdisciplinary collisions, both with the spaces we provide (e.g. a "research commons") and the services we develop. So perhaps we can look to Kaggle and InnoCentive as a model for a type of academic library programming. Could we host our own Kaggle-like competition? A component of Baylor University's strategic vision, Pro Futuris, is "Informed Engagement," which includes an intent to "address systemic problems facing our community." What if we hosted a competition to find the best interdisciplinary solutions to community problems, partnering with local agencies and initiatives? What if we engaged faculty to make participation in the competition a course assignment?


Cain, S. (2012). Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking New York: Crown Publishers.

Freeman, R. B., & Huang, W. (2014). Collaborating With People Like Me: Ethnic co-authorship within the US (Working Paper No. 19905). National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w19905

Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. The American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380.

Granovetter, M. S. (1983). The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited. Sociological Theory, 1, 201–233.

Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lakhani, K. R., Jeppesen, L. B., Lohse, P. A., & Panetta, J. A. (2007). The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving (No. 07-050). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School. Retrieved from http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/download.aspx?name=07-050.pdf

Bootcamp for creatives

It's true. I need a swift kick in the butt every so often to do the things I need to do professionally. Don't get me wrong. I work hard every day. I try, with more or less success, to practice "inbox zero," and have certainly improved in management of my scary to-do list. I get assignments done on time, make it to meetings, and spend time on developing my team. But when it comes to writing - blogging, reading the research, developing an article or presentation - I need a periodic "kick" to clear my head and get me focused on what's really important. So every once in a while Amazon tells me I need yet another book on creativity/productivity/psychology, and I obligingly "one click," purchasing what is usually a cheap, short e-book that is clearly a compilation of blog posts, often by someone with a certain too-cool-for-school writing style. And yet, despite being cheap, short, and casual, I often find these kicks to be just what I need to shut my door, minimize Outlook, and focus on important stuff.

My burst of professional productivity the last couple days is likely connected to my most recent purchase, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon. According to my Kindle app I'm 64% of the way through the book (probably the equivalent to about 30 pages if you account for font size, blank space, and large images). At this point, the most powerful message for me has been to "share something small every day." Of course this is old advice - but nevertheless a good reminder to find a way to have some productivity each day - and not let "perfect" get in the way of "good," something I've perhaps done better at preaching than practicing.

In this same section Kleon talks about finding time. There are 24 hours in every day, and you can "find time the same place you find spare change: in the nooks and crannies." This comment reminds me of another book for the creative's bootcamp, Laura Vanderkam's 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think.



Here are a few more books to fire up your creative productivity:
The 99U compilation, Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (The 99U Book Series)










The book with the cheery title Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day, by Todd Henry.


And, for a truly bootcamp approach, Steven Pressfield's Do the Work

On hiring capacity over experience

We have a semi-regular brown bag lunch for librarians at Baylor. A frequent agenda item is sharing around the table of highlights from recent conferences. At a lunch meeting last fall I spoke about the
Designing Libraries for the 21st Century conference I had just attended at North Carolina State University. It was a tremendous conference, and a great opportunity to see the truly fabulous new Hunt Library. One highlight of the conference for me was hearing Susan Nutter speak on her vision for the library, and the long-term process of developing the team of professionals around her who made the library possible.

One portion of Nutter's presentation jumped out at me. It was an echo of something I'd read in the distant past, and parallel to a philosophy which has guided me when writing job descriptions or making a hiring decision. I shared Nutter's comments with my colleagues at our brown bag session. One of my colleagues, who was chairing a faculty search, asked me later to repeat these comments, as he didn't capture all of them in his notes. I'm not sure I captured everything Nutter said, but my notes had the following: changed the hiring process - look for talent, knowledge, team players, eager, intellectually engaged, willing to take chances. Nutter also indicated that experience doing the job was NOT a key criteria.

Years ago, well before I began working in libraries, I read the book Growing a Business by Paul Hawken. I think I read it during my stay-at-home dad stint, when I was trying to imagine the entrepreneurial business I could start with zero capital. I never started that business (or at least, haven't yet), but I have tried to bring an entrepreneurial attitude to library leadership. At any rate, Nutter's remarks reminded me of one small section of Hawken's book which really resonated with me back in the early 1990's, and which has stuck with me ever since. Hawken said he aimed to "hire the person, not the position," and to focus on the character and potential of a job candidate. I had to wonder as Nutter spoke whether she had read Hawken, too, especially when I realized that she was hired at NCSU in 1987 -- the same year Hawken's book was published!

The "hire the right person" philosophy plays out in a number of practices for me. First, when writing a job description, I lean toward expanding the applicant pool, rather than restricting it. I always ask my search chairs whether a particular position requires an MLS. Sometimes we agree that an MLS is required (so far we've always required the library degree for cataloging positions). Frequently, we settle on a combination of graduate degree(s) and experience or evidence of related success.

When reviewing candidates, I'm more impressed by evidence of capacity to do a job than generic library experience. I can recall a time when a finalist pool for a very technical, detail oriented position with a need to at least understand databases and programming included someone with no undergraduate work in math or computers, an obvious (from the undergraduate transcript) failed attempt at a degree in the sciences, and an eventual esoteric humanities degree. I strongly discouraged the search committee from advancing the candidate, as we didn't have any evidence of capacity for the type of work required, despite some experience working in academic libraries. The end result of this search was an outstanding, new-to-the-profession librarian who jumped right into the work.

Finally, when making a final selection, do the hard work of reference checks. Go beyond the minimum institutional requirements. If a named reference seems to be avoiding your calls, be dogged in pursuit of them - they may be trying to avoid giving accurate, negative feedback on someone they want to see hired (or hired away). With the permission of the finalist, expand your conversations to include non-directed references. When we are preparing to do reference checks for a finalist, we tell the candidate we would also like to talk to a couple people not included on their list of references. We ask if there is anyone in their current or immediately previous place of employment (or among the faculty of their program) they would not want us to contact. Then we contact at least one or two people who, based on their positions, should have some knowledge of the candidate. Find out about their competence and and their collegiality. Remember, you are looking for ability and fit. Generally, you are going to get glowing reviews from people who really like the person you've liked in the interview process. Occasionally, however, you might gain new insight that helps you avoid a bad hiring decision.

PaperShip - finally, a great iPad app for Zotero

Last week I discovered PaperShip. I've been a big fan of Zotero for years, but have been frustrated by the limited and complex options for reading and annotating my attached files on my iPad. I have Zotero set up to sync attachments with my university-provided box.com account. PaperShip syncs with both my Zotero.org citations and my Box attachments. I can open my attachments, annotate (limited free tools, or get more tools with a $4.99 in-app purchase), and attach a note. PaperShip puts the annotated version back into Box. When I sync Zotero on my computer, all of the annotations are there. Another nice feature is the ability to search and add citations from within PaperShip. If you want to follow up on a work cited in the article you are reading, simply copy the title, click the "+" symbol, and choose your search interface (arXiv, Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, JSTOR, PubMed, or ScienceDirect). Find the item, click "Import" and the item appears in your PaperShip Inbox. From there you can move it into the appropriate folder(s). It will also capture the full article, when it can. The program also allows for sharing via Twitter, text, or email, and for opening in alternate reader applications. You can even attach audio notes to your documents.

There do seem to be a few minor bugs. The program occassionally crashes or requires reestablishing a Zotero connection, and the free and paid annotation tools do not work together quite as seamlessly as one might wish, but overall I am very pleased to have this tool available.

PaperShip also has an iPhone version, though it, too, seems a little buggy. The "open in" option for attachments would be useful for reading in the text-only mode in GoodReader (as pdfs tend to be too small to be legible on a 4S, and still too small to read comfortably on a 5S) . I can open an attached html file in GoodReader, but can't get PaperShip to open a pdf  in GoodReader. Also, the iPhone version seems to have trouble when there are multiple attachments. One citation with two files, an html and a pdf, opened the pdf first. I then used the arrow down to open the html. Later, I went back to the same citation, and it seems to switch between attachments, but only shows the html file. Finally, I've noticed that sometimes the annotation bar doesn't seem to be available for pdfs.

I am hopeful that the developer will work out the bugs soon, as this app is a great concept, and I use the iPad version just about every day.