MIT ILP

I recently attended the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) Digital Health Conference in Cambridge. It was a really amazing conference. There were presentations by so many brilliant minds. You could literally feel your brain aching as it struggled to keep up with all of the topics.

Here is an example of what we discussed (just on the first day!):

I found one slide in particular summed up my personal opinion on much of what we discussed. While there are many things that these technologies can do, it will be more important for us to focus that activity on improving a specific process to achieve a desirable outcome!

I also learned that I should be thankful I don't have to commute in to Boston every day. Even though it isn't nearly as crowded as NYC, it's still too reminiscent of an ant farm!

The MIT Media Lab also has a wonderful view of the Charles and the city of Boston from the sixth floor deck.

I anxiously await the next version of this meeting!

Rockin' it old school

Original post:  Jun 25, 2014

When I was a wee lad, our music was a bit different. You might try to put together your favorite songs on a mixed cassette tape. If you worked an odd job and had a little free cash, you might be able to stitch it together from an album or 45. Otherwise, you had to wait for it to play on the radio (and hope the announcer wasn't one of those talkative types). If you were really cool, you could even carry it around with your Walkman.

Late in high school, the CD was introduced and it revolutionized the industry. I still remember carting around a carefully crafted collection of several hundred jewel cases for my many moves.

Today, CDs are a relic. Sales are slowly dying. It's hard to even find physical CDs in retail establishments. All of the music superstores have gone the way of the dinosaur. I still find myself buying a few. Even though I rip them to .mp3 files, there is still something about having the physical disc that appeals to me. I know that there are a lot of people who have gone completely to streaming services like Pandora or Spotify. While I will listen to them, I guess the failed artist in me still wants to reward the musical creators with some small share of value.

In an advice column from FiveThirtyEight, someone asks if they are normal because (like me) they still buy CDs. It turns out that we are becoming an endangered species:

More from the article:

Nielsen published data showing that 165.4 million CD albums were sold last year (down from 193.4 million in 2012). Once we subtract those CDs, as well as LPs and digital sales, from all albums sold, we’re left with almost nothing: That confirms how obsolete cassettes and minidiscs are. But more importantly, those CD sales confirm there aren’t many Americans like you: Just 0.5 CDs per person were sold in 2013.

Here is the link to the full article:  Dear Mona, I Still Buy CDs. Am I Normal? | FiveThirtyEight

Sometimes analog can be superior to digital

Original post:  May 12, 2014

I am not sure that I will ever give up taking notes on a pad of paper. Last week, I attended a conference with many speakers. Many of the speakers were really excellent and gave speeches filled with solid information that I would like to use someday. I found that I retained the key points better for those where I took copious notes.

While I fully accept most things digital, handwritten notes are my typical choice. I find that I can take notes on a tablet or computer, but it always feels a bit artificial.

When I was in high school, one of my language teachers actually recommended that we use as many senses as we could. He said it would help us remember things more effectively. If you take notes by hand, you are engaging your senses of sight and touch as well as your mind. It's even better if you can read your notes aloud, he reasoned. It would also get the sense of sound in your mind.

It turns out that he may have been on the right track. In a more recent comparison of handwritten notes versus their digital counterparts, a study compared two groups of students. One of them took notes using the traditional method. The other used keyboards to type their notes. The students who took the handwritten notes turned out to perform better on quizzes.

Here is a link to the article that references the underlying study:  http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/to-remember-a-lecture-better-take-notes-by-hand/361478/

This particular study examined the use of keyboards. I wonder how it might have done with some of the newer tablet apps that can actually scan your handwriting. The end of the article indicates that this would have to be the next step in the research.

To be honest, I believe that it is not the physical act of taking notes that helps with recall. I believe that in order to take good notes, you have to think about the material and then put down the most relevant pieces in your notes. It is that thinking that helps to solidify the idea in your brain!