[chandler-users] The story of a new user

[Andrew Smart]

At this point it seems that many Chandler users are probably pretty computer savvy, if not also programmers themselves - so maybe abbreviations would not be difficult for the current user profile.  ACT and DEF sound like variable names :)

I am gladdened to know that small groups of researchers are the group (of groups) Chandler developers want to target! We need help!

>I don't think you're a non-standard user at all, I think PhD  
> students are very close to the group we're interested in catering  
> to, *especially* if you're actively collaborating with other  
> academics, but even if not, if you have lots of notes that you need  
> to process every day, I think you're who we're trying to serve.

What would be wonderful is a way to share collaborations across groups as well. For instance, I am a member of a lab with a group of people who physically work at the lab. But I, independently of the group, also collaborate with researchers in Sweden, France etc. based on projects in which we have a mutual interest.  Other members of the group here collaborate with people from other groups on their own projects. It is of course really difficult to coordinate all this. And groups form and dissolve all the time when a project starts or is completed. When the group dissolves all of the useful things the group learns about organizing collaborations dissolves too. It would be great to be able to use Chandler to store a platform for collaboration, so that when a new research group forms we can just say "here is how this is organized" and everyone can be literally on the same page from day one. Groups in research are often more like transient assemblies of people working on some problem. When the problem is solved, or more accurately when there is a paper about the problem, the members of group move on.  
I know this isn't very concrete. 

So what I mean is that for instance a person in Sweden and myself think of an idea for an experiment. We have the necessary equipment here so we collect the data. The guy in Sweden has developed a great new way to analyze the data, so we send him the data. Now, some people in France that I know have done similar experiments and also take a look at the data and offer some insight. We send data, upload data, make figures - back and forth for several months, sometimes we meet. Eventually one or two of us sits down and puts everything in a paper. We then send the paper back and forth among the group members for editing and revising. We then submit the paper. It hopefully gets accepted, but always with revisions. The process repeats and continues. This group dissolves (for the time being), I find some other collaborators etc....

What I want to point out is that all of the organization of this takes place ad hoc and on the fly. Often the planning of doing is more work than the doing- which is where I want Chandler to come in!

Re: words. Personally I think the word Focus is very intuitive for me. The word Now induces a stress reaction in me. I have a range of things in my current focus, but if I label something as "now" or "active" I feel like I have to think about it "right now".

Sorry this is so long - but I think about this a lot :)
andy






----- Original Message -----
From: Mimi Yin <mimi at osafoundation.org>
Date: Monday, March 17, 2008 9:53 pm
Subject: Re: [chandler-users] The story of a new user
To: Chandler users <chandler-users at osafoundation.org>


> Heh, well there is the small issue of space! We could abbreviate in  
>  the Status column: ACT and DEF and spell out the labels in full in  
>  the section headers. On the other hand, it's nice today that the full 
>  
>  word fits into the column.
>  
>  I think this might be a good question to add to the informal "focus  
> 
>  group" we're running to test the new chandler homepage and product  
>  messaging.
>  
>  On Mar 17, 2008, at 6:09 PM, Jeffrey Harris wrote:
>  
>  > Hi Allan,
>  >
>  >> I'm glad it's helpful. I was concerned that, being something of a  
> 
>  >> non-standard user, I might be throwing things off. Feel free to  
>  >> ignore me!
>  >
>  > I don't think you're a non-standard user at all, I think PhD  
>  > students are very close to the group we're interested in catering  
> 
>  > to, *especially* if you're actively collaborating with other  
>  > academics, but even if not, if you have lots of notes that you need 
>  
>  > to process every day, I think you're who we're trying to serve.
>  >
>  >> The way I described it is how I understand NOW... that's all I can 
>  
>  >> say. So, yes, ACTIVE would be much closer to the way I manage my  
> 
>  >> work, but again, that's just me.
>  >
>  > I think ACTIVE and DEFERRED would be fine labels.
>  >
>  > I wonder if NOW and LATER would make more sense if we'd labeled  
>  > that column "Focus"?  I think of triage status as really being  
>  > about focus, these are things I want to focus on right now, these  
> 
>  > are things I'll focus on later.  In that context, NOW/LATER mean  
>  > pretty much the same thing to me as ACTIVE/DEFERRED.  Would having  
> 
>  > the word focus associated help you?
>  >
>  > I think this is actually an important issue, the words we use to  
>  > label features have to accurately convey what we're trying to  
>  > provide workflows for.  If the words aren't read the way we want  
>  > them to be, we need to change the word!
>  >
>  > Sincerely,
>  > Jeffrey
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