Persuasive 08 - an inspiring and engaging conference

Participation in Persuasive 08 conference was great! 140 interesting and entusiastic researcher or practioners from 20 contries within the Persuasive Technology field was discussing, listening, laughing and overwhelming each other with good new research or good ideas.

HANDS was present too. With poster and presentation.
In the posting I have mentioned the most interesting talks, activities, articles and people.
It should give you an oppurtunity to study the programs or ideas in details. The talks, activities, articles or people I found most interesting was:

• Affective computing - Kerstin Höök, Stockholm University
• Digital Therapy - Elin Olsen, Changetech. com
• Rosalin Pickard autism, affective computing - Winslow Burleson, Arizona State University
• General purpose persuasive software components - Samir Chatterjee, Claremont graduate University
• Project management, BJ Fogg, Stanford University
• HANDS poster - "It might be Kairos"
• HANDS workshop - Morten Aagaard, Peter Øhrstrøm and Louise Glud Nørregaard AAU

Affective computing - Kerstin Höök, Stockholm University
Kerstin was the first keynote reader. For good reasons. She was talking about affective computing which is an area that considers how emotions can be an issue when using computers.
Highly relevant for the HANDES project. Kerstin showed three applications in her talk:
1. The use of puppets in games which makes it possible to show emotions with motions.
2. Emoto. SMS messages with visuals that is makes it possible to show emotions in SMS.
3. Emotions through motions. Kerstin and her crew had developed a gadget which you could shake/move and through those movements who could express emotions in SMS.

Who this concerns?
Cognitive psychologists, SW developers, teachers. I believe, that especially Emoto could be interesting to create.

Info
Her slides(A video is missing). Her article.

Digital Therapy - Elin Olsen, Changetech. com
Elin Olsen told about their digital therapy. Based on positive psychology a Oslo based compagny, Changetech has developed therapy on the computer that actually works. It targets depression, stop smoking, loosing weight and a couple of other behaviours/issues. It works alone(without a human therapist). Advantages of digital therapy to human therapy is 24-7 availability, personal, ready when problems occur.

Who this concerns?
Cognitive psychologists, teachers.

Info
Her slides. Their articles(WillPower, Digital Therapy)


Rosalin Pickard autism, affective computing - Winslow Burleson, Arizona State University
Winslow Burlesons wife, Camilla, introduced me the first day of the conference to Winslow. He has an fabulous cv including studying at Stanford and MIT and employed now at Arizona State University where he do research for LEGO. When he was studying at MIT he worked together with Rosalin Pickard who have developed affective computing gadgets for individuals with ASD. He invited himself to come to AAU and give a talk about her work and their collaboration. We have made an appointment August 1th. It will be an HANDS workshop on Affective Computing with more speakers.
You(HANDS partner) is welcome.

Who this concerns?
Teachers, psychologists, people i Aalborg.

Info
Rosalind Pickard on wikipedia, Contact me for info about the arrangement(the date might be changed)


General purpose persuasive software components - Samir Chatterjee, Claremont graduate University
Samir Chatterjee argued several times on the conference, that there must exist general purpose persuasive software components. I agreed with him, but had not the time to talk about it in details.
Samir Chatterjees own work included an diary. So did the digital therapy talk. In HANDS we talk about HIPD. There are other candidates for modellayer components with an persuasive properties.

Who this concerns?
SW developers.

Info
His slides, his article.


Project management, BJ Fogg, Stanford University
BJ is a very kind man and a generous man. And intelligent. BJ showed significant interest in HANDS. He participated in our HANDS workshop. Afterwards he warned us(Peter Ø. and I) that we had to manage the the softwaredevelopers very well. They do not necessary go into research for all the good intentions. To them it is business. The suggested, that we had to have a external management of the swdevelopment.

Who this concerns?
Management of HANDS.

Info
None.

HANDS poster - "It might be Kairos"
I had made a poster and a presentation about how to model Kairos mathematically. But nobody seems to understand me and nobody pays attention to it. I believe, that Peter Øhrstrøm, Lars Moltsen and my article is a very valuable contribution to the work within Persuasive Technology. For the Conference we wrote an 11 page article, "It might be Kairos". It combines Persuasive Technology, bayesian statistics(bayes net), psychology, rhetorics and software modelling. Difficult. We was ask to reduce to size to 4 pages. Even more difficult.


Who this concerns?
None I believe. The way to "sell" the idea is to use it in an experiment. Two of the businesscases of HANDS(impulscontrol) and Therapeutical Weatherforecast is candidates.

Info
The article. There exist an 11 pages long verision which is easier understandable.

HANDS workshop - Morten Aagaard, Peter Øhrstrøm and Louise Glud Nørregaard AAU
Actually it was Peter Øhrstrøm, Louise and I who made an presentation. Before our presentation there was a significant interest in HANDS at the conference. The comments to the presentation was primarily orientated towards the ethical concerns. (momentarily do I not remember the questions/comments).
One comment I remembered was a comment about naming the HANDS toolset. Robert Brigg said correctly, that the name of the software constitutes the users conception of the software. We(designers and teachers) call it HANDS, but what are the users naming their customisable software? And should the name be given by teacher(I believe yes)?

Who this concerns?
None.

Info
My slides.

Another interestering resume of the conference has Kristian Toennesen posted in his blog, protos.dk.

I brought a bike with me and I slept in a cabin in the woods 100 meters away from the Baltic Sea. I went swimming every morning. It was very nice. The Ouluans are very nice people.

The HANDS website - for spreading the ideas

At the Persuasive 08 Conference I had several talks with Kristian Tønnesen. Due to the fact, that the userrequirements not are easily identified, it would be highly valuable not consider the analysis of userrequirements as a project private activity, but let other relevant and qualified people get access to parts of the HANDS website. This posting is about how to do so.

Kristian Tønnesen is a very bright guy from Copenhagen with a good sense of humour. Kristian is writing an industrial phd for Danfoss, which is a huge danish(but very international) coorporation(probably 20.000 employee). For Danfoss innovation and design is a very important competitive factor. Due to that fact, supporting collaboration between salespersons, engineers, designers and ? is very important. Most of it can only take place through CSCW-tools(Computer Supported Collaborative Work). Kristian is writing about design and use of CSCW-tools. I asked him about advice for the designers and users of the HANDS CSCWtool(the present adress: hands.hum.aau.dk).

In a 10 minute conversation he gave several real good instructions.
I told him, that the HANDS CSCWtool should have three categories of users: a)general public, b) the partners of the consortium and c) interested and qualified individuals(parents, teachers, psychologists, researchers, ...).
The first category is easily supported.
The second category do have a core group of usecases, orientated around the work(making deliverables, getting overview of a WP, accesing templates. You could label them "Management & administration". All important usecases, but wellknown or easily identifiable. Another group of usecases would Kristian Tønnesen label "innovation and design". Such usescases is presentation of demos, discussion about demos or ideas, links to interesting articles and more.
The third category is interested and qualified individuals, which have no responsibility for the working proces. They are interesting for the HANDS project as technology early adopters. We(the HANDS project needs them because userrequirements is indeed very different. Valuable functionalities for this category is demodownloads, oppurtunity to comment on ideas and comment on comment, give links and possibly participate in open HANDS activities in Aalborg, Budapest and elsewhere.

He gave a number of good advices

1. We will manage category a and the usescase for c labeled "Management & administration". It is not a problem. "Innovation and design" usescases are the challenge.
2. There is no set of rules, which leads to a succesfull CSCW-tool supporting "Innovation and design" usescases. Usescases that is being uses.
3. Email is the alternative. Users would prefer to stick to this media, because they are familar with it and it is private.
4. Discussionsgroups, that work in the manner like Googlegroups, where users can receive postings from their forums in their mailbox and are able to reply in the mailclient to, are attractive.
5. User feel it is tirring to go to CSCW tools, where you can communicate with others - somewhere.
6. Activating the users are a important issue. They are not active by default.
7. Users are very annoyed when they experience functionalities that are not accesible to them. They give up searching for the functionalities, they need.

Brussels - a visit worth 3,5 mill €

We were excited. Henrik Sand administrator(who actually was terrible sick), Peter Øhrstrøm chairman and I. But we needed not be so. The meeting with Project Officer Anne Salaun was held in a relaxed and open atmosphere. We received new comments from Anne and hope we can get them done before March 5th.


Agenda
1. Bringing my soul to Brussels
2. Negotiations with Project Officer Anne Salaun
3. Afterthought

Bringing my soul to Brussels
I wanted to go to Brussels and experience the center of the European Commity, visit my cousin Henrik and bring my soul to with me to the meeting.
It was a good idea. My cousin Henrik is informationofficer at the European Parliment and he gave a experience of the EC Parliment and how it works. Henrik and his wife has been working in Brussels for almost 18 years. Furthermore he gave me an oppurtunity to meet the danish members of the Parliment, which was very valuable for HANDS. Especially to talk with xxx, who is member of the udvalg, which manage the budget of the ICT-research.
I had a little time by myself and a time with Henrik and his wife.


Negotiations with Project Officer Anne Salaun


The meeting was held in not to exciting 5 store concrete building in the ourskirts of Brussels.
Not very exciting but ok.
Anne Salaun appeared to be a kind woman who had the job to secure, that Annex I, our organisation and our documents made it possible to sign a contract and monitor the project.
The agenda of the meeting was the comments that the Evaluators had been giving in the "Evaluation Summary Report" and Annes own comments to the rewritten Proposal(now Annex I). All comments was about contractual or monitoring issues.
Small pieces of the Annex I was considered - never the overall goals.

The result of the meeting was yet another list of comments to our documents(Annex I and all the administrative stuff) which had to be corrected. At the moment, we do not know, how much work is needed.



Afterthought
We were very worried before hand. A lot. Afterwards we consider Anne Salaun as a collaborationpartner.
The comments that we have to work on is some which Peter, Henrik, I, Partners and Anne Salaun has to work on. She experienced that the main job were in the administrative area, which I agree. Some of the comment could possibly mean a lot of work.
But if we make it the grant will be given.

Having a good time with EU

The 6th of February is the deadline for the corrections of the HANDS proposal and 13th of February do we(Chairman Peter Øhrstrøm, Administrator Henrik Sand and I) have the Grant Agreement Negotations in Bruxelles with our Project Officer Anne Salaun.

The Commision did not have ureasonable critics against the proposal. As a extra exercise, the Commission asks us to change the Proposal to a document called "Annex I"(an Annex to the Grant Agreement document.) This demand forces me to read a couple of EU documents:

• Negotiation Guidance Notes(57 pages)
• Grand Agreement Preparation Forms(34 pages)
• Checklist for a Consortium Agreement for FP7 projects(17 pages)
• Guide to Intellectual Property Rules for FP7 projects(45 pages)
• User Guide for Coordinators and Participants(14 pages)
• Note for attention of the Consortium(15 pages)

I do not find it fun any more. Physically and mentally do I need a change.

People around me are working very hard to. Miklos and his folks in Budapest, Joseph & Julia in London, Peter Øhrstrøm & Henrik Sand and all our consultants. I feel very well supported in this stage of the proces, I need to see the work. See the pupils, having meetings with HANDS partners and so on.

And I need to know for sure, that the Commission wants to sign a contract with us. I can image, that I loose conscious, when negotiation with Project Officer in Bruxelles.

An invitation to Grand Agreement in Bruxelles February 13nd!!

Chairman Peter mailed me last week: "Look at this, I believe, we have to talk together". Peter had received a invitation to Grand Agreement negotiations in Bruxelles!! It was just wild! After talking, dreaming, thinking and hoping for almost one year, HANDS finally was choosen! From now on, HANDS only fails, in case the consortium is behaving idiotic. But all partners still needs to do some work. Bruxelles has only suggested, that the budget cut should be 3%!

I recalled the lyrics from "Once in a lifetime" by Talking Heads

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful Wife

And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Last week I wrote a document to myself entitled "20 good reasons, that HANDS should not be realised and now I am in the middle of .... a dream? Or an adventure? Or have EU selected the most demanding, exciting research within the area "ICT for social marginalised people?" With the most exciting perspectives? With parcipation of the wildest combination of exciting personalities and competences: cognitive psychology, mobile telephone developers, Persuasive Technology, ethics, e-learning designcompetences and autism pedagogics?

I only know, that I need to comprehend this new situation.
Somebody has to tell me, what has happend!


Morten

HANDS projectmanager wishes all a Merry Xmas!

Dear partners of HANDS!
It has been a terrific year: experience the birth of HANDS, the organization of HANDS and the creation of the HANDS proposal. I am sure, that I talk for all the people here in Aalborg, that we are very thankful for your work, enthusiasm and dedication. It has been and is wonderful. We have received the evaluators score of the HANDS proposal and HANDS is still in the race. We are waiting for the final judgment from Bruxelles which is expected to appear in the end of January(positive answer) or in the end of March(negative answer). We wait, with excitement and worries.
Will HANDS be accepted?



Jesper Thestrup from the "Confederations of Danish Industries", the one of our most experienced EU-consultants, received the Evaluation Report December 15th.

Jesper mailed me shortly after this note:
"I would like to congratulate you with the remarkable good evaluation. A score on 13 points is very very good. I believe, HANDS can make it. The limit is usually between 12,5 and 13. Let us wait and see. You might end up on the reserve list instead.
But - wow, I am very happy, that you have made it this far. Let us press the thumbs and hope you will make it to the negotiations in Bruxelles"


Morten Aagaard


______________________________________

Agenda
1. The proposal has received its score - How are the chances?
2. Interpretation of the score and comments
3. The wish for next year
4. The X-mas gift



1. The proposal has received its score - How are the chances?
Chairman Peter Øhrstrøm mailed the result of the evaluation of the HANDS proposal december 14h. It consisted of a score and comments to the proposal. The score was 13 points out of maximum 15 points. HANDS received 4,5 points in the areas "Technical and Scientific quality" and in "Dissimination". And 4 point in "Management".
This score means that the HANDS proposal has passed the threshold(12 points) and is a qulified proposal.

Afterwards is he HANDS proposal ranked together with all the other proposals and the Commission chooses the ones with the highest score. Depending on budget for the objective ICT-2007.7.7.2 they will fund one or more. We do not know. And we do not know, how our competitors score are.
The HANDS proposal shall pass an ethical review and that was what we wanted.

The conclusion is:
The HANDS proposal is still in the race and do still have a fair chance.


2. Interpretation of the score and comments
After designing the HANDS project and writing the proposal it is very nice to read how it is evaluated. Quite a few of our values, efforts and ideas have actually evaluated positively. E.g they find Ethics valuable and do make an ethical review of the proposal. E.g. they find the examination of the state of the art satisfying. Eg they do believe, that the proposal can have significant impact. And furthermore: some of the week spots in the proposal has not been registered!

One critical comment which I actually agree upon is(and I know at least Joseph Mintz,LSBU do to) is this:
"However, it is insufficiently explained how the proposed tests (WP2, WP3) are interrelated, how
their results are transferred into SW and HW functional requirements and specifications and
communicated in an operational fashion to the SW development of WP5."

If we are invited inside the Berlaymont building we will have to consider this in more details.


About the score you can comment on it in many ways.
1. The scores we have received in the 3 evaluationareas are 4 and 4.5. The Commission describes 4 and 5 scores like this:
"4 -Good. The proposal addresses the criterion
well, although certain improvements are possible.
5 -Excellent. The proposal successfully addresses all relevant
aspects of the criterion in question. Any shortcomings are minor."

That is a victory.

2. My concern after the submission was, that the three evaluators would have very different background(read: they are recruited from different scientific branches) on the Technical and Scientific Quality. But that seemed not to be the case. They agree in many ways. And at least one of the three evaluators give the HANDS proposal the topscore 5.
Very satisfying.

I believe, that if you have 3 reviewers with different background, other proposals will have difficulties getting the topscore 5 points.

3.That is not the case with the "Management score. Judgment of Management differs not that much from one scientific branch to another(it is a ICT call and the evaluators come from the ICT area). The HANDS proposal do only get an 4, which I do not understand when reading their comment. At least are the critical comments valuable and should be used to optimize the overall project plan.

4. The score for the Impact do I interpret as a "feel good"-judgement. Much of the content in the Impact section of the HANDS proposal is happy smalltalk, with very few consequences. If I where evaluator, I would not find the considerations within such an sections very interesting. But they did find our Impact section worth giving either 4 or 5. My interpretation is, that
1) the evaluators believe the involvement of testschools having a positive effect on the impact,
2) the evaluators found the intention of the proposal read in the name of the proposal("HANDS") positive for the impact and finally
3) the evaluators felt good after reading the previous sections and wanted the HANDS proposal to be accepted.


But the one judgment, that I enjoy the most is this applause to you, dear HANDS partner:
"All of the partners have relevant experience in the area and the coordinator and all of the academic
partners are leading figures in their fields. Complementarity and balance is fine. It is particularly
interesting to have several schools involved as partners."



3. The wish for next year
Since the submission of the HANDS proposal I have heard a lot of different music, but one piece of music seems to reside permanently in my head: Over the Rainbow. A central part of the lyrics sounds like this:

Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There's a land that I've heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

Could it be next year?


4. The X-mas gift
I have uploaded a X-mas gift for all partners of HANDS. I experience, that some partners believe, that Persuasive Technologies are thoughts, which only can be realized, when spending minimum 3 software developers in 3 man month. That is not the case. Persuasive Technology has its roots in rhetorics and quite a few of the ideas can be integrated in everyday electronic communication with very few additional costs. The Xmas gift is therefore a paper, that I have created with the title "Designing Persuasive Technology for a dollar a day".
If HANDS is accepted in Bruxelles I would find it valuable, if Persuasive Technology not only is tested theory, but communication-praxis of HANDS partners.

Download your gift now!

Merry Xmas and a happy new year!

Morten Aagaard