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


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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

B.J. Fogg visits Aalborg University November 8nd

The author of "Persuasive Technology using the computer to change the way we think and do" visited Aalborg University November 8nd. I was luckily invited by Professor Per Hasle together with a dozen others.

It was an informal gathering where he talked a little and the audience had an oppurtunity to give B.J. Fogg questions in about two hours. My complete summary of the talks is downloadable here.- 3 pages. Afterwards he gave an TV-interview(in english) to the danish magazine "Computerworld". It has not appeared on their webpage yet.

First he told a little about the history of Persuasive Technology and his present interests. The field first started to become something after his book "Persuasive Technology" was published. But since then, the interest has been growing rapidly. The first Persuasive Technology conferences has been held and a scientific group is about to establish.
His interests is mobile persuasion because he believes, that it will be the platform for persuasion.

Second the invited audience got a chance to ask questions. I was first to ask him. Unfortunately did I only have the oppurtunity to ask one question and I did ask any of the questions, that partners of HANDS mailed me. I am sorry.
I asked BJ if he had a need for new softwaretools which support the ideas of Persuasive Technology. And he did. He pointed out a couple of areas, where new tools and functionalities(read the summary) was needed. I could name a couple more.

Afterwards the was a longer debate about ethics initialised by a question from Peter Øhrstrøm. B.J. Fogg was very concered with the ethical aspects of Persuasive Technology and was eager to promote knowledge about the "dark side" of Persuasive Technology.

Finally he was asked to point out challenges of the researchfield "Persuasive Technology" and he pointed to areas out: Ethics and methodology.

When the all-too-fast-session was over I managed to ask him to dedicate my copy of his book, "Persuasive Technology". He happily accepted the invitation.

Proposal Submission Party Meeting November 2nd - the summary

The Party Meeting did not have any agenda and therefore a normal summary is not possible to write. The main objective of the Party Meeting was to have a good time together without any need to make decisions, give talks or simular. Just be together and talk and drink a good glass of non-alcoholic wine.

Participants(named as they sit on the photo to the left):
Myself, Michael Sørensen(Principal of Egebakken) Søren Madsen (Departmentmanager at Egebakken),Kristian Wolling(teacher at Egebakken), Chairman Peter(Professor at Aalborg University), Susan Gulstad(teacher at Egebakken), Carsten Nielsen(teacher at Ullerødskolen), Kirsten Sams(teacher at Egebakken) and Lars Moltsen(Softwaredeveloper at Wirtek).


Personally speaking I had a wonderful night. MeetingParticipants was in a good mood, singing, talking and laughing. So did I.

From the perspective of the proposal the partnership was strengtend.

• The HANDS network seems even stronger. Socially too.
• The Partymeeting sang the first two HANDS songs, "Send a mail"(lyrics, graphics, melody) and "Congratulation"(lyrics, graphics). The lyrics was in version 1.0 and there are room for improvements. The lyrics are opensource and version 2.0 is wanted.
  
• The first HANDS speeddating-algoritm designed by Wirtek worked excellent. Everybody was talking to everybody!
  
• The song contest "Which part of the proposal is singable and with which melody?", was won by Søren Madsen, who discovered, that the proposals abstract could be singed on the danish nationalhymn "Der er et yndigt land". Listen and sing!
  
• A HANDS drink greeting was invented. See the photos.
  

Only one mistake found its place at the Party Meeting: the non-alcoholic wine was absolutely undrinkable!

Morten

Proposal Submission Party Meeting November 2nd

Friday November 2nd will we have a small celebration for the succesfull proposal writing. In this post I will explain why we do it, how we do it and how you can contribute. The invitation for the Party Meeting is by itself a Party -download the PDF-version!

Why do we celebrate the submission of the HANDS proposal?
There are two reasons:
1. Because Partners of HANDS have joy being together, but not have had any chance to do so. We have been together at meetings, meetings and mail. The Party Meeting is the fun part of HANDS.
2. Because the work for creating a FP7 ICT proposal was huge. In terms of money I would estimate the price of the HANDS proposal to be around 30-35.000€. A lot of people did a great job, but the physical product the papers does not seem much.

How do we celebrate the submission?

1. We have this Proposal Submission Party Meeting. Download and colorprint the poster(cut the white margins away to see what it is like. Hopefully we have fun!
2. We hope you, as a partner will send participate virtually with a video. Send appr. 30 second video clip or upload it to youtube.

What can you do to support the HANDS proposal?

1. Participate in the Party Meeting(30€). Yipppi!
   
2. Read more about Persuasive Technology. Download and read the "Compilation for Partners".
3. Consider a Plan B. If the proposal is rejected, what then? Consider national and european oppurtunities. Contact and discuss your ideas with me. Before X-mas. Best before December 1nd.
   

Morten

Submission of HANDS – a great feeling

Five days after the submission I still suffer: I am still all too tired and I have absolutely no need to work effectively for any goal. Luckily do we have the autumm holiday and I will celebrate it by being together with my children. Henrik is on holiday too, Lars have not mailed anything since tuesday and my mailbox is as empty as it can be. It is almost scary. Only chairman Peter and Professor Per Hasle is still active.

Eventhough I still are a very tired my mind is filled with a feeling of thanksfulness to alle those people, who have helped the proposal to be qualified.
I have a feeling of being carried by a lot of people, rather than working alone.

The days before the final submission
Three weeks did I work very intense on the proposal and got approx. 20 HANDS mails pr day, Very little sleep and lots of decisions. At the same time I had to produce papers and participate in meetings.
But it was great joy too. People around me kept being entusiastic and encouraged me to continue. And the engagement of the HANDS involved never failed.

The projectplan of the proposal writing, a evolving prototype, appeared in the final stage to be a good one. All the major considerations was in place before the last two weeks. We had to focus on getting the EU-terminology right and complete the argumenations in various small subsections.

While writing I had a rhetorical discussion going on with myself. Many people involved in HANDS tells me, that I am very entusiastic and it influence them. In the EU application it is emphasised many times, that you have to be sober and formel. In writing and in the argumentation. How can I put my entusiasm in to the proposal? That discussion continued to fill my free timeslots. A week before submisssion I got the clue: the proposal has to argue for the proposal on every single sentence of the proposal. New arguments or variants but endless argue for the ideas of HANDS. Likewise when we argue for taking ethical concerns serious we do not only do so because we believe it is right, but because it is a more efficient in terms of persuasive efficiency.

Looking back on the work I wish I knew all about EU proposal writing that we do know now. The quality of the the proposal would probably be simular due to the fact, that the core idea of HANDS would have been the same. But the details of the proposal would be better and the organisation of the work would too.


But anyway:
Thank you very much!

Morten

Why the HANDS proposal succeed or fail?

The HANDS proposal might get accepted. It might not. The decision is in the hands of the FP7 administrators and their evaluators. It is a partly an sound and rational decision, partly an political decision and partly an matter of national interests.
In the sense that it is a rational proces, we can argue for both.

The HANDS proposal is being accepted because

It is indeed a new approach to caretaking of individuals with ASD

• The results of the HANDS project will have impact on caretaking of people with cognitive disabilities and generally the Mobile Persuasive Healthcare field.
• Persuasive Technology will take a giant step forward - in the Aalborg schools interpretation.
  
• All the ethical considerations are important and new
  
• The consortium is well balanced - geographically, economically, organisationally
  
• The impacts are great and fits well with the EU policies on the areas like: elderly people, marginalised people, the labourforce and more.
  

The HANDS proposal is being rejected because

• Teenagers with ASD is an minority, a too small minority.
• The proposal lacks hardcore ICT research. Design of Gadgets and simular. (We do not agree - knowledge about the users are very important.
  
• The consortium lacks an genuin partner with track record within ICT research for individuals with ASD.
• The ethical concerns plays are to large role in the proposal.