Shall We Pivot with EssayKKN?

T-Direction is a great web app, decidedly simple, just covering two main use cases:

1. Ask us to write anything. We will send back the finished essay into your Inbox in less than a week.
   
2. Write anything and send it to us. Our feedback works just like an X-ray scan.It shows you where you are unforgivably weak, where you can reap big benefits with very small effort.

However, as I wrote in previous posts on this blog, kids apparently hate to write essays, and parents also do not seem to appreciate essay skills undergird many essential life skills.

Anyway, I decide not spend much for customer acquisition.

We still have many great features to do on our todo list:

1. Let users show their cute pictures.
   
   
2. Let users show off how witty and eloquent and creative they are.
   
   
3. Let users write bite-size.
   
   
4. Let users write as a team.
   
   
5. Let users play educational and yet entertaining games. Turn the dreadful essay into a fun game!
   
   
6. Make the app accessible to mobile phones.

We still have many great technologies to embed into that app:

1. Can we let a robot teach in place of a human teacher?
   
   
2. Can we let a robot read the essay and feedback sensibly?
   
   
3. Can we let a robot urge on the writer, in place of a human teacher?

Well, our team at EssayKKN know full well that in the 3-D Chess, there is always a good move to make next, and that in the 24-D Universe, there will be many more moves we can make at our leisure and for our pleasure! Enjoy the journey with us.

Writing Clearly - Crashing into Mars

I want to write a lot about software and software business. And I have to restrain myself to stick to my target audience, you : young students and  your parents. This post is about software but you will find it easy to understand and useful to your study.

Writing clearly is very important. How important? Not doing so can crash expensive space crafts, like the crash of Mars Climate Orbiter in September 1999. That just cost NASA US$ 125 million.

I got this example from Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making. It's a wonderful book, full of inspiring examples for young scientists, students and entrepreneurs.

What the Crash Had to do with Clear Writing?

Mars Climate Orbiter's software mixed up between English units and metric units, between feet and meters.

Kindergarten mistakes?

Not so fast.

The authors of that software borrowed some pieces from the software of a previous mission called Mars Global Surveyor. The part that caused the problem is called "the thruster equation", which does conversion between feet and meters. That must be a very simple, clear, short piece. What so special about conversion between feet and meters after all?

Pieces of software are just like paragraphs in a long story.

If you write clearly, they read like paragraphs in a good story. You know what each means, which parts of the story are where and so on.

If you are careless, undisciplined or irresponsible, any reader will trip, slip and fall among your lines and paragraphs.

And your software may down a plane, shut down a bank and a hospital, or even crash some space missions.

So, why not start a good habit now. Let's write a bit more clearly starting from today!

Mars Global Surveyor with s a bit messy software.

Mars Climate Orbiter that crashed into mars.

Our Blog Adds Value Thick and Heavy

There are different levels at which a blog adds value for the readers.

1. Google/Bing/Yahoo. 
2. Selected Links Only. 
3. Selected Extracts, like here in this Post. 
4. Synthesis/ Systematization. 
5. Combination with One's Own Insights.

At the first and shallowest level, the blogger just piles up relevant-looking data, a lot like a search engine acts. It's up to you to decide and select what you need to read in detail.

At the next level, the blogger shows you what s/he has selected. But s/he still shows the source in its entirety.

At the third level, only relevant parts of a source are shared.

At the fourth level, parts of the various sources are cross-checked, cross-referenced, integrated and collated.

At the last level, the blogger's own perspectives, interpretations and insights are added onto the source ideas.S/he may even come up with a new system/paradigm etc.

At what level of Value-Add do you think I usually blog my posts?

Communication | New Style

Input

1. Pre-iPad, Steve Jobs said this of Amazon's Kindle : "The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore." You may read more here .

2. On the Web, people read 25% slower. The exact number may vary but we do read slower with web pages.

3. Search Engines require your content to be 250 t0 400 words, or more than 350 words etc. I can't be bothered with them too much.

4. PowerPoint-style bullet-points constrain thoughts and discussions. You can read more about this here and here .

Customer Focus

1. I suspect the readers of this blog hate PowerPoint/bullet points too. They want depths and comprehensiveness.

2. They are too smart to be bluffed by a higher style. I can use Thesauruses to dig up arcane, esoteric, exotic vocab. Who am I fooling?

I can serve up lengthy, verbose, long-winded, rumbling sentences in misguided imitation of Joyce or Proust, whether they are suitable to the topic of discussion or not, just to make a false facade of erudition which anyone can see through at a glance, which will result in nothing but pity or ridicule and so on.

3. They value their time.

Self Care

1. I'm a bit impatient and I value my time.
2. I can't type well/efficiently.
3. It is a lot of effort for me to raise my language. And even if I managed to raise it, it adds little value.

Conclusion

I'm going to write in free-from bullet points, at the speed of thought, at the speed of note-taking in uni's.

on April 7, 2010