Thursday, June 22, 2017

"You want to do what??" A commencement address for the I-school at the University of Maryland (2017)


It's graduation season. 

Last month (May, 2017) I was fortunate to be asked to give the commencement address at the University of Maryland's Information School.  As you might know, I hang out there from time to time talking about information-y things, and it was a real honor to be asked to impart some wisdom to the graduating class as they head out the door to the start of their post-graduate life.  

This is what I said to those students.  I thought you, my fellow SRSers, might enjoy reading this.  





May 22, 2017 * U. Maryland, I-school Commencement Address  


"You want to do what?"  



I've been thinking a great deal about the genre of commencement speeches over the past month.  And I did what anyone from Google would do… I went to YouTube and did a search for: 

     [great commencement speeches] 

over the past couple of years. 

I then sat down to watch about 50 or so.  

I recommend you never do this.   And I mean it: Do NOT do this.  

Basically, they’re an unending series of platitudes and tropes that are either blindingly obvious, or something your parents have already told you.  You’re heard them before.  

They say things like:  

   Don’t give up.  
   You become strong through adversity.  
   Be the best you that you can be.  
   Follow your dreams. 
   Listen to your inner voice. 
   Be true to yourself. 
   Your future is limitless.

Those are all fine things to say, but they’re all very yadda yadda yadda...

And by the tenth video, you’re thinking that these people have to find something new to say.  I got it already. I suspect that these kinds of maxims just wash over the new graduates leaving few dents in their nearly graduated skulls.  

Of course, commencement speeches are like toasts at weddings—you never hear them back-to-back.  They’re occasional speeches never intended to be heard in a row.   

However, I DID learn something. I found a pattern to all of these speeches.  Here it is.  Each speech has 5 movements:  

1. Give thanks to the wonderful people who brought you here. 

2. Tell a touching personal story about how you rose from adversity to be the kind of person who gives commencement speeches. 

3. Mention the name of the university sports mascot and gain instant acclaim.  

4. Draw a high moral lesson from your experience that you really never thought about… until you had to give a commencement speech. 

5. Close with stirring words intended to bring a tear to the eye and elicit a standing ovation.  


Got it?  That’s the pattern.  You may now sleep through the next 100 commencement addresses. 

Except for this one. 

Because I was thinking… What value can *I* bring to you based on my background? 

Let me follow the pattern and first tell you MY touching personal story….

I grew up as the son of a poor family in Southern California.  That meant many meals of white bread and catsup sandwiches because you could feed a family of four for a dollar.  

It was a family that had no academic background at all. I was the first to go to university from my family, and the first to get a graduate degree and a PhD.  

Words like “matriculation” and “registrar” meant a trip to the dictionary.  My parents were curious people with a desire to know more.  They passed that gift to me… along with a used dictionary from a second-hand bookstore. Did you know that previously used, out-of-date edition dictionaries are quite inexpensive?  They’re awfully handy when  you want to figure out what “matriculation” really means.  

But I was also lucky enough to grow up in Los Angeles where your parents could take you to the free museum of science and technology,  and you could boost an old radio or TV from the trash (for a little disassembly and practical electronics).  With the help of some fantastically inspired schoolteachers, a poor kid could pick up enough background knowledge about science and tech to get into the University of California.

So when I graduated with my degree in Information and Computer Science, I had to explain what that was.  Back then I spent all my time talking about computer science because that was the easy to understand part of my degree.  

Only years later, I realized that the information part was the important bit.  Sure the computer science-y algorithmic thinking is important, but that class on archaic Token Ring networking protocols…   not so much.   

What WAS important was learning how to learn—be it word definitions or how to reconstruct a radio from junked parts.  

Mulling over my story made me realize the moral lessons that hadn’t occurred to me…  until I had the chance to give a commencement speech.  

Here are a few insights about the world just ahead of you.  


1.  The world you’re graduating into is different than what’s gone before.  

Yeah, students have always said this  “You just don’t understand… the world is different now.”  Well, you’re right.  In one sense, that’s trivial..  things change.  But I mean it seriously. 

Roughly half of all the jobs you students will have in 10 years are not yet defined.  Another big fraction of the jobs you think you’re aiming for just won’t be there in any recognizable form.  

You’re going to have to be flexible because single-track lifelong employment is rapidly going the way of the Hollerith punch card.  

When I was a lad I dreamed of running a punch card sorter.  The moment I learned how was the moment that they became obsolete.  Punch card machine operator:  Talk about a useless skill for today… Moral:  Stay flexible.  


2.  Your future will be determined not by what you know, but what you can learn between now and then.  

Your ability to LEARN – to be an autodidact (go ahead.. whip out your phone and look it up) will be a major, major key to your success in the future.  

We all know what the information explosion of the past few years has meant.  Yeah, there’s a lot out there—but you need to not just throw up your hands and complain about information overload.  Look, we’ve ALWAYS had information overload.  People have been complaining about this since the dawn of writing.  A big part of what makes you special is that you’ve got some understanding about how the information world is put together, and what to do with all that knowledge.  In other words, 


3.  The I-school has uniquely prepared you to fit into this strange new information world.  

You are an INFORM-ATARION.  Your I-schooling has given you the concepts and tools to understand how information is organized, how it works, who owns it, and how to find the information you need to be a better employee, a better person, a better citizen.  

You’ve learned what a database schema is, and you can use one in hand-to-hand combat.  You know to avoid clickbait and how to critically read through fake news.  

But to the outsiders—the NON-INFORMATION-ATARIANS… The term “information science / management or technology” can be a bit squishy and fuzzy around the edges.  

Yet we know that I-technologies-and-sciences are at the heart of the revolution that is powering many of the economic and social changes worldwide.  

So what does it mean to get a degree in “information science” and why do you want one?  

As my parents asked me:  You want to do WHAT? 

You’ve chosen to be an INFORMATION-ATARIAN… At the very core, that means that you understand what information is, how it’s created, interpreted, transformed, used, and lost or damaged.  

However, it also means you understand not just the scientific and technological basis, but also deeply understand the humans at the center of it all.   

It turns out that this squishy stuff—INFORMATION—is what drives companies like Amazon, Facebook, Lyft, Disney, NASA, the CDC, and Google.  It’s what drives social networks to have billions of active daily users—it’s what allows YouTube to serve over 1 billion hours of video each day.  Sure some of it is funny cat videos, but a LOT of that traffic is educational content that’s bringing knowledge to the world.  

And for someone with your degree, you have the kind of knowledge of how information works… and just as importantly, how HUMANS understand, use, abuse, and misunderstand information.  


Following my commencement talk pattern, I’m going to close with two pieces of advice.  One practical, and one intended to bring a tear to your eye.  

FIRST comes the emotionally important part… this is the eye tearing, emotionally connecting part… 

Let me ask this question again—You want to do what??  This isn’t just about what’s next for your job… but what are you going to do with your life? 

I know, I know… I sound like your parents… and like all of those other commencement addresses.  

But seriously-- what is worth your time and attention?  I mean this broadly. 

4.  THIS is that big moral teaching that is part 4 of the commencement speech pattern.  

Later today, when you find yourself staring into the bottom of a red plastic Solo cup, puzzling out the next steps in your life, think about this:  YOU have the remarkable power to design your life… with all of your individual choices about what to focus on and what to ignore.  And you have to do this every hour, week, year, for the next several decades.  How will you choose to spend your time?  How will you choose to spend your precious attention?  

In a world of even more information, and ever more ways to distract you, the only really limited resource is your personal, human attention.  

In those choices you make about what to attend … you are designing the landscape of your life.  

     And you have to be careful 
     about what you do 
     with the best parts of each day… 

I want you to think about where you put the Heart of Your Day.  

There are only so many hours in each day when you can be fully present, fully engaged, fully woke. 

If you’re working in a full-time job … it’s really only about 4 hours.  Where do you want to place your bets with your time? 

Probably not on clickbait and fake news or all of the attractive widgets that intend to steal your attention.  

Think of it this way:  What are the clickbaits in your life?  Is it college basketball?  Celebrity news?  Fashion?  Twitch gaming?  

Here’s an important Life Hack I’m going to hand down to you:  

Every so often (say, every week or so) you want to interrupt yourself from the terribly important things you’re doing—washing the dishes, playing your two-thousandth game of Angry Birds, League of Legends, or Candy Crush.  Stop and ask yourself—Is this the best way to be spending my time?  Is this where I want my attention to go?   Reflect on each week with care.  It’s the only week you’ve got—live it with attention.  

My advice:  Design your life as though it was your greatest piece of art.   Because it is.  Be conscious of how you spend your attention and where your heart goes… because that’s going to determine what the art of your life actually becomes.   


BUT SECOND comes an important big of incredibly pragmatic advice.  Here it is.  

Nothing makes you lose status in the information world—among your fellow INFORM-ATARIANS  like having a massive loss of personal data.  It tells us that you learned nothing in the I-school.  

So make me proud, make your I-school faculty proud, … and let me give you perhaps the most important piece of advice you might ever get from the I-school: 

Don’t suffer a data loss.   

Back up your files.  




11 comments:

  1. Thanks, Dr. Russell. It is great and as you say it works for all.

    I wanted to hear it if possible so [you want to do what commencement university of Maryland] --- Videos---Search Tools---Last month and here it is.

    Dr. Russell's part at Maryland's iSchool Spring 2017 Commencement Ceremony

    Thanks for sharing, Dr. Russell

    ReplyDelete
  2. "You did what?!‽"
    $100k for a piece of parchment from a moose & a squirrel… $ERP (OK, may have low-balled that #…)
    … now I see why you were talking about that "other" university recently… (all submitted in a good-natured spirit)
    Dan, it was a good statement to the Maryland students, but…
    the commencement address is the 'punched card' of the university experience… which is its own 'punch drunk card' in many ways… ;-P
    The IBM Punched Card… among the 100
    OWM - a commencement pitfall
    scientific american
    will any of the grads be spaceship painters?

    no doubt much has changed in Cupertino, but I had to check possible back routes…
    any of these 3 STOP signs?
    or
    off Larry Way?
    6 IL

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dan,

    Loved the speech.

    I found when booking, paging, and sorting thru life, my knowledge as a Sorting Machine operator was useful, anyway. (As I did that dull course on Mathematical Logic). But I didn't know your background before UCI.

    https://davidmarkkeirsey.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/booking-thru-life/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dan great speech! Was very interesting reading and listening about your experiences growing up. Hope libraries were also part of that learning experience!
    My husband, had a saying that when giving speeches if you have a choice between being brilliant or being brief to be brief! I think you nailed both!

    ReplyDelete
  6. A very nice commencement speech, Dr Russell. Thank you for sharing it.

    There's a lot in your background story which I can easily relate to. I too come from a single income working class family where my parents had to work hard to make ends meet. I too was the first one in my family to graduate from university with first a Master's degree and later a PhD.

    When I graduated from university close to 30 years ago, the commencement speech was basically about how we should continue to work hard, adhere to traditional values and stick to our chosen or least designated path.

    I quickly learned, however, that much of this stereotype advice had little to do with real life and the future about to take its course.

    Long before my graduation day, Paul Valéry had already concluded that “The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be. ” Still true when I got my degree and, of course, still true today.
    And yes, "We are living in the best and worst of times", "your only true limit is your imagination", "Follow your passion (No! If anything related to "passion", create it. Don't subscribe to just following)", etc., etc.
    And so on and so on just to repeat myself and to avoid more of these senseless and no-brain pieces of feel-good advice because graduation day is a happy day and hence it is okay to polish everything beyond recognition and the reality the new graduates are about to face. In other words, I fully agree with you to skip this kind of it's-just-my-mouth-running-over-but-I-mean-well talk.

    However, I am not so sure I agree with you when you talk about designing your life. Or, actually, I do because I know what you mean. It's just I am not so sure that young graduates understand designing the way you (and I) read it. The graduates I know (I am Scandinavian, now doing a life and work stint in Nordirland after nearly a decade in China, to which country I'll return later this summer) are already, for good and for worse, designing their life, i.e. painting a picture of the life they desire using their preferred online medium be it Instagram, Facebook etc. in this part of the world (UK) or in China QQ, Wechat, Meituan etc. This is what they want - and this is what their peers do as well - and well, maybe we get there or maybe we don't. But it is a nice picture and a nice dream nonetheless.
    But maybe American students are different. I have taught American students in Europe (before the heydays of the internet) but never in America.

    Instead, when I am the one doing a commencement speech, I prefer to give some - hopefully solid - advice on how to untangle your life and how to deal with adversity and life treating you badly. Because it will and if that is not incorporated in how you design (or, as I prefer it, untangle) your life, you're going to be in (deep) trouble. "Everybody has a plan till he gets punched in the face" as Mike Tyson once said.

    So true and then what? But that is a different commencement speech.

    Just my 2 cents. Thanks again. Enjoyed reading your speech.

    Cheerio from beautiful Northern Ireland

    Dr. Joergensen / 林博士

    ReplyDelete
  7. A very nice commencement speech, Dr Russell. Thank you for sharing it.

    There's a lot in your background story which I can easily relate to. I too come from a single income working class family where my parents had to work hard to make ends meet. I too was the first one in my family to graduate from university with first a Master's degree and later a PhD.

    When I graduated from university close to 30 years ago, the commencement speech was basically about how we should continue to work hard, adhere to traditional values and stick to our chosen or least designated path.

    I quickly learned, however, that much of this stereotype advice had little to do with real life and the future about to take its course.

    Long before my graduation day, Paul Valéry had already concluded that “The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be. ” Still true when I got my degree and, of course, still true today.
    And yes, "We are living in the best and worst of times", "your only true limit is your imagination", "Follow your passion (No! If anything related to "passion", create it. Don't subscribe to just following)", etc., etc.
    And so on and so on just to repeat myself and to avoid more of these senseless and no-brain pieces of feel-good advice because graduation day is a happy day and hence it is okay to polish everything beyond recognition and the reality the new graduates are about to face. In other words, I fully agree with you to skip this kind of it's-just-my-mouth-running-over-but-I-mean-well talk.

    However, I am not so sure I agree with you when you talk about designing your life. Or, actually, I do because I know what you mean. It's just I am not so sure that young graduates understand designing the way you (and I) read it. The graduates I know (I am Scandinavian, now doing a life and work stint in Nordirland after nearly a decade in China, to which country I'll return later this summer) are already, for good and for worse, designing their life, i.e. painting a picture of the life they desire using their preferred online medium be it Instagram, Facebook etc. in this part of the world (UK) or in China QQ, Wechat, Meituan etc. This is what they want - and this is what their peers do as well - and well, maybe we get there or maybe we don't. But it is a nice picture and a nice dream nonetheless.
    But maybe American students are different. I have taught American students in Europe (before the heydays of the internet) but never in America.

    Instead, when I am the one doing a commencement speech, I prefer to give some - hopefully solid - advice on how to untangle your life and how to deal with adversity and life treating you badly. Because it will and if that is not incorporated in how you design (or, as I prefer it, untangle) your life, you're going to be in (deep) trouble. "Everybody has a plan till he gets punched in the face" as Mike Tyson once said.

    So true and then what? But that is a different commencement speech.

    Just my 2 cents. Thanks again. Enjoyed reading your speech.

    Cheerio from beautiful Northern Ireland

    Dr. Joergensen / 林博士

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great speech. Here's one from New Zealand that is a little different https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7kbakbqKr0
    Transacript here: http://www.edgazette.govt.nz/Articles/Article.aspx?ArticleId=8636
    Pam

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm sorry that while you were in the area again we couldn't have a meetup like the one we enjoyed three and a half years ago. In any case, I hope we can meet up again the next time you're anywhere near DC!

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's impossible to give a commencement speech without it being cliche. The advice that you passed on, however, was well worth the readthrough and I imagine will at least impact a few people who were listening.

    I often find myself self-evaluating, trying to recognize what is only in my life to distract me. I always find it difficult with the constant fight for my attention to stay focused on what I actually care about. Also I couldn't agree more with welcoming a constant state of learning, it is a big part of how I live my life and part of the reason why I think I am so optimistic.

    Anyways, I'm really enjoying reading through your entries!

    ReplyDelete