The insanely smart Dr. Terri Griffith joins me for a far-reaching conversation about higher education, privacy, artificial intelligence, data residency, and collaboration. (I try to keep up with her.) We talk about the future of academia and why it's silly to think of collaboration tools in isolation.
Transcription from otter.ai.
More about Conversations About Collaboration:
The insanely smart Dr. Terri Griffith joins me for a far-reaching conversation about higher education, privacy, artificial intelligence, data residency, and collaboration. (I try to keep up with her.) We talk about the future of academia and why it's silly to think of collaboration tools in isolation.
Transcription from otter.ai.
More about Conversations About Collaboration:
Homer Simpson 0:00
Hey, hello, Mr. Thompson and press down on your foot. You smile and nod. No problem. Hello, Mr. Thompson. I think he's talking to you.
Phil Simon 0:18
Episode Seven. Professor Terry Griffith joins me for a far reaching conversation about higher education, privacy, data residency, and collaboration. We talked about the future of academia and why it's silly to think of collaboration tools in isolation. Let's get this on.
Terri, where does this pod find you? I'm hanging out two miles south of the Canadian border, a little enclave called point Roberts surrounded by three sides of water and one with border guards. How about you? I am in Arizona, hold down the fort. Now you made the jump from the states to Canada? And do Canadians collaborate differently than we do in the States?
Terri Griffith 1:11
I'm gonna say they collaborate very nicely. But they are far more concerned with privacy than some of my, you know, full on us collaborations.
Phil Simon 1:25
Interesting. So talk to me how in the US where we say sure, I'll collaborate. And we trust companies differently, right? I trust slack and zoom more than I trust Facebook. But would that actually encumbered people from using some of the tools that you and I enjoy using so much?
Terri Griffith 1:43
Absolutely, it does. And in fact, you know, I teach at Simon Fraser University and the BT School of Business, and they're lucky to have you. Well, I'm tell them all the time, how thankful I am that I had the chance to join. But it has been a learning experience, because the privacy concerns are far stronger, and much more in play when you're making decisions around collaboration. And in fact, until the COVID, crisis came on us and had us jumping into online teaching, you know, over three days, you know, we had a three day kind of period to make that transition, I was not allowed to use a lot of the tools that I am using now, because they either hadn't been vetted in terms of their privacy, and which is a formal process that the university goes through, or they had been vetted and seem to be lacking. Or the data would be held outside of the US, I'm sorry, outside of Canada. And that's not acceptable. And in the cases where we do use tools that either won't say, all the data sits on a Canadian server, or they'll say we don't know where the data sits, you have to make sure that the students fully understand that and have opportunities to anonymize their data.
Phil Simon 3:09
That's fascinating to me, because in my four years as a college professor, I ran up against FERPA a lot. So it's their equivalent of FERPA a lot more stringent.
Terri Griffith 3:20
I'm not sure about the comparison across FERPA and the Canadian version. But I'll say that this is not just about the students. This is how people feel in general. And so it's, it's not a GDPR Am I getting my acronym correct. But it is a heightened awareness of privacy and where the data is, and a very strong pushback against us laws that if the data were sitting on a US server, then, you know, the US laws would then apply to that data.
Phil Simon 4:02
But you were already coming from a very progressive state in California was even a notch up from there, because in my experience, higher ed institutions take it seriously. But if you throw in being in a blue state, you think it ups the ante even more.
Terri Griffith 4:16
Yeah, the the California data laws, I'm not sure if they had been enacted at the point when I move north. But all say again, just as a social scenario, the issues of privacy, we're not as strong. Hmm.
Phil Simon 4:33
So we're already talking about privacy, which is to me an adjacent area to collaboration but you think holistically about most topics, including collaboration. Talk to me a little bit about T's
Terri Griffith 4:45
Ah, the T's the five not just very, ah, you know, I and I do smile when I think that it's also for Terry, the five T's are a way of thinking about organizations in a systemic approach. And if you The academics in the audience wanted to go, you know, see the work it's based on, it's based on socio technical systems, you know, ideas that we've had in place since the 1950s. But that phrase is not useful, right? 70 years has gone by, and people don't talk about organizations in that kind of multi dimensional way, we tend to have a silver bullet approach to a lot of our choices, you think about a club, oh, collaboration will be better if we only use this tool. It's like, Well, no, that's not the case, you have to have a target first tee, you have to think about the talent that's involved. And when I mean talent, I don't just mean knowledge, skills, and abilities, but also, the human characteristics that come into it, then the technology tool is certainly there with all of its features and how those features are understood. And then we think about technique, and you use technique to bring together the talent and the technology toward the target. But all of that decision making all of that design has to happen in alignment with the times. And so you know, we were even just talking about that the times, COVID times, dramatically shifts, even things like privacy and how we think about privacy and the risk choices we're willing to make, given the times. And so, you know, I am always trying to teach as well as I apply these ideas that it's not about a silver bullet, you know, I own the domain name, silver bullet fallacy in case I ever get around to writing a book on that. But in the meantime, just sharing and reiterating and offering tools to help people do a better job of thinking in five t. So again, starting with the target, being aware of the talent, the technology options that we have, bringing those together using different techniques, and making sure that the alignment is appropriate for the times.
Phil Simon 7:05
There's a lot to unpack there, and you can apply to so many different scenarios. I'm with you, the technology is there, right? Regardless of who owns it, I'm sure you've heard looks like Salesforce is going to be buying Slack, which to me is fascinating. Let's assume the technology's there, what t would stop me from collaborating? All of them? Or is there one of the other four, that tends to rear its ugly head into the scenario more frequently? Well,
Terri Griffith 7:33
Again, I'll just stick with my single example, I had to find new ways to collaborate, given the context for the times, when I made that move to Simon Fraser, to Canadian university. So I had to completely rethink my normal approach, which is, well, let's just, you know, start up a Google Doc, and let's just do it this way. And that Google was one of the things that really wasn't on the table. Now, with COVID, that restriction was removed. So again, the times, the COVID times are different than the pre COVID times. And so the risk reward trade off shifted. And now the Google technology is a possibility, you know, what I wonder is what will happen when we come back to some new form of context, whatever we're going to call that will then that risk reward strategy be, you know, re considered, and Google will go off the table again, and I'll have to find other ways of collaborating more effectively. And mostly, what I'm looking for is being able to do joint work, joint writing, joint creation of notes, and things like that. And to have that happen in real time. And so things that I thought were easy, all of a sudden, weren't easy. And now I'm going to have to do you know, more training, to help us use perhaps a more technical technology or a technology that's not as easy to use, so that we can still get the same benefit, while also being respectful of the privacy requests of the group that I'm trying to collaborate with.
Phil Simon 9:22
To what extent do you think people will use the times as an excuse not to adopt the technology? I know that in the past, and this isn't just with my college teaching experience, people would throw up a roadblock, and there was some justification to it. But in my view, the larger issue was, I just don't want to learn a new tool or use a new tool. So phurba or insert name of legislation. I mean, can't people use that as a crutch to avoid using something that is objectively better when it comes to collaboration?
Terri Griffith 9:54
I even at the beginning of the COVID crisis had the opportunity to write about blog post with a not have not Sarah, good, hey, I'm trying to get the full name there of mint IO because we were saying, well, is this something where we're in a crisis, we have to change the way we're teaching in the context that she and I were working in? So should we be telling people to jump on new technologies that will be more powerful in this online scenario? Or should we be saying to people stay the course find a way to use what you already are using. And our analysis at the end of the day, was that it depended on kind of your ability to make those transitions. So if you were the kind of organization that wasn't good at trying out new things, and understanding, it might not work, and you'd need to back up and try something else. But if you weren't that kind of an organization, staying the course and just forcing this new world, on to the tools that you're already using changing will be more in your technique than in your technology might be the thing to do given the crisis scenario. On the other hand, if you are the kind of organization that's, you know, very capable of starting something and saying, it's not really working for me, I'll try it either in another way, or try something entirely different. And you already have those techniques in place, that kind of quick experiment, lightweight experiment approach, that we were advising organizations to go ahead and move to technologies that might be a better fit for them, given the crisis scenario, because at least they're not, they're only changing the technology, they're not changing their technology and their technique at the same time. Whereas if you were a place that didn't have that techniques, skill, don't try and change technique and technology at the same time in a crisis.
Phil Simon 11:59
Let's talk a little bit about different constituencies because I would argue that your average 19 or 22 year old, well, he or she may not have used Slack, or Microsoft Teams or zoom. I mean, these folks grew up with at the very least computers, if not smartphones, they know what the ad symbol does. They know what the hashtag does. In my experience using slack in the classroom, the students pretty much got it. It was the faculty members, particularly the ones that have been there for a long time and had their canvas or their Blackboard site set up perfectly, and didn't want to change their LMS, nevermind introduced a new tool. So again, is it the potential of a crutch check with you, if people are not prepared for the tool, then don't introduce it. But name me a more tech savvy generation and the folks that are in colleges right now.
Terri Griffith 12:45
Well, in mine are graduate students. So I'll say not only are they pretty, technically sophisticated on the learning tool side, but also they are in their own organizations using slack and the like. But I think the issue is the university support. Or if I were talking to an organization, it's that back office piece that either might be ready to make a move or not make a move. And you know, maybe I'm doing it through the lens of someone who was new to the organization and new to the regulations of that organization. That led me to be I know, a little bit more circumspect and risk averse than I would have been when I was teaching the university in the Silicon Valley. And he'd been there forever. And it actually been the lead of the Technology Advisory, some advisory committees at that university, so I knew what I couldn't, couldn't get away with there.
Phil Simon 13:49
It put on your sorcerer hat when it comes to higher ed in a year, let's say that there's a vaccine and things are normal ish. What is the future of higher ed look like to you?
Terri Griffith 13:59
I hope we don't backslide, I think we have learned some amazing things. And it was painful. We have developed whole new courses and whole new ways. And I know for my course, which is a technology and innovation management course, that I will take all the asynchronous course material that was built up. And I'm going to keep that. And if I go back to having face to face interactions for what I call core hours, I don't call them class time anymore. Class is everything that takes place throughout the course. But for core hours, that synchronous time we have together, you know, it'll be better in some ways face to face, it will also be more difficult. None of my students show up late. Whereas, you know, we're in an urban environment, they either have to come on public transit or park a car, they were always showing up late and you know, it's just not a feature. So there's pluses and minuses. Even to the virtual synchronous component of it, we didn't have the ability to record lectures in the face to face environment. And so students couldn't go back and look at it. So I'm hoping we get to keep some of the benefits. And I hope the vast majority of the benefits and just add on the richness of that face to face. And I can tell you, my students very much are missing the idea of being able to go to the pub after class.
Phil Simon 15:32
College. Good.
Terri Griffith 15:34
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Again, these are these are graduate students. So they're, you know, they will have had, they've had a long day before they even show up for our core hours. But I've got a question for you. And it revolves around, you know, as we think about artificial intelligence, enhancing our collaboration, and collaboration. And are these How have you been thinking about the AI as a team member versus just a tool? If you've gone back and forth about any of that, well quotes
Phil Simon 16:09
Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of slack, who did an interview, it said in the future, he envisioned slack as an always on chief of staff that answers questions that you didn't think to ask. So in chapter 16, of my forthcoming book, reimagining collaboration, hashtag shameless plug, I kind of play out work day 2028, which is a lot like if you've ever seen the movie, her by spike Jones with Joaquin Phoenix, who plays the guy falls in love with an operating system. So I will think it'll be a team member, that won't simply be a matter of automating things. And there's a lot of mileage and get out of that. I mean, I think about, again, going back to things like the me to movement and greater sensitivity towards social or racial issues, you know, do we have, you know, a loud mouth white guy in a channel? who shouts everyone down? Right? Is that person unaware of it? And could that person be open to coaching, there are AI type companies that are looking at sales information. And they might say, hey, Terry, during sales calls, you talk 80% of the time, you should be listening 80% of the time, you'll close more deals, and we've got the data to prove it. Am I wrong on that?
Terri Griffith 17:15
I think I think you're dead on that. I know that some colleagues and I are starting to look at that kind of two different uses. We start from the premise that we will be using AI in our collaborations. And maybe it's going to be a both and kind of scenario. There will be some AI's their tools. And maybe you're the expert with tool number one, and I'm the expert with tool number two, just like any other tool we might have had in our collaborations, but that there will also be those team member AI's and I love the idea of a chief of staff, you know, contributing into those meetings and I also love the idea of having coaching available, just like Grammarly is coaching now. interesting conversations with my students about well, is using Grammarly cheating? And how will How will people think about that? You know, if I have an AI tool that's coaching me or helping me, is that okay, so again, the five key analysis comes back, it's not just about the technical capabilities, but you know, what is the context the times that you're working in? Or what are the expectations about your work versus augmented work? And how do the other talented members of your team either adjust or not adjust to the addition of that new technology, a technology that kind of sits between technology and talent?
Phil Simon 18:51
I mean, when the times change, right, it's like tennis, every shot is contextual. I know you play as well. So if you would say, Well, I'm going to pay $70,000 a year to go to Carnegie Mellon or Harvard, and I'm going to watch really expensive Netflix. Well, that value proposition doesn't proposition doesn't make sense. But if you say, well, we can't meet in person because of you know, Coronavirus, then well, it's better than nothing, but I'm astonished. I think it was, is it a Princeton or NYU that tried to pass along this year? 7% tuition increases in the middle of this? I mean, does the word tone deaf come to mind? Or how do you justify that because to your point with the T's is completely oblivious to times? I mean, just hate I hate the expression optics, but that
Terri Griffith 19:34
just doesn't look good. Well, and certainly it's in the technique, right? How did they spin it and I have no idea I wasn't tracking and why you on that one. But I will say that doing what we're doing right now is more expensive than doing. It's more expensive to offer those courses than it is to offer the face to face courses in the way that we have been. offering them, right I have three acts the TA time to help me in real time manage the virtual environment. And to do that, effectively, we have licensed in new tools that we didn't have before. We've brought on board, educational technology specialists, so we've added talent. So the cost has actually gone up in terms of that, and that, and that was true at other universities, where I've had, you know, some insight into the online costs versus the face to face costs. If you're talking about the same number of people, the cost, in my experience has been actually higher than the face to face. So you know, the fact that they would push that along, is that tone deaf in terms of, you know, people having lost jobs or reduced hours and having their own increased costs? Absolutely. But I would, I would have to, you know, have a deeper conversation with those university presidents about why why did you need to do that? And? Yeah, yeah, what how could the endowment have helped?
Phil Simon 21:11
Yeah, I think about the outsider's perspective, how could it be more expensive when you're delivering a different product, they may not know how the sausage is made, reminds me a lot of the rise of cloud computing around 2010 and 11. When companies IT budgets would increase, so you will always have possible you're paying basically by the computation of the second or the user or whatever. And I found out that in many instances, the companies just added cloud computing, they didn't really replace anything else. Yeah.
Terri Griffith 21:41
Yeah. Well, and I'll go back to the five t story on this one. And Eric Bernal son speaks about this often, you know, it took decades for electrification to offer up productivity benefits. It's taken decades for the productivity paradox and information technology services to sort of resolve themselves. And it's because until if all you do is add that technology or shift that technology face to face versus online, you aren't getting any kind of benefit, broader benefit. And those electrification or it in organizations or shifts in how we offer education. The big benefits don't come until we make other adjustments and supportive those. So can I imagine a world where you have I'd like to use psych 100. Right? So undergraduate basic psychology class, there are probably three ways to present that course, well, there are probably 30 people who are the best at the, you know, actual sharing of that material. Well get those people together, maybe Apple gets to do one version, Cisco gets to do one version, and then Google gets to do another, and then leverage that work across all universities. If you did that, then my job becomes maybe more like a hospitalist. No, you have the person who's doing the surgery, but you have the person who's taking care of the general integration of the care. Well, I'm very happy to be that generalist. And if I happen to be one of the world's best people on a particular topic, say five t, then I am going to be the person that gets used in that Google version costs go down then. But that's a huge transformation, you know, similar to how we shifted once we went away from steam power to electric.
Phil Simon 23:44
Interesting, you mentioned that because then I'm going to look this up, so I don't completely bastardize his name, but I'm reading 21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harare, I think I got that, right. And it actually came from the recommendation of my friend Mike Vardy, who was on the pod on episode two, Episode Three, but he makes the point in the book early on that doctors will go away before nurses because a doctor might have to look at a bunch of charts and we'll miss things that AI wouldn't. But the AI isn't necessarily going to attend to the patient's needs exactly what you're talking about with a student because they're too squishy for lack of a better term. Right. And to your point, could you explain behavioral economics better than Richard Thaler? Probably not.
Terri Griffith 24:32
Yeah, I'll say in his instance, probably not because I have heard him on podcasts. There are some other Nobel laureates that I might say maybe so in terms of explaining it to general population.
So those, those are the kinds of questions we need to be asking. It isn't just how do I replace something, but how do I completely redesign A system. If I completely redesign the system, then I know I can get costs down. And I can probably, you know, this is going to be, you know, a lot of experimentation, I can probably help people learn more and be able to apply the concepts they need to use better. denin kind of or more traditional approaches,
Phil Simon 25:23
call me a skeptic, you wouldn't be the first but I can see plenty of folks in academia and industry who are maybe, you know, near 60, thinking about retirement and a few years going, I don't really want to rock the boat. We can get through another couple years and making firebrands like me frustrated, because there is a better way or there might be a better way. But we're pretending that the thing the world hasn't changed when it really has shifted. So it'll be interesting to see how those tees play out because it's anything but a theoretical construct.
Terri Griffith 25:54
Absolutely. And as somebody who's verging on that 60 number will say, anyone, like organizations, if you haven't spent your career, trying new things out, then yeah, you won't have the technique for doing those easy experiments and being willing to try something and back out of it, if it's not working. So I guess what we say to everybody is you better start experimenting now because we're all going to be experimenting in the future.
Phil Simon 26:26
Right, one of the famous Google interview questions is Tell me about a time that you changed your mind. And if you can't give them one, then they don't want to hire you. Because either you're always right or you'll never admit that you're wrong, or you won't look at data that indicates that there might be a better way of doing things. So good stuff. Get out here on this, what book are you currently reading?
Terri Griffith 26:47
Ah, where where is it? I'm actually rereading A Memoir called nothing bad between this. And it was written by a colleague of mine and my academics, you know, life. She and I were never at the same university, but she's someone I have known and respected forever. And as she retired, she transferred her beautiful writing skills to writing memoirs and histories and so the book is nothing bad between a spy and Marlena feel.
Phil Simon 27:21
Good stuff, Terry, thank you for joining me and you stay safe.
Terri Griffith 27:25
Alright. Phil. Bye.
Phil Simon 27:30
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