Genealogy is the Game

1 Reply

I keep hearing the statement that a game is going to pull a younger generation into genealogy. We don’t need a game. Genealogy is the game. The problem is that nobody has invented the plastic Little Tikes hoop.

In the U.S., basketball is a sport that is wildly popular. The NBA consists of elite players who have mastered the game over a lifetime of practice. Players and coaches have devoted their lives to the study of the game’s strategy and technique.

My kids, ages 1 to 6, love to play basketball. They have fantastic technique in dribbling the ball, in the form of their shots, and in the plays that they run. Our dinner table conversations often revolve around the team trades that they are planning in order to win the next big title. No, my kids aren’t crazy. And no, they don’t do any of the above. Their version of the game only remotely resembles the NBA game.

My kids play “basketball” on a plastic Little Tikes hoop that sits in Zeke’s room. When we play 1 on 1, Zeke rarely dribbles the ball. We foul each other like crazy, and goal-tending is a regular part of the game. Zeke’s best move is a running dunk followed by a quick rebound and another dunk, scoring twice in one possession. We love to pull trick moves such as bouncing the ball off of the wall or stuffing the ball in our shirts in order to sneak it to the hoop.

Imagine that same basketball game between Zeke and I, played on a full-sized NBA court, with their full-sized hoops, and a full-sized ball. The equipment alone would prohibit a meaningful experience. Zeke could not dunk the ball. Neither of us could goal-tend. And Zeke would be lucky to get the ball all the way up to the 10 foot hoop. The ball would be too big to stuff in our shirts, and the game would be no fun.

Let’s take it a step further. Let’s add referees to the game. The game would stop every time Zeke travels, double dribbles, fouls, or throws the ball out of bounds. The game would be so constipated that there would be zero enjoyment in the game. The game would be “boring.”

Genealogy is a great game. But, we will never bring the young kids into the game if we require that they play with full-sized equipment and that they play by “the rules”. We need someone to invent the Little Tikes hoop.

What would the Little Tikes genealogy hoop look like? How would people play differently? Please leave a comment.

RootsTech 2013

Leave a reply

RootsTech was big this year. I can’t believe how big it has grown. The keynote moved into last year’s expo hall for larger seating capacity and the keynotes were pretty packed. On top of that, select conference sessions were streamed to thousands of attendees around the world.

The predominant theme of the conference was centered around capturing, preserving, and sharing our own life stories and the life stories of our families. This is a theme that resonates very well for me as the story is what got me hooked to family history.

Unfortunately, I had to skip out of the conference early in order to attend a scout camp, so I missed the last couple of sessions of the developer day. I was able to attend some very good sessions about the historical-data microdata format, the Clojure programming language, and using triple stores for graph searches. The sessions I wish I could have attended were the FHISO and GedcomX presentations.

I spoke with several developers at the conference who said that they wished RootsTech would hold the Developer Day on the Wednesday before the conference. George, from MyHeritage/Geni said he thinks they would send their whole team out for that. Robert, from Google said that he missed the developer-centered feel of the first conference and agreed that holding the developer day the day prior would be a good move. I hope we can do it, so that the vendors who come out to the conference can attend sessions and not feel that they are losing sales by leaving their booths.

I met some great people this year at the conference and I was able to catch up with a few people in the vendor area. This is perhaps my favorite thing about these conferences. There are so many smart and friendly people who are creating innovative products to serve the genealogical community.

I met Tammy, the winner of this year’s developer challenge. She is friends with Brooke who was a winner from last year’s conference. I was able to catch the two together at the treelines.com booth. Tammy’s story is very inspiring. She came to RootsTech for the first time last year, and came away knowing that she had to jump in and build this product. A couple of months later, she quit her job to work on it full-time. She pulled off a very impressive product and I’m happy for her success.

Me, Brooke, and Tammy – 2012 and 2013 winners of the RootsTech Developer Challenge

I’m excited to try out the new products that were exhibited in the expo hall. It is great to see that the industry is still moving in a positive direction.

I already can’t wait until next year’s RootsTech conference. I expect it to once again be bigger and better.

At a Crossroads

Leave a reply

I’ve recently hit a point in my career where I feel like I am at a crossroads. I’m currently headed down a path that could lead me to fantastic opportunities in Product Management. When I first hired on at familysearch, that was totally the direction I wanted to head. It still may be, but I’m feeling torn because I still really love developing software.

I love getting my brain wrapped around a programming problem, getting in the zone, and delivering something cool. It is strange to say, but it gives me a sense of exhilaration when I’ve solved a really hard problem. It is really hard for me to let go of that.

I feel like I am good at combining together good ideas to solve problems. Sometimes those ideas are big ideas which would need an orchestrated effort from multiple teams of people to pull off. This is where I see excitement in Product Management.

My fear is that I will become consumed working in heavy product/project management tools (like VersionOne) doing busy work and will lose the enjoyment that I find in software development. I also fear that I will become one of those guys who says “I used to program COBOL or Fortran.” Another fear I have us that I won’t be effective enough in persuading others when I run up against opposition. I don’t like conflict, but I know I need to learn to manage it.

We are experiencing innovation like we’ve never seen before. New platforms, databases, devices, protocols, etc. are being released at breakneck speeds which enable us to imagine things that have never been possible before. The question I have to ask myself is: What is the level of influence I ultimately want to have in defining the future? I guess that is why I am still leaning slightly towards Product Management.

Node.js – Giddy to begin programming again

Leave a reply

I have decided to begin programming again. I had been living in Ruby land for a long time and I felt like my technical chops were getting a bit stale. So, tonight I had about an hour of free time and decided to install Node.js and begin playing around with it.

So far, I haven’t done a whole lot besides browse some of the top packages on NPM. I did install Restler and so far I LOVE it. I was able to easily connect to the FamilySearch API, perform a Basic Auth, obtain a session, and begin hitting the API. It is so easy!

I’m actually feeling really excited to dabble in the Node stuff. Perhaps my first project will be to create a Node library for the new FamilySearch Platform API.

Evernote For The Win!

Leave a reply

I love Evernote for many reasons. Here are my top 5:

Note syncing. I can get my synchronized notes on any computer or mobile device that I use. I regularly use 3 computers, and an Android phone.
Print PDFs to Evernote. I don’t know if this is a Mac only feature, but my standard print dialogue has the option to print to a PDF saved in Evernote. I use this all the time to track receipts of online purchases. I can then organize and tag the notes as needed.
Note emailing. I often get meeting notes emailed to me from co-workers. I simply forward the email to my Evernote email address, which automatically creates an Evernote note.
The API. I recently created a Chrome extension named NoteFuser that connects records in new.familysearch.org and geni.com to your Evernote notes. The API and development environment was a pleasure to work with.
Awesome help. The first time I used the email feature, I received an email back with some hints on how to more effectively use the email feature. Awesome!

I could go on, but those are my top 5 favorite things about Evernote. Evernote does things right.