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Last year some colleagues and I conducted an experiment to see if software product managers are likely to fall victim to biases predicted by prospect theory when deciding what a software product should do. Our results showed they do.

Laurie Santos had much more fun with this topic, conducting behavioural economics experiments based on prospect theory with monkeys. Her aim was to see if our biases are deeply innate, or just bad habits we learn. Her conclusion was that a monkey economy is as irrational as our own. Or, as I prefer to say, that software engineers make the same mistakes as monkeys.

Laurie’s presentation at TED is far more engaging than ours, so I include it here …

Maybe this is why they call me monkey?!

Today Oziel and I are working from Malmö City Library. But given the summers are short in Sweden, people don’t want to waste them inside the library. The library understands this dilemma, and has set up tables, chair and lounges in the library gardens so that you can enjoy the best of both the summer and the library.

For lunch Oziel and I headed to Max Burger. They have new self-service terminals for ordering, much like the self check-in terminals at the airport.

To our surprise, no one else used these terminals while we were eating our lunch – preferring the queue. But it turned out that these were even better than we expected:

• There was no queue for the terminals, while the queues for ordering with a cashier were at least six people deep.
• We could order by picture – meaning the cashier didn’t get confused with our Swedish.
• We were given many more options than we knew existed (eg. swap chips out for salad, carrots, potato gratin, etc …)
• After ordering we went to the express counter to pick up our meal and it was almost ready (fast food in Swedish is not known for being fast).

We give the Max self-service terminals the thumbs up.

Until now I have been working at the Ronneby Campus of Blekinge Institute of Technology. However, given the small student population, a decision was made to consolidate this campus with the larger Karlskrona Campus. Henceforth I have a new office located in Karlskrona.

Today I unpacked and the above picture is the result. It’s basically the same as my old office, except for location and outlook. Before I looked across a car park, where now I look into the library and a computer lab. Plus the new building is waterside (except in the winter, when it is ice-side).

After a rocky start my colleagues and I did end up interacting at CONES 2010 in Oslo. The proof can be found in the official photo album. I did a reasonably good job of avoiding the foreground, only being found too close to the camera once.

I am packed and ready to head to Oslo, just in time for the first semi-final of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest! I will be catching the 5:20 am train to Copenhagen, and then flying up to Oslo.

I am sure it is going to be a huge week in Oslo. I won’t have much time to myself. Once we arrive, I will head straight to the workshop for the Center of Nordic Excellence in Software Engineering (CONES). We will then spend the remainer of the day in seminars until we break briefly before the workshop dinner. Wednesday too will be an early start, continuing the seminars from Tuesday in the morning. After the workshop lunch, we have a research group meeting before flying back home..

With this itinerary I am unlikely to even know what happens during the first semi-final. However, my past experience of Eurovision in Sweden has been intolerable. Without the voice of Sir Terry Wogan, Eurovision becomes a serious competition, solely about the musical performances. And surely no one can take pop that seriously.