engin | Engin Ozsoy's Personal Homepage and Blog on Technology, Social Media, Trends and Life...

Twitter and Journalism on the Grapevine

May 3, 2011 / Comments Off / Posted in: Blog

Just like many of you, I didn’t hear the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed from a TV channel, nor a news agency, nor an official institution, but Tweets bursting out from Twitter, Facebook/MSN IM networks, simply put from friends in a “on the grapevine” fashion and within a time frame of about 3 hours after the first public source.

We are observing the evolution of journalism. Actually, I realize that I haven’t read a paper published newspaper for so long that I’m missing the joy of a journey between the pages of a newspaper on a sunday morning.

Lets check the numbers first… According to Twitter’s official announcement, tweets about Laden’s death broke the Sustained Tweet Rate record and reached 3000 tweets per second over 10:45pm – 2:20am period. After USA president Obama’s speech it tweet rates reached 5008 tweets per second. This rate can reach the average daily visits of New York Times online (~30million) in about 3 hours. The exponential spread and later the damping of the tweet rate can be noticed by the tsunami like shape in the figure. This quantitative growth raises qualitative concerns, as it is commonly seen that false news go viral on twitter, but 3000 tweets per second is a significant rate.

If we approach this emerging trend from the consumer behavior perspective, we consume “news” much like other goods, there are many analogies. After the industrial revolution, the era of mass production emerged, profit by mass production & sales of a single product. When Ford manufactured his first cars, the consumers didn’t used to have too many options, just like everybody used to read the same newspapers and watch the same tv channels in the early years of the media.

As the technical improvements evolved, and new production methods emerged, there was a paradigm shift in late 90’s to mass customization. To be honest, we are extremely spoiled. If we think of today’s extreme, you can buy your iPhone/iPad with the configuration you want and with your name laser-written on the back (Henry Ford would probably drown in tears, if he would experience this).

This nature of ours is apparent in all types of consumption. We want to have our own choices. When we read news, we want to compile our own configuration with the authors we prefer, fuse the knowledge we want to synthesize through RSS channels, and consume it through the interface we prefer. Products for mass audiences simply don’t make the cut. Especially if news is considered, the time lag of conventional methods results in old news once it reaches to the customers. When establishing our corporate and personal identities, we cannot neglect these changes.

The digital world is by-passing the intermediaries and makes us come one more step closer to the source of everything, while a new era is shaping in front of our eyes.

– this post has been published in dijitolog

Amazon and Algorithmic Pricing

May 1, 2011 / Comments Off / Posted in: Blog

Recently an interesting incidence happened in E-Commerce giant Amazon.

As reported by Michael Eisen, 17 copies of the biology book “The Making of a Fly” by Peter Lawrence published in 1992 (not printed anymore) was for sale on Amazon. 15 second hand copies started from $35.54, whereas 2 new copies were sold starting from exactly 1730045.91$.

More interestingly, the two sellers of the new copies have both profiles with high customer satisfaction feedback and high transaction volumes and they both ask for more than million $s . This abnormal situation lead to a much more interesting discovery. Eisen followed the behavior of the prices, both rising steadily and discovered a very simple relationship between the two sellers prices.

Profnath, strategically was positioning itself “slightly” below the market price to be price competitive and draw more customers to its e-store, so it was setting its price exactly 0.9983 times the lowest market price. Bordeebook, on the other hand, was relying on its high sales volume and excellent customer feedback to increase its profit margin, thus setting the price to exactly 1.270589 times the lowest price. As there are no other new copies of the book, these sellers run into an infinite loop, where they rise the prices to the roof (million $ level). Furthermore, this kind of responsive behavior raises the concerns, that Bordeebook maybe does not even posses the actual copy of the book and acts as a reseller.

Today, while firms essentially consider the production and market data for pricing, it is not possible to overlook the competitors data and strategy. Especially, e-commerce enables possible ways of automation and leads to new, emerging situations. The main reason for these kind situations is that it is impossible to manually maintain such a diverse inventory of enormous volume. Therefore, as in the case of Amazon doing business with countless suppliers, for the sustainability of the system automation is inevitable. Thus, interesting price tags with .01$ precision are mostly outputs of smartly prepared scripts. In this regards, process control is obviously necessary, as I doubt someone would be interested in a regular book sold for million $s.

– this post has been published in dijitolog

Facebook Town-hall Meeting

April 29, 2011 / Comments Off / Posted in: Blog

Facebook hosted an online, live townhall meeting with USA president Obama in Palo Alto headquarters. This event was very important for both Facebook and Obama. From the day he was elected, presidents poll results indicated decline. For the re-election campaign the utilization of Facebook platform is a significant move as it features over 155 million users in USA with 62% under the age 35. Even people in my network who devotedly supported “Obama for Change” campaign are far from the excitement in 2008.

Although it was not covered in the video published, Zuckenberg greeted the USA president Obama, referring to 19 million followers on his Facebook page, “Welcome home president”. The opening speech of the president explains the rationale of this meeting very well:

The main reason we wanted to do this is, first of all, because more and more people, especially young people, are getting their information through different media. And obviously what all of you have built together is helping to revolutionize how people get information, how they process information, how they’re connecting with each other.

And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you’ve got citizens who are informed, who are engaged. And what Facebookallows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation; makes sure that not only am I speaking to you but you’re also speaking back and we’re in a conversation, were in a dialogue.

And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you’ve got citizens who are informed, who are engaged. And what Facebookallows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation; makes sure that not only am I speaking to you but you’re also speaking back and we’re in a conversation, were in a dialogue.

And really Obama continued with a warm tone to address questions ranging from economy to immigration, education, health care, partly picked from the web, partly from the Facebook employees among the crowd.

From Facebook’s perspective, the largest social network did the first move hosting this dialogue to bridge the internet with the world of politics, definitely adding to its brand value. Different than the conventional media, Facebook audience interacted over the web and become a contributor of this town-hall. Thinking of internet as a factor democratizing the world (literally), social networks such as Facebook, abstracting and virtualizing our identity promise a great potential. Just to give an idea, think of virtualizing elections or referendums, where people can very efficiently represent themselves with an e-government social network infrastructure.

This is a new era. Just like the corporate firms are one step closer to their customers with the social media, the politicians are reaching their voters through Facebook, Twitter, Youtube much faster. As a leader very well connected to the social media, we will see if Obama can prevail again in the 2012 elections adding new “friends”.

– this post has been published in dijitolog

kep

July 6, 2010 / Comments Off / Posted in: Music

Since I came to realize that I exist (?!), music was an important way of my self expression.

And our journey with kep starting from 2001 with the roots up to 1999 -when I picked up the bass guitar-, has been an important part of my life.

kep @ itu

It was my privilege to play bass in a trio of very talented musicians, my high school friend Kemal Tolun (vocals and guitars) and my cousin Koray Ozsoy (drums).

I would define kep as a band full of energy and fun (definitely characterized by the sound of “Kaset”), of course compensated by my sour influence (as in “Yalnizlik Turkusu”).

I always loved to define our sound as the sound of Beyoglu (a unique place at the heart of Istanbul, bringing all the diversity together). It ranged from alternative rock to funk-rock heavily influenced by Turkish tunes and rhythms.

Especially in the early years, it was a significant experience for me as a song writer and a bass player with a funky taste to experiment on compositions and our tunes. In the following years, as we started to make our way to the main stage, it was a semi-pro stage experience, where we got to realize many others enjoying what we are doing. This encountering was the main motivation that kept us going. We played for bar gigs without a count, numerous festivals and events. On our way we’ve met with very important friends, our nameless heroes, but cannot pass without naming Ramazan Toktay, who engineered our sound and helped to manage this act.

This is an open letter to thank everyone involved, listening, hosting, sharing and making this a unique experience.

Thanks!

As we parted ways to discover different paths of life, kep is conveniently resting for a while… catching breath, preparing for new chapters. new stories..

engin on bass

Links:

kep@myspace

kep@facebook

Statement of Purpose

June 19, 2010 / Comments Off / Posted in: Blog

This statement of purpose is intended to be a brief reasoning and vision for my web / blog.

First of all it is a selfish act, where I basically try to organize my observations, thoughts, creative process and put it all together in a documentary. The aim is to be -hopefully- more productive and efficient.

Secondly it is a collaborative act, where I try to reach out to those, who are interested in the content, have their own experience & skill set, and are willing to collaborate create new synergies. Let it be anything I cover here (projects, music etc ) or even completely new stuff.

Finally, I try to showcase an auto-biography: who I am, what I do, what life means to me and what my outlook is.

I am looking for participation and involvement to breed seeds of synergy and higher aspirations.

This is my vision for the journey.

Set sail! Rastgele!

Hello world! Once again!

June 17, 2010 / Comments Off / Posted in: Blog

New design, new beginnings…

Action!

Systems Perspective

February 9, 2009 / Comments Off / Posted in: Projects

Globalhawk UAV

Nowadays, nothing is simple. We are dealing with convoluted problems, which require convoluted solutions.

Working on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) project as a project engineer, I have experienced numerous times, how important the systems engineering aspect is.

The engineering approach to complete such a huge specific project requires detailed work division and allocation to specialists in granular level. However, it is not possible to think of these sub groups as individual modules. Any design specification in one of these modules, is also important for other modules as it has impact on the functionality of others.

For instance considering such a multi-disciplinary project, aero-design, electro-mechanical design, electrical system design and digital system design are all coupled.

How? The fuselage and control surfaces impose design specifications on electro-mechanical design, which imposes design specifications on the electrical system design and digital system design is affected by all of the systems and vice versa. Sometimes the relationship is hierarchical, whereas some times it can be unilateral. So how to approach the problem with the systems perspective?

First it’s important to understand, what we mean by systems:

“A system can be defined as a set of elements standing in interrelations” (von Bertalanffy 1968).

Sperwer UAV

A UAV system involves many components, such as aerodynamic design (fuselage, control surfaces, etc), payloads (surveillance systems – gimbals, etc), electrical system (bus powering other systems ), electro-mechanical systems (to mechanically control the motion, payloads etc) and digital systems (auto-pilot, measurement systems etc).

Also, the system as a whole is a part of a system of higher level. The UAV should be inter-operable to be controlled by base stations via the protocols standardized by organizations such as NATO.

The most important thing in the systems perspective is the integration of development phasing, life cycle integration with the systems engineering management. This involves the definition of baselines in the development phasing, integrated teaming and life cycle planning for life cycle integration.

Let it be a complicated engineering project such as this one, or an industrial project involving the design of a distribution network, the system engineering design process considers the system as a whole, instead of individual modules.

The design process of the system between process inputs and outputs is very closely coupled.

Is systems perspective vital? Can we survive without this closely coupled integration?

Probably yes, but we would require countless re-design, re-work and countless deadline extensions…

Control Engineering

February 9, 2008 / Comments Off / Posted in: Projects

Having spent many years in Control Engineering discipline and worked on many other relevant domains, I cannot go without expressing my thoughts about this wonderful magic. I find it very interesting, because it is basically applicable to any problem domain.

Control… And Engineering.. The act of controlling can be defined in many different ways, but I think the bottom line is, it aims to achieve a desired outcome. Just imagine you want to drive from point A to point B within a certain time-frame, controlling the speed and route can achieve you an optimal solution for that problem: optimal route, optimal speed. Frame an engineering approach to control, and Voila! we have control engineering (I am glad to say I am a proud control engineer :)).

What I liked about Control Engineering at first glance was, how it approached the problems from a systems perspective. Conceptually, Control Engineering discipline aims to map from the problem domain to an abstract domain via modeling and solves the real problem in the abstract level and maps the solution back to the problem domain.

Basic Feedback Control System Block Diagram

The fundamental observation is that many problems from various disciplines exhibit the same characteristics once abstracted. Thus, it is possible to develop similar solutions in this abstract domain for problems from vastly differing problem domains.

Once the problem is abstracted, it can be expressed by block diagrams featuring controller, measurements(feedback) and plant(system) blocks. It all comes down to designing the controller in this abstract domain, that will achieve the desired system response.

Usually this abstract domain is the world of math, as it is the most abstract tool we have to model reality. These models can be differential equations, as well as statistical distributions, empirical or even black box type. Any system can be modeled one way or another let it be analytically, let it be probabilistically… and these are merely tools.

During my B.Sc. education in Electrical and Electronics Engineering department, these systems used to be electronic circuits, various types of motors, magnetic circuits etc and were dominantly modeled with differential equations . However, in my M.Sc. studies in Industrial Engineering, I have seen that these concepts are very well applicable to decision / planning problems in industry, which are much more interesting to me, because they involve humans in the loop, which drives a very realistic uncertainty. Thus, these models hugely rely on historical data for reasoning of the expected system outcomes.

Mathematical System Model

The important thing to take away is that the model should convey the characteristics of the real system in sufficient detail (not too much, not too weak). The model defines a relationship between the inputs and the outputs of the system.

The idea of control is to achieve a desired system outcome, by manipulating the system inputs (decision variables). This involves many trade-offs. The optimal control problem is to find the best set of inputs to achieve certain goals. The definition of best corresponds to the objective functions, which is an abstraction itself.

System response with controller

For instance if the problem is to control a car travelling a certain distance, the speed and the path can be the decisions that have to be taken. If the speed is too high, the energy to be spent is too much. If the path is too aggressive, the stress in the equipment is too much. By modeling these constraints (i.e. max time to travel) and objectives (i.e. energy efficiency) an optimal solution can be found.

As crazy as it sounds, even the stock market can be modeled theoretically. Of course the significant problem is that there are too many disturbances, as well as too many inputs to make inferences on the input-output relationships from historical data and accurately estimate system outcomes.

In the control concept the importance of feedback is vital. Control without feedback is similar to driving with the eyes shut.

To conclude, taking this to a more abstract level, the most important control act being our path in life, we have to make sure our eyes are wide open to see where we are going, how it compares to what we aspire, what we really love..

Does this sound too control freak? Maybe…

ITU GAE – ARIBA II

August 6, 2006 / Comments Off / Posted in: Projects

During my adventure in Istanbul Technical University, ITU Solar Car Team (GAE) – ARIBA II was one of the biggest project that I took part.

ITU Solar Car Team 2006 - The Champions

The project to build a solar racing car from scratch required a multi-disciplinary effort between electrical, mechanical, aeronautical, industrial design and management departments that involved over 30 students.

During my undergraduate studies with control engineering and electrical engineering focus, I was involved with the modeling for control and electrical system design. The project was a complete success with the team winning all the races hold by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey in 2006 (and following years).

There are multiple challenges in the solar car racing. First of all besides all the technical and tangible challenges, in a hands on student project, the communication, collaboration and motivation within the team is really important. The only incentive being the feeling of having something accomplished, it is very hard to maintain a productive team. To have many devoted and committed members with technical experience under the same flag was our main advantage (ITU GAE 2006 Team).

Solar Car racing is all about efficiency. So the ultimate goal is to cut all the overhead, all unnecessary sources of resistance and obtain a mechanically, electrically, ergonomically and aerodynamically smooth vehicle (analogous to the lean concept in IE). This design paradigm has driven ARIBA II to a completely non-flexible state, it is designed as a driver / race-track specific car. This is an extreme, but necessary trade off for racing purposes, which granted ARIBA II the leading edge to be the lightest and fastest.

ARIVA-IV

ARIBA is now a saga and the team is continuing the tradition to compete in world class (best rookie in World Solar Challenge 2010). It is an honor to be a part of the pioneering team of this world class competitive project.

You can access my article on solar racing cars in the university newspaper (turkish) below.

Ariyorum – ARIBA

You can access the publication from our team on the solar racing car design (turkish) below.

Ariba – Article

Links:

www.itugae.com

ARIyorum – ITU Newspaper

February 6, 2005 / Comments Off / Posted in: Projects

Once upon a time, I received a call from a very close friend regarding a meeting for the formation a of new organization.

project file cover - ariyorum

When I got there, we were a small number of anxious, activist people at the verge of a new initiative, a student newspaper organization as the consolidated voice of the campus, which did not exist until then. This exciting idea triggered our commitment, as a great chance to get involved, observe, contact, express, act and change.

The challenges were multi-fold. In theory, the content was the easiest to compile, as everyone was willing to participate given the channel was available. At first glance, the funding required for the press was the biggest challenge as expected in a student project.

In order to reflect the spirit of a real newspaper, we decided to go for hard-copies. Sponsorships, advertisements were essentially required to gear everything up. The newspaper had to be free to claim the voice of a public university campus. The press, the distribution, the logistics…

Furthermore besides the technical difficulties, we agreed to direct this project to be officially recognized by the university. This required the participation of the official school delegation, which added a layer of complexity above all other difficulties.

ARIyorum - Cover

Once we progressed, sleepless nights to compile the content, finish an initial layout prepared in MS Word (my signature 🙂 ), we understood that the situation is even harder than we thought it would be. Conflicts within the team making the decision making hard, low quality of the articles (as expected from amateur authors), the moderation of the school delegation created issues of even the non-technical aspects.

It took us one year to publish the first copy in Jan 2005. With time and with reputation the team converged to a productive state, where it started regenerate itself with members joining/leaving (such as myself 🙂 ).

The realization and continuity of such a large scale project is a huge success. Credits definitely has to be given to the initiator of the project, my friend Fatih Avci, who has been significantly involved with the project since the first day.

This project definitely contributed a lot to me. The surviving the initial dip with baby steps, coordination of team-work …

And I am glad that it became a tradition today and I’ve had my share in that.

Looking to the future, I truly believe that this act has to evolve to a form to benefit from the concept of social media. With the emerging era of e-collaboration, this effort can be brought to a completely new and unique level.

Links:

http://www.gazete.itu.edu.tr