Sunday, January 5, 2014

There’s an Important Math Equation We Need to Know

We’re (well the Summer Media Institute actually) about to buy 15 DSLR cameras with money from an outside donor. Wow, that’s a big deal for us. We almost never get to make that large a purchase and certainly not that many of any one thing that expensive. This will be a decision we will live with for some time, affect the style of work students make and commit us to spending more money in the future to maintain that equipment. Is it the right decision and how do we know that?

One of the most important math equations that we can rely on to help us make good decisions shows us the distribution effects of camera life over both a long and short time span: from 3 years to 13 years. Our worry is that we might purchase the wrong cameras and then later we’ll have a lot of items we regret.

The question: is it smarter to buy a lot of less expensive cameras or fewer higher-end more expensive cameras and more importantly how does that play out over time as cameras break and have to be replaced. Additionally is it better to buy it all at once or spread it out over a period of a year and buy different models of cameras. 

There will inevitably develop over time a drift between the original camera models and the ones that we buy to replace the ones that die. For a short period of time we can just buy the same ones for replacement, but at some point they’ll no longer be manufactured and only new/different models will be available. It’s inevitable.

A second part to the equation is how long before that happens, how fast does it take to tip the balance, at what point are all the cameras completely replaced and finally how much money have we spent as we reach the end of the complete cycle. Oh, yes, one more important question - are we happy about the whole outcome or will we wish we had played out a different scenario. 

So here’s the equation:  (oh wait, there isn’t any).

If any of us could figure that out we’d be working for some investment bank instead, right? The reality is no one knows how it’s going to play out, what to buy, what’s going to break, in the end was it all affordable and did we have a good time. Just stop back in in a few years and then we’ll know. Until then, think hard, read up, try stuff out, think about what’s happened in the past and then go for it.

However. This is a great test case and we should track the hell out of it for data and user satisfaction. Indeed, is it better to buy low or high? How long will it take before we have to replace a camera with a different model and how does that affect everyone? Are we now obliged to keep that many cameras in the pool and what will be the cost of doing that? Will we notice a shift in the style of work and how might that affect a programs direction? All good questions and I’ll bet there’s a ton more that we’ll come up with over time. We should embrace this as a great experiment and formally track the data and share the results quite formally.


gunther   November 19, 2013

No comments:

Post a Comment