This post is a part of the GroupLens Iron Blogging effort, so take that for what you will.

In his post earlier this week, Daniel Kluver outlined the “Jello Research Challenge”, based on a conversation we had.

The rules as outlined are:

1. You must re-tell the basic narrative arc (the “story”) of one piece of work but make it all about jello.
2. You cannot use any of the major keywords of your work or buzzwords of your field.
3. You do not have to actually explain your work.
4. You do not have to actually identify what work you are explaining.

I’d kind of forgotten this until I was ambiently peer-pressured into it.

So, here goes:

There are these computer systems that involve people helping you make jello, or bringing you jello. It turns out, people who make their jello skills available live in different places than some of the people who might benefit most from jello. The people who share their jello skills don’t like to travel too far to do so, and there aren’t people who share their jello skills in poorer areas (even though poor people probably want jello also).