Dissertation Abstract and Update
A number of wonderful, attentive, concerned friends and family members have asked for a dissertation update, and here it is. Thank you for thinking of me! Now all of you who wanted to know but were afraid to ask can know too. The latest short abstract is:
In the fall of 2005, drivers in a small midwestern city began crossing over an interstate on a new kind of bridge. The bridge beneath them looked like other bridges carrying city streets over the interstate, but this bridge could bend. It couldn't bend like Gumby, but it could bend like steel. Building the deck of this bendable bridge involved a state transportation department, a university research lab, and several private contractors. Given the complexity of construction projects, the challenges in doing innovative construction work, and the potential pitfalls of collaboration projects, the success of the bridge is surprising. This dissertation explores how the team managed to build a bridge with a remarkable new kind of deck.
Existing scholarship provides insight on the problems that plague projects and collaborations and identifies many mechanisms to help meet these challenges. My analysis suggests that the bridge project avoided possible problems common in projects such as (1) loose coupling among actors in a project limiting the information sharing that occurs and (2) procurement processes that encourage builders and clients to see one another as adversaries through (a) social language and its associated attention to others, (b) the flexibility and localized control loose coupling affords, and (c) the motivating influences of affect. This study will combine and extend theories about social capital, creative projects, and loose coupling in order to better understand the nature of collaborative projects involving multiple communities of practice and how those projects can be successful.
I've written at least 68 good pages and probably about 50 not-so-good ones that will eventually work their way, in part, into the good stuff. I have a few (< 10) interviews remaining, and that means more time in analysis. I'm on target for my personal deadline of a spring/summer defense and am actively seeking new opportunities beginning summer or fall of 2009.
Storing, sharing, editing data
I'm starting a new research project on which I collaborate with two other people, one in Ann Arbor, MI and one in Phoenix, AZ. We use Macs and PCs. We have no budget for software. We're likely to have a bunch of qualitative data to keep track of and share.
My first task is to gather some information on potential participants for our study. I've spent enough time working with databases to prefer them to files and folder structures for these purposes. Databases have advantages in that they can store relational information, can sort data, are easy to search, can be viewed and edited by more than one person at a time, the list goes on. Bottom line, I want a database. I starting by building a Drupal site to keep track of the data about those potential participants - who they are, where they are, how to contact them, how they're related to each other, what my thoughts are about them. I ended up abandoning Drupal to build my own MySQL/PHP website that stores and displays the data; I also built insert and edit pages to ease those data functions.
This is my third try-and-abandon with Drupal. I can understand how Drupal might make maintenance easier for non-technical users, but as a quasi-technical user, Drupal gets in my way at every turn. My MySQL database has 9 tables with 2 - 10 fields. I would have to add all <90 of those fields by hand in Drupal. Then, I'd have to create views to see them and views to edit and views to add/insert. How is that better than just building a PHP site myself? If most of the work is during setup, how does Drupal save any time or frustration at all? It seems like Drupal has taken the command line, coding aspects of building my own database-driven site and replaced them with a convoluted web-based GUI. I'm not sure I see the point or the cost savings there.
The real problem here is not that I still haven't found Drupal useful or advantageous. The problem is that I still don't have a great, easy, usable way to enter, edit, store, and share data with my colleagues. Even after I build this mySQL/PHP site by hand, I'll still have to figure out a way to get the data back out so we can analyze it. That opens a whole host of problems whose current solutions such as NVivo and Atlas.ti are expensive ($240 and $119 for students, respectively). Opportunities abound for helping qualitative researchers capture, store, share, and analyze their data collaboratively. What price point would be appropriate here? If you're a researcher, how much would you be willing to pay for a personalized, secure, web-based data sharing solution? Would anyone else even want such a thing?
Comparing Collaboration Tools
Choosing a tool or set of tools to use when collaborating presents many challenges. Will my colleagues be willing to get yet another login? Will we use just email for communication, or should we make sure some IM or audio is available? How will we share documents?
All the systems included here allow you to store and share files of many types, including images, Stata files, video, etc. Here's a summary of a few of the off-the-shelf options available to people looking for a new online collaboration tool. I'll post more information about each system and how to tell which is right for you. Please feel free to email me if you'd like help planning for and setting up a new collaboration. I'm sure we can work something out.
| System | View/edit docs | White- board |
Chat | Video | Wiki | Platform | Login | Support | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CTools | x (text) | X | Any | UMich | Email, phone | Free | |||
| Groove | X | X (text, audio) | PC | Groove | Online | part of Office 2007; $149.95 and up | |||
| Basecamp | X | X | Any | Basecamp or OpenID | $24/month and up | ||||
| Vyew | X | X (text) | X | Any | Vyew | Online | Free/ $6.95/ $13.95 and up per month | ||
| Google (combine Docs/Sites/Groups) | X | X (text) | X | Any | Online | Free | |||
| Zoho | X | X (text) | X | Any | Zoho | Email/online | Free/$50 | ||
| Adobe Connect | X | X (text, audio) | X | Any | Adobe | Email/online | $750/month |
Honorable mention: eXpresso lets you upload and edit an Excel document together. Support for other Office documents is coming but no timeline is set.
Talking Shop
I had the great fortune to spend my afternoon at Sweetwaters with Jude and Ingrid. While working diligently on my dissertation, I have been somewhat of a recluse. I've been too tired to socialize at night and too dogged to interact much during the day. Today, I took a break from writing and analyzing data to reconnect with friends, and I find myself greatly rewarded.
Ingrid, Jude, and I are all young scholars in related fields. Today we talked about the challenges of finding an audience for our work and how audience might determine, in large part, who we are as researchers. We shared horror stories of meeting conference deadlines and the loneliness of dissertation writing. We compared notes on job hunts and what to do with dissertations once they're written. We traded citations and names of interesting researchers. We even talked about how facts on the internet are sometimes wrong. This all may sound boring or typical for academics, but remember that writing one's dissertation is a lonely, remarkably individual endeavor. Sure, committee members, student friends, understanding non-academics, etc. are essential to the process, but the bottom line is that a lone scholar spends a great portion of each day alone, silent, writing.
In answering Ingrid's question about who I interviewed this morning, I found myself remembering why I care about the bridge project I study (because it worked!) and why I'm interested in collaboration in the first place (because we change the world when we work together). When we talked about the differences between departments that focus on the ACM and those that focus on the AoM, I remembered why Michigan was the right place for me (I care deeply about what people are able to accomplish when they work together and the technologies that enable them to do so.).
I recommend getting out of your office, finding a couple colleagues you haven't talked to in a while, and making a break for a nice coffee/tea shop. Maybe you already knew that was a good idea, but I'd forgotten how satisfying such an afternoon can be.
Becoming Manifesto-y, Telling Stories
A couple weeks ago, my advisor counseled me to make the research statement I was writing for a job application "more manifesto-y." A few days later, we elected Barack Obama President of the United States, spurring at least one manifesto [story from the Boston Globe]. This week I have watched an embarrassing number of episodes of The West Wing on DVD. The characters on The West Wing are constanting publicly declaring their intentions. Today, my brother sent me a Tom Peters manifesto from ChangeThis. Manifesto seems to be the theme of my life for November.
man⋅i⋅fes⋅to
[man-uh-fes-toh]
–noun, plural -toes. a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization. (from Dictionary.com)
This definition from Dictionary.com seems to be missing some of the "flair" I normally associate with a manifesto. For me, a manifesto is not just any public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, but an energetic, empassioned public declaration. Without passion, it's just a statement.
Why blog this? Well, I'm worked up. My guy won the White House. A close friend wrote something that was entered into the Congressional record and may find a public outlet for other important work. My brother sent me something from non-academic workplace literature that made me sit up and pay attention while I read. President-elect Obama. We millions who voted for him. My friend the policy researcher. Tom Peters. These people made public declarations of their opinions and objectives, and they did so with passion.
It seems silly to compare those actions to the kind of effort my advisor asked me to use in my research statement. I don't think I really understood when she told me to "be more manifesto-y." I definitely improved my statement after that advice, but it did not turn into a research manifesto. It's probably too early in my career for me to be writing research manifestos. After all, I need some political capital in order to get a job. I don't have the protection of tenure to shield me in the event that my manifesto is unpopular.
I don't think my manifesto would be unpopular though. My manifesto would be about doing research that helps us change the world by working together. Research that helps us solve problems like AIDS, bioterrorism, crumbling civil infrastructure, and the uncertainty and pain of starting new careers. Those are the problems the people I study are solving. My research will be useful to them. My research will help us work together better. My research will help us organize our projects so that we can accomplish more together than on our own. My research will help us feel better about our work, about what we can accomplish, about our relationships with our colleagues. My research will enable us to get more from ourselves.
That is the research statement I can make here, on my blog, after regaining hope in my country, after watching my friends do their best to change the world, after reading about how to succeed. I make it here because it's not appropriate for my job packet. I make it here because while reading #17: Work on Your Story in Tom Peters' manifesto, I was reminded of my frustrations about presenting and discussing academic work. Tom Peters claims that "he/she who has the best story wins!" He claims that telling stories is better than simply giving presentations. I am a great story teller. Ask my friends or the people who come to my parties. My friend Caroline, for sure, will vouch for me. I want so much to believe Tom Peters that being a storyteller will help me succeed. The trouble is, I'm not sure my audience can handle it. I'm not sure my conference presentations go over that well when I try to be a storyteller. I know reviewers get frustrated when I don't stick to intro, method, results, discussion and bullet points. I'm pretty sure a hiring committee would rather I send them the statement I did than something like the paragraph before this one.
Am I asking too little of my conference audiences, of those hiring committees? Would I be better off if I showed them the passion I have for the study of collaboration? I'm not sure. I do know I want to be more manifesto-y. The stories about the work I've done and seen could inspire. I don't know who would listen to them though. I don't know what audience would match my energy. The dry, monotonous style of academic publishing, both in print and at conferences, does not lend itself to manifesto. We academics are reserved; sometimes we are cynical. When I'm all worked up like this, that reservation, that cynicism is troubling. I see some value in a cold, passive, rational approach. I do. Just not tonight.
Teaching is good for the soul
I'm serving as a guest lecturer in one of SI's undergraduate courses this week, and teaching is shaking up my week nicely. I haven't taught in a classroom regularly since the fall of 2006, and I was eager to get back into the classroom. This week's topic in the course is "The Business of Information and Information in Business," and I spent most of today's lecture introducing the concepts of marginal costs, non-rival demand, scarcity, elasticity, and a few pricing models. I'm not quite sure how to articulate my appreciation for introductory courses like the one I'm guest lecturing in this week. I've also been working on statements about teaching for a couple of faculty jobs for which I am applying, and I'm sure search committees think I'm crazy for claiming to like teaching intro courses. Even when the material is not the heart of my interest, like the information economics stuff I talked about today, I love being able to introduce material to students. The curiosity newcomers have for fundamental concepts makes the concepts so much more fun to teach. Sure, it's nice to dive into advanced material with experienced students, but there's nothing like watching the light go on for someone understanding something, whether it be "demand elasticity" or "social capital," for the very first time. That happens so often in intro courses! Seeing students get interested helps renew my own energy, and it's with that renewed energy that I can (re-)tackle the methods section of my dissertation today.
Dissertation proposal defense, check
I passed my official dissertation proposal defense on Sept. 19. My committee and I are confident I can complete my dissertation next spring or summer. I'm scheduling my third round of interviews, pouring over construction agreements and design documents, and reviewing literature I haven't read since my field prelim. Preparing for my proposal defense helped me renew my dissertation energy, and I'm excited about being back to work on this project. My dissertation is qualitative, and my analyses are iterative. So, to avoid getting myself into jams while writing and job hunting, I won't be blogging much about my progress. I find that my theories, while in progress, are best kept within my lab group and research workshop.
NSF Award
Stephanie Teasley, Erik Johnston, and I teamed up this spring to propose a study of post-docs joining virtual science teams. NSF awarded us funding at the full amount this week. Our project kicks off this September and runs through (at least) August 2010. I'm very excited about this project. To read more about it, visit NSF's site.
A Productive Summer
Andrew Begel and I had a very productive summer. We conducted 95 interviews with 26 people, and spent 7 days onsite observing new remote employees. We'll be presenting a poster titled, "How will you see my greatness if you can't see me?" at CSCW in November. The poster session is Monday night, Nov. 11. Come by to hear more about our study, especially our findings about how excellent work is and is not observable from a distance. Stay tuned; we're submitting longer papers to two other conferences, and I'll post here when they get accepted.
Related links:
Human Interactions in Programming Group at Microsoft Research
ACM's Computer Supported Cooperative Work Conference (CSCW08)