I stayed in the office on Monday till five o'clock, when a colleague warned us that snow was coming south, and a blizzard was on its way, so I foolishly started home early. It's only twenty miles and takes 35 minutes on a good day, and rarely as long as an hour, but half way home the traffic stopped. I parked for an hour on a roundabout waiting for it to move round, while the radio said only that there were problems in Luton. It took another hour for the radio to give any news on our road, and then I could take action and take a back route.
It took me four and a half hours to get home - I should have stayed in the office.
Information allows decision making, and consequent action.
Showing posts with label office. Show all posts
Showing posts with label office. Show all posts
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Faffing about moving desks and floors
It's the beginning of a new academic year and new MRes and first year PhD students are registering today, and will need their desks from Monday. So all the third year students are moving upstairs to sit near their seniors who are now in fourth year and writing up as fast as they can. The second years have moved downstairs. That leaves the new MRes students in the same room as the first year PhD students.
In the practitioner consulting literature, a strategy {Block, 2000 } for getting people to engage with each other is have a physical structure that supports community. Our new arrangement will support year groups as communities. But we're all split up so casual conversation or observation of what senior students are doing will no longer be possible.
The desks were moved two days ago, but the computers only moved yesterday, and not immediately connected, so the first half of the day was spent getting phones and computers connected. On top of that, my desk was high, and colleague's desk was low. He's tall; I'm short. He needs his desk high to reduce his back ache; I want mine low so that my chair is low and my feet touch the ground. So we had to get the removal men to swap our desks round.
By the time all that was done, it was time for coffee. Coffee time is an opportunity for us all to get together, compare notes on progress or refuse to talk about work. Next week, we'll have to get the new students' emails /extension numbers and let them know when people are about to have a coffee or lunch break. That might help newcomers to engage usefully with the senior students and get some value from their experience.
Block, P. (2000). Flawless Consulting: a guide to getting your expertise used, Jossey-Bass/Fpeiffer.
In the practitioner consulting literature, a strategy {Block, 2000 } for getting people to engage with each other is have a physical structure that supports community. Our new arrangement will support year groups as communities. But we're all split up so casual conversation or observation of what senior students are doing will no longer be possible.
The desks were moved two days ago, but the computers only moved yesterday, and not immediately connected, so the first half of the day was spent getting phones and computers connected. On top of that, my desk was high, and colleague's desk was low. He's tall; I'm short. He needs his desk high to reduce his back ache; I want mine low so that my chair is low and my feet touch the ground. So we had to get the removal men to swap our desks round.
By the time all that was done, it was time for coffee. Coffee time is an opportunity for us all to get together, compare notes on progress or refuse to talk about work. Next week, we'll have to get the new students' emails /extension numbers and let them know when people are about to have a coffee or lunch break. That might help newcomers to engage usefully with the senior students and get some value from their experience.
Block, P. (2000). Flawless Consulting: a guide to getting your expertise used, Jossey-Bass/Fpeiffer.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Technology I use for research
Research uses technology:
- Microsoft Office (though I could use Open Office - it's Microsoft available on campus). I use Word for writing, reports, chapters and Excel for my plans.
- Phone - not Skype though
- Blogging software - this, and I have tried the OU's Assistive Publishing System (APS) to create an internal web site.
- NVivo for qualitative analysis
- SPSS for statistical analysis, though not much since I completed the Master in Research Methods.
- Virtual Private Network(VPN) - very useful for accessing my files on the server at the OU when I'm working at home
- microfiche - once for a PhD thesis that the library got hold of for me.
- Digital recording software - for recording data and playing it back
- Digital photography software - used to edit photographs for the poster I created for the competition.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Story of an open plan office
I like being a research student in the OUBS. The first and second year and the masters students sit together in an open plan office, half of a wing and there are 4 wings to each floor. We each have:
Students support each other too. One has helped me with a proforma for an ethics application. Someone else is expert on using Endnote, and another has the extension number for the IT technican. So we talk.
Most mornings we break off for coffee and meet together. Discussion is often about sport or families, but also about our research, so it is a supportive and safe environment to start PhD studies.
The third year students leave this home base to sit in their own research area. At least that is the theory, assuming that the student's research area has space. But this year the research areas had no space for the five rising third year PhD students, so DoRP had to work out how to fit in 3 new MRes students and 7 new PhD students. In the end, a couple of students who come in less often got hot desks on other floors, anywhere there was space, and three students together got put in the emptiest research area.
And there arose a small problem because three new people came in together already knowing each other to an office where there are existing standards and expectations. And open plan offices need common agreements on noise and activities. Within almost minutes of arriving the students found that they were talking too loudly for the floor. By the second week, one had been told not to use the phone for more than two minutes, which was patently absurd as work requires you to talk to people on the phone while looking at information on your screen.
What I like is hearing the story of the settling in from different people, the students, those already there, managers and others. Each narrative comes out with a slightly different angle on it. From some it might sound like a power struggle, from another it is just a case of getting on with it, and another might make a comment on a personality. They are all organising their experience and telling the story is part of learning, asking for interpretation of the experience. And relates to where I've got to on reading Czarniawska's Narratives, watching how the stories are being made. By narrating this story, I'm trying to make sense of it myself.
I wonder where they'll put me next year.
Czarniawska, B. (2004) Narratives in social science research, Sage, London. 892
- a desk top computer,
- a personal drive on a central server where our work is automatically backed up,
- office software,
- any specialist software that is relevant such as Endnote, Nvivo, SPSS and
- a cupboard for our files and books.
Students support each other too. One has helped me with a proforma for an ethics application. Someone else is expert on using Endnote, and another has the extension number for the IT technican. So we talk.
Most mornings we break off for coffee and meet together. Discussion is often about sport or families, but also about our research, so it is a supportive and safe environment to start PhD studies.
The third year students leave this home base to sit in their own research area. At least that is the theory, assuming that the student's research area has space. But this year the research areas had no space for the five rising third year PhD students, so DoRP had to work out how to fit in 3 new MRes students and 7 new PhD students. In the end, a couple of students who come in less often got hot desks on other floors, anywhere there was space, and three students together got put in the emptiest research area.
And there arose a small problem because three new people came in together already knowing each other to an office where there are existing standards and expectations. And open plan offices need common agreements on noise and activities. Within almost minutes of arriving the students found that they were talking too loudly for the floor. By the second week, one had been told not to use the phone for more than two minutes, which was patently absurd as work requires you to talk to people on the phone while looking at information on your screen.
What I like is hearing the story of the settling in from different people, the students, those already there, managers and others. Each narrative comes out with a slightly different angle on it. From some it might sound like a power struggle, from another it is just a case of getting on with it, and another might make a comment on a personality. They are all organising their experience and telling the story is part of learning, asking for interpretation of the experience. And relates to where I've got to on reading Czarniawska's Narratives, watching how the stories are being made. By narrating this story, I'm trying to make sense of it myself.
I wonder where they'll put me next year.
Czarniawska, B. (2004) Narratives in social science research, Sage, London. 892
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