Changing Academic Life

Liam Bannon is a Professor Emeritus and founder and director of the Interaction Design Centre at the University of Limerick in Ireland. In April 2024 I released a conversation with Liam Bannon recorded in 2017 about his career, ending with a hint about some health issues. 

This is a follow up conversation with Liam from Sept 2024 where he shares his profound reflections on life, health, and academia, amid dealing with terminal cancer. Recorded from his hospital bed, Liam shares his journey since his 2015 stage-four lung cancer diagnosis and subsequent health challenges, including a brain tumor. Emphasizing the importance of appreciating life, paying attention to how and with whom we spend it, and maintaining meaningful relationships, Liam offers invaluable insights on managing career pressures, the costs of neglecting personal connections, and the significance of staying true to one's values. Despite audio quality issues, this deeply personal and reflective conversation is a poignant reminder to reassess our priorities and strive for a life balanced between professional aspirations and personal well-being, and prioritising relationships.

Here is a pdf file of the transcript. There is also a transcript embedded with the audio that you can follow along with.

Overview:

00:29 Episode introduction

07:25 Liam’s health journey

12:11 Reflections on professional connections & relationships

21:22 Being reflective about 

25:37 Contributions & tradeoffs

31:04 Asking what do you want to do with your life

33:48 Prioritising people & relationships

38:50 Taking stock, taking holidays, being true to yourself

44:32 Wrapping up

46:16 End

Introducing the new season of Changing Academic Life.

Reflecting on my recent transitions. And thanks to the HCI group for support.

In this short solo episode a share a simple yet powerful technique, S.T.O.P., for taking a purposeful pause throughout your every day. Stop, Take a breath, Observe, Proceed.

00:29 Motivating STOP

01:50 What is STOP

04:37 Using STOP

11:19 Towards making STOP a habit

13:58 End

Volkmar Pipek was a highly influential researcher from Uni of Siegen who sadly passed away in Jan 2024 after a long illness. This short episode draws from a written interview he gave to Mateusz Dolata on the occasion of his 2023 EUSSET-ISSI Lifetime Achievement Award. I read an extract where he shares his advice about becoming and being a researcher: Be curious. Be who you are. Be curious who you are. Wise advice for all of us.

Read the full interview with Volkmar Pipek

Interview conducted by Mateusz Dolata, University of Zurich

Text accompanying the EUSSET-ISSI Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 to Volkmar Pipek

EUSSET: European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies

ISSI: Institute for Social Informatics

Volkmar Pipek, University of Siegen and Volkmar’s publications

Liam Bannon is a Professor Emeritus and founder and director of the Interaction Design Centre at the University of Limerick in Ireland.

Liam has been a hugely influential thinker writer and researcher since the 1980s, along with various collaborators, in shaping work around technology and design.   

Recorded in-person in 2017, he reflects on his interdisciplinary journey and contributions, covering areas such as AI, HCI, CSCW, human-centered design, and collaboration. Liam’s experiences exemplify the challenges and rewards of crafting a unique academic career largely outside the box, grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration and a commitment to improving human-technology interactions, while also highlighting the importance of personal fulfilment and being able to think broadly.

Related Links:

Liam at the Interaction Design Centre, Uni of Limerick

Some of the people & papers he mentions:

George Miller

Zenon Pylyshyn, (1973). What the mind's eye tells the mind's brain: A critique of mental imagery. Psychological Bulletin, 80(1), 1–24. 

H. Rudy Ramsey and Michael E Attwood (1979) Human Factors in Computer Systems: A Review of the Literature, Technical Report SAI-79-111DEN

James Jenkins, Uni of Minnesota

Don Norman, Human Centered Design, UCSD. See also  https://jnd.org

Kjeld Schmidt 

Lucy Suchman

Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics 

Susanne Bødker, Aarhus Uni; see also our 2023 podcast conversation

Mike Cooley, Engineer Lucas Aerospace

Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, Understanding Computers and Cognition, A New Foundation for Design, 1987, Addison-Wesley.

Bannon, L. & Bødker, S. (1991) Beyond the Interface: Encountering Artifacts in Use. Book Chapter in J.M. Carroll (Ed.) (1991) Designing Interaction: Psychology at the Human-Computer Interface, pp.227-253. (New York: Cambridge University Press) (See also an earlier version)

Bud Mehan, UCSD  

Pelle Ehn, Morten Kyng and Participatory Design e.g., see this paper

Rank Xerox Cambridge EuroPARC e.g., see overview articles 'What is EuroPARC?' and 'Rank Xerox Cambridge EuroPARC'

Liam J. Bannon (2006) Forgetting as a feature, not a bug: the duality of memory and implications for ubiquitous computing, CoDesign, 2:1, 3-15

Liam J. Bannon (2012) Interactions

Schmidt, K., Bannon, L., Four characters in search of a context

Schmidt, K., Bannon, L. Taking CSCW seriously. Comput Supported Coop Work 1, 7–40 (1992). 

The Google Scholar listing of all of Liam’s publications

Jean Paul is a senior scientist at the Medical University of Innsbruck. In part 2 of our conversation, Jean discusses her experience leading an impact-led transcdisciplinary research project focused on supporting families with mental health issues. She highlights the challenges of stakeholder engagement, distributed team management, and transdisciplinary research. Jean emphasizes the importance of community engagement, virtual team collaboration, and fostering diversity in academia. She also reflects on the skills she brings to this role and the importance of investing in the team set up from the very beginning.

Overview

[00:29] Introducing Part 2

[02:23] Recap from Part 1

[07:27] Working with stakeholders

[13:35] Leading a distributed international interdisciplinay project team

[14:59] Learning leadership from diverse experiences

[18:25] The transferrable skills – listening and learning

[20:04] Supporting diverse career paths

[25:16] Insights for parents in academia

[29:22] Leadership, organisational design and virtual team management

[34:33] Making virtual collaboration work

[39:08] Future directions and reflections

[41:57] End

Related links:

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute/Gesellschaft

The sandpit-funded project – The Village Project

The Healthy Minds project

Dr Ghislaine Caulat – consultant on virtual leadership development 

Simon Martin – consultant for their organisational design in a transdisciplinary project with stakeholder involvement 

Project Design principles:

The design principles that came out of the oganisational design workshops:

• Effectively coordinate and involve a wide (but manageable!) network of stakeholders
• Be clear on expectations, results and deliverables within the team
• Keep momentum, trust and energy going across the project timeline for the core team and wider stakeholders
• Make sure that the perspectives of people with lived experience are heard clearly throughout the project (capturing the voices of people impacted by perinatal mental illness and those who are treating and working with the affected person and their families)
• Enact high ethical standards in our research (especially when listening to personal stories of mental illness and challenges)
• Demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary research partnerships with stakeholders, and challenge the landscape of traditional research and methods
• Effectively lobby and influence (local and national policy makers), and raise awareness in society / politics through making our topics and results visible.

Jean Paul is a Senior Scientist at the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria. Jean discusses her involvement in a unique research funding process called a sandpit or an ideas factory. Having then taken on the leadership of the project, she provides insights into the challenges and benefits of transdisciplinary research, stakeholder engagement, and arguing for their impact-focused approach. Jean also shares her academic background in social science, health and genomics research work in Australia.

Overview:

[00:29] Introduction

[03:03] Jean's PhD, Post-Doc Journey & Backup Plan

[11:23] From Australia to Austria: Applying for research funding sandpit

[18:00] The Sandpit Experience

[27:47] Getting Funded, Becoming a Team

[32:08] Leading the Project and Ongoing Project Support

[40:20] Transdisciplinary Research

[48:29] Wrapping up Part 1

[49:36] More on Jean's PhD and Post Doc Projects

[56:40] Final Wrapping Up

[57:47] End

Related links:

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute/Gesellschaft

The sandpit-funded project – The Village Project

This episode is an edited extract from a ‘Beyond Phrenology’ podcast episode where Dr Madhur Mangalam chatted with me about the impacts of research funding challenges on academic culture and individual well-being. The conversation addresses the need for a shift towards more supportive and diverse cultures, the complexities of academic career paths, and the importance of leadership, mentorship and job crafting. We also discuss the implications of international academic norms on individual career choices.

Overview:

[00:00:43] Research Funding Challenges and the Unsustainability of Current Models

[00:04:57] Promoting Emotional Intelligence and Leadership in Academia

[00:15:14] Navigating Career Paths Across Contexts

[00:24:38] On Privileged Positions and Playing the Game

[00:29:02] Wrapping up

[00:30:53] End

Related Links:

Madhur Mangalam, University of Nebraska at Omaha

BeyondPhrenology (YouTube)

BeyondPhrenology (Spotify)

Daniel Goleman – Emotional Intelligence

CAL99 episode: On research identity, meaningful work and funding

TEDx talk from 2016: The craziness of research funding. It costs us all.  

Online Academic Leadership Development Course – sign up by March 7 2024!

Taking this time to celebrate CAL100 – the 100th episode for the Changing Academic Life podcast series (actually 109th episode if we count the nine related work episodes) and thanks to all the people who have been part of making it happen.

To update and correct the information about Dr Paddy Barrett who inspired this podcast:

His original podcast was called 'The Doctor Paradox'. He is a preventive cardiologist not an anaesthetist as I stated. And he is now working in Ireland not the US!

Triggered by a comment from Katta Spiel in an earlier podcast, in this solo episode I explore the tensions between the autonomy and freedom we have to shape our research identities and do meaningful work, and the systemic constraints from funding and promotion opportunities. The tensions particularly arise when research interests don’t align well with institutional expectations or funding trends. I explore various ways to navigate these tensions, such as, adjusting research focus to align with strategic priorities, reframing research proposals while keeping the core agenda unchanged, or continuing passion projects outside of formal funded frameworks. I also reflect on potential trade-offs and the importance of maintaining personal connection and motivation in our research work. At the end I suggest some strategies for self-reflection and staying in tune with what 'lights you up' as a researcher. 

This episode also connects with prior podcast guests Mark Reed and Stuart Reeves.

Overview:

00:29 Introduction and Reflection on Academic Freedom

01:54 Replay from Katta Spiel Part 1

02:37 Mark Reed's principle for engagement and impact

05:22 The Tension Between Personal Values, Identity and Systemic Expectations

07:05 The Reality of Funding Proposals and Strategic Game

08:40 The Impact of Funding Conditions on Research

10:27 The Dilemma of Playing the Funding Game

13:08 Choices for How to Play the Game

19:59 Choosing Not to Play the Game

21:54 Reframing Research Identity 

26:55 End

Related links:

Katta podcast Part 1 episode

Mark Reed podcast episode 

Stuart Reeves podcast episode

Mark Reed, What is good practice engagement and impact? Dec 5 2023