Changing Academic Life

As with the end on 2016, this is a short podcast (18:58) where I reflect on the year that has been. (Does this make it a tradition now?) I also add my call to increasing compassion and kindness in the workplace and discuss the benefits of doing this and various options for how to play it out.

I would also love to hear your feedback and  ideas for what and who you want to hear about in future podcasts:

            Email: gerifitz at changingacademiclife.com  or Twitter: @ChangeAcadLife

Wishing all of us a balanced, authentic, vibrant, joy-filled academic life for 2018, whatever that may mean for each of us!

Related links:

Kylie Ball's blogpost on making kindness the next academic disruption: https://happyacademic.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/lets-make-kindness-the-next-academic-disruption/

Book: ‘Awakening compassion at work’ by Monika Worline and Jane Dutton: https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Compassion-Work-Elevates-Organizations/dp/1626564450

Compassionate management: https://hbr.org/2013/09/the-rise-of-compassionate-management-finally

Random Acts of Kindness: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/random-acts-of-kindness.htm

Chancellor et al, 2016. The propagation of everyday prosociality in the workplace. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2016.1257055; Chancellor et al 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28581323

TedX TU Wien "The craziness of research funding. It costs us all": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66_DRDYJz4g

Michael Muller is a researcher at IBM Research in Cambridge MA. We cover a lot in this conversation, Michael reflects on his long PhD process in cognitive science, long in part because of chronic diseases that he still deals with. He talks about the decision to move to industry and his experiences working in various industry positions since then, including interpreting participatory design methods for a North American industry context, finding out he wasn’t suited to management, and loving the work he is doing now. A theme across many of the stories is the tension arising from navigating organisational demands and his own deeply held values, and throughout you can hear his deep care for people.

“Work in any organisation involves some kind compromise of principle at one time or another.”  

“I’m a white American boy, got all this honour and privilege, let’s do something constructive with it.”

“Mentoring very quickly becomes two ways.”

“I like the work I’m doing, I love the people I’m working with. And it’s work I can hold my head up about. It’s work that I’m thinking is making good kinds of changes. That’s a good life.”

“That’s the core spiritual practice… Take care of people… be in relationships in which we are exchanging affection and support.”

He talks about (times approximate) …

01:30 Introducing his cognitive psychology background and now working in a research organisation in industry (IBM), scored like academics, managed by objective and the processes in trying to get criteria for preferred publication venues changed; cushioning of researchers in the organisation

07:30 Discussing reasons for his 9 year PhD – two chronic diseases, costs money, working part-time, and moving across parts of Psychology Dept at Rutgers

09:15 Going to work in an industry organisation straight after, seeing academic psychologists not very happy, story of his role model Mark Altan (?) who was dedicated to teaching, received a teaching award which he was told was a ‘kiss of death’, told not going to get tenure, and went to work at Bell Labs. Michael lost his role model. A shearing between surface and deep values – “Didn’t fancy being in an academic environment in which each time I wanted to do something kind or considerate or useful for students I would be jeopardising myself”. Advisor told him “Michael you will have to learn to be a mediocre instructor like the rest of us” because he was being too dedicated to students. So he went into industry, thinking industry jobs were relatively stable compared to not getting tenure.

13:55 After finishing degree with 4 hours to spare, finished winter at uni as a research assistant then took his first job at IBM in Charlotte NC but was not the place then as it is now. Within months, the choice was stark, he could stay at IBM or stay married – he chose love and found some way to get them out. Spouse depressed at isolation. Then went to Bellcore for 8 years.

16:13 Sometime was in Seattle for a CHI conference, went to Participatory Design Conference nearby, first one in North America and “got religion”! A year later he began to think with two colleagues about how to adapt participatory design (PD) to the American context (though says Susanne Bodker still doesn’t think it was Scandinavian PD); became the existence proof this could work in industry. Industry attention span is brief so they shortened PD methods down to less than 60 mins and conducted a series of conversion experiments. Glory days. They were revelations to people. Showed it was fun, information rich. Local management in Bellcore got it. But then baby Bellcores started taking each other over.

20:30 He was doing something pioneering in North American industry context, had thought they were following the Scandinavian model, but with modifications for industry attention span and culturally had to make changes, mostly by intuition, mostly got it right. Said ‘workplace democracy’ over and over again but sometimes got push back and this probably delayed their promotions.

22:55 Eventually made the mistake of trying to get a promotion when at Microsoft and within 10 months Microsoft and manager explained what a bad mistake that was! He was given a performance improvement plan – could see it was designed to be non-survivable and the criteria for success were not well spelt out so he could be fired at any time without protections. Accepted that judgement and went away.

24:30 Had moved from New Jersey because of spouse at the time found her spiritual life in nature, and a job came up in US West Advanced Technologies in Boulder Colorado – called Terry Roberts (manager) about it, moved there. A different kind of job, interviewing telephone operators to help them lose their job but was also able to show they were doing important knowledge work. CHI 1995 presentation explaining this (link). But he was deemed by management to have helped the wrong side.

27:10 He talks of observing operators’ work in a bunch of places, their work being monitored by management, the tension of having sympathies with the workers but reporting to management. He reflects on having just listened to Mark Ackermann talk at ECSCW17 about the far right organising on the internet. He was helping management use technology to displace labour. Principles in a grey area. Lost sleep over it. “I’d say work in any organisation involves some kind compromise of principle at one time or another.” Making it an explicit topic of conversation.

30:55 Eventually his work supported using technology to reduce operators so not a clean story. “A politically pure person would have walked away from that job.” Tells Arnie Lund’s story when he worked in a ‘doomed organisation’ and was made to lay people off then lay himself off -because they knew he would hate it and knew he would do it with care for the people. That was their gift to the employees. “So I tried to do things with care […] but at the same time I was hopelessly compromised. That’s the life in an organisation.” Thinks it also happens in academia. “If we work in organisations, organisations have their own logic and it’s a little bit more reptilian, cold blooded, than the logic that most of us bring to each other.”

33:50 Continuing to work in industry contexts, for family reasons. Discusses options for moving to academia. Currently has an unpaid academic role at Wellesley College. Paying back white male privilege. If could find a way to increase work in academia without letting people down (the only social scientist now in his group) he would do it. Mentors students in internships.

37:45 Doing mentoring, “I’m a white American boy, got all this honour and privilege, let’s do something constructive with it.”, can open doors, and ongoing relationship with students/mentees. Has roughly same job title as started with 1984 because he tried the ‘manager thing’ at Microsoft and it didn’t work. Managing not his skill set but can mentor, also has friends who are female, LGBTQ, native American, etc, and can understand he has had a blessed life so helping to open doors for others. An ongoing mentoring relationship but also responsibility of person to walk through the door. But opening the door an important first step.

40:40 Discusses doctoral consortium and career development workshop mentoring experiences. “Our own failures are an important part of what we bring to those.” Some about careers. And it’s thinking together. “Mentoring very quickly becomes two ways.”. Gives example of Shion Guha. Reflects on internship mentoring and transitioning to peers/colleagues.

45:55 What is keeping him excited at work? Asked by IBM to work on employee engagement. Doing engagement surveys, find out if there are issues, do an intervention in Jan, but can be too late in next Nov to find out if it worked. So trying to use data from IBM’s thriving social media ecosystems (Bernard Geyers, David Millen’s work) but first attempts didn’t work; now fixed and can get monthly reports. So can describe, predict and now into fixing it by gathering ideas to increase engagement. Making the experience of work a better experience, and helps the organisation. It’s fulfilling.

52:56 Other part of job is to help IBM think about leadership position in AI and ethics. Collaboration with Vera Lia0, bringing qualitative methods. Returning to some participatory themes and design fictions and value sensitive design to explore.

54:56 Navigating long working hours. “Our work could expand to cover every waking moment that we have and then cause us to have more waking moments. We all have to work out work family balance.” Talks about current partner and “supporting each other as they both over work” and her passion for justice, where both are “trying to make positive change in the world, make up for the good stuff we’ve got”. And the work content is extremely interesting. “I like the work I’m doing, I love the people I’m working with. And it’s work I can hold my head up about. It’s work that I’m thinking is making good kinds of changes. That’s a good life.”

59:00 How he maintains his health and wellbeing? “I love people that’s a very healthy thing to do.” “That’s the core spiritual practice… Take care of people… It is to be in relationships in which we are exchanging affection and support.”

1:01:03 End

Related Links:

Michael Muller - http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=us-michael_muller

Wendy Kellogg - http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=us-wkellogg

Scott Robertson podcast - https://changingacademiclife.com/blog/2017/7/27/scott-robertson

Susanne Bødker - http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/id(87d4fbb6-b38c-449e-b87d-59f693b7d6f0).html

Terry Roberts - http://terroberts.home.mindspring.com/IntDesUAPortfolio/index.html

Mark Ackermann - https://www.si.umich.edu/people/mark-ackerman

Arnie Lund - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnielund

Shion Guha – https://www.shionguha.net

David Millen - http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=us-david_r_millen

Matt Davis - http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=us-davismat

Vera Liao - http://qveraliao.com

Wellesley College - http://cs.wellesley.edu/~oshaer/index.html

CHI conference - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_on_Human_Factors_in_Computing_Systems

Participatory Design Conference - https://pdc2018.org/about-pdc/

Usability Professionals Association - https://uxpa.org

CHI95 paper: Telephone operators as knowledge workers: consultants who meet customer needs - https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=223904.223921

Human Computer Interaction Consortium - https://hcic.org/hcic2018/index.phtml

Value Sensitive Design - http://www.vsdesign.org

Jolanta Burke is a Positive Psychologist, who works as a Senior Lecturer and Associate Leader of the MAPPCP programme at University of East London and also has her own consultancy business. Her enthusiasm and passion for her work is infectious. She shares how she dealt with burn-out during her PhD, and having to find a place of harmonious rather than obsessive passion, and how this influences her work supervising students now. She also shares her experiences working in business contexts as a consultant, in creating positive workplaces and how she thinks we could better do this in academia. And she shares her passion for making a better world through communicating our research to people and to help people.

[Note – this contains a common Irish turn of phrase that some people might find uncomfortable]

“We are creators of our own life. When things don’t work you can always take a step back and fix it.”

“Positive organisations are about high performance, getting the best out of people, and people getting the best out of each other.”

“People in academia have a responsibility to share this wonderful knowledge. … My mission is to make a better world.”

She talks about (times approximate) …

01:50 Start: Background working in managerial roles in business for many years, getting interested in the information given to trainers but recognised mixed views, saying ‘research says’ but no basis more assumptions. Yale study about goal setting, that everyone talks about but was never actually done. This inspired her to look at research, did two Masters, and fell in love with Positive Psychology. Left job to do full time PhD in Trinity. Working in academia since then and absolutely love it.

5:12 First Masters in learning and development, hated psychology after bachelors, but by end of Masters missed psychology and came across positive psychology and did another Masters in positive psychology, looking at what’s right with people, and using strengths to live a better life. Crucial in a work context.

7:54 Biggest challenges coming back to study after being in work – taking ages to understand how to carry out research. Now puts so much effort into explaining the process to students and giving them the bigger picture. Talks about going step by step through the process of designing research with them, setting up expectations between meetings, keeping in touch, loving working with students because “I know I’m making a difference in their lives”, giving feedback to students whenever they need it.

11:40 Challenging at times to “My work is part of my life”. Working from home office most of the time. “My life is my work… but I manage it in a way that allows me take a break.” Taking time out throughout the day. Actually doesn’t know how many hours she works.

13:10 Worried that passion can fall into obsession. Did get into obsessive passion during her PhD, over the top, caught up in PhD frenzy, leading to burn out in 3 months of PhD, needing to take a month out of her PhD and went back home. Came back refreshed, refocussed. Since has always tried to be aware of ‘harmonious passion’

15:52 Different strategies after the month off: to do with flow, being engaged, driven by pleasure for reading and learning; finding something physical; office only for work, reading one ‘silly book’ per month and to force this set up a book club, the group forces her to read; going hiking especially when times are hectic; having to see friends twice a week. Calendar goes out months in advance. Makes sure every week has something scheduled. And there are days when needs to close off emails but usually fills days with blocks.

20:15 Constantly involved in loads of projects but also constantly looking for balance, mental health really important and minding it, “I’m the only one who can actually do it”. “We are creators of our own life. When things don’t work you can always take a step back and fix it”. Still days when overwhelmed but now has an awareness. Now has a scale in her head 1-10, when reaching around 7, it’s time to stop. “I’ve been there done it and don’t want it so I need to protect my peace and quiet”

22:55 Supervisor understanding of need for time off. Tries to put the same into work with her students. Gives example of student who was overwhelmed and giving her extra support. Could have accessed university support structures eg counselling but didn’t want to “send her off’.

25:45 Recent article about PhD students and stress. Are counselling services the right avenue? Has come across a good few people who don’t want any more to do with the topic of their PhD, one in particular standing out, completely burnt out. We’re getting something wrong, we’re putting too much pressure on people. If she hadn’t looked after herself during her own PhD, this is where she would have ended up. Awareness of obsessive vs harmonious passion made all the difference.

27:51 Supervisor still said she had to push herself, live and breathe topic, but didn’t know the sort of person she was. One of the worst pieces of advice she could have got. So when her students email her now saying they are overwhelmed she says to them “That is absolutely no problem. Go and live your life. If you need to take a break, take a break. … it’s not the be all and end all.” Even if time is running out, there are always ways to work around this. Gives example of a particular student and how she approached this with her.

29:35 Helping people get the perspective, in the moment merit versus distinction might seem a big trade-off but cost can be too high. Also points to importance for us as supervisors to get to know who we’re working with, where they are coming from. The most crucial thing in the first meeting, “Why are you doing this, what do you want to get out of it”. Might not work for all students though. Some might still need some pushing along. When you get to know them and their motivations, you can tweak the way you talk to them to connect to this. Gives some examples. Getting to know the students is crucial and knowing when to push and when not to push.

33:08 Also has students who are a puzzle, trying hard to find a way. Transparency great way to grow. Great to name it if you don’t think there is a connection.

34:10 How does working from a home office go, does she miss the social aspects? No and a puzzle for her too. Actually more of an introvert. Gets tired with too many people around her. Shares an office with two other people. Hard to concentrate, Never effective when there. Goes home to do the work. Even in business always had own office, with peace and quiet. Doesn’t feel alone. Has lots of meetings.

35:30 Day is very structured. In the morning never have meetings. Meetings arranged for the afternoon. Gets up does writing and jobs that need attention. Gets up really early in the morning. Loads of energy. Has a morning routine. Doesn’t switch on email until around 9am. Diary is her life. Most of the time leaves email to the afternoon.

37:55 Always interested in workplace and positive psychology in the workplace. Masters 10 years ago while working full time. Very intense. In the company, she was an internal consultant with opportunities to try things in the company. Still consulting with businesses. Does part-time lecturing to have time to do this work with businesses. Business School in Trinity College asked her to deliver talks to MBA students and this led to other course teaching, leading to developing a positive organisation module.  And this led to writing a book on applying positive psychology to business because she couldn’t a book on the topic to give to her students. Now almost finished the book. Will be published in May next year.

41:30 What is a positive organisation and intervention? Intervention is like an exercise or activity to help people live a good life. Gives an example of an intervention in a company helping their sales people, teaching them optimism to retrain their thought (but without using the terms optimism or positive psychology etc).  Three months later market share had increased by 11%. And clients were mentioning spontaneously about how positive the team were.

44:55 Not about creating happy workers. But can create an environment of transparency, coming from leaders, recruiting people who are great at what they do and will connect to others. Positive organisations understand the importance of working on people’s strengths, on creating an environment that has a balance of positive emotions. Unfortunately the ‘positive’ in the positive psychology can lead people to think it is just about happiness. It’s not. Positive organisations are about high performance, getting the best out of people, and people getting the best out of each other.

47:10 Comparing business and academic department/university as organisations – very different. Own views, in business too focussed on money. Not idealistic enough. In academia, reversed, all about ideas but not enough thinking about money. Would love a happy balance. Academics need to understand they don’t need to work in silos. In business you work in teams. In academia, bright ideas, write a book, my idea is best, rather than sitting around a table to discuss how to help others and also make money and create happier people outside. We do research to help others, not just because we want to publish a paper.

49:30 Pressure of publishing. Every time she has a review coming up, panics, and quickly finishes a paper she has in progress. But she loves doing so many other things. Would prefer to write a book to help people love a good life than write an academic paper.  Conflict. But maybe when more experienced this is clearer. Writing books to go to different groups of people. People don’t read academic books.

51:40 In reaching people she also has done a slot on radio and has a YouTube channel. These things are more important to her than anything else. Sometimes feel bad about it when among all these famous researchers creating new models. But wants to help people understand things better and wants to help people outside of academia. Doesn’t want people reading the like of Tim Robbins. People in academia have a responsibility to share this wonderful knowledge. Talks about her YouTube channel. “My mission is to make a better world.”

54:15 Is public engagement valued in Psychology? Recognised but looked upon as the worst version of what you can write. But still appreciated. Need to write books. Part of evaluation is needing to have books or papers published. But big pressure on papers. Thinks books for the public will become more recognised otherwise what are we doing this for? Allowing for diversity.

56:50 What could each of us do to create a better workplace in academia? Stop working in silos, create teams, not just in one department but creating working teams to make a difference. Play to our strengths and teams would allow for people to use complementary strengths to add value for one another and for people. And need to know what our strengths are. In business, create teams on basis of someone good on one basis and another person on another, but we don’t do this in academia. More than character strengths, others are more focussed on preference for working in particular ways. Place for all of them. Also a place for just having a conversation of what are my strengths.

1:01:15 When doing her PhD, did an additional inter-disciplinary thing with PhD students from different disciplines/universities coming together for an entrepreneurial degree, to think about how to create a business out of their PhD topics. Talks about how the lecturer got them working together. Project work “How will I work with engineers? I don’t think like them!” Had conflict, it was brilliant. Could we introduce something like this from academics? Teams wanting to improve their work together. Developing our own personal skills for working together.

1:04:02 Final thoughts. Really important to life your life to the full. If work gives you satisfaction make it an integral part of your life. Always make sure no matter how much passion you have for things you always need to have balance and have passion for other things as well. Harmonious passion.

1:05:22 End

Related Links

Jolanta Burke – at UEL https://www.uel.ac.uk/staff/b/jolanta-burke

MAPPCP program at UEL https://www.uel.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/msc-applied-positive-psychology-and-coaching-psychology

Jolanta Burke - consulting http://jolantaburke.com

Jolanta’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/PositivePsychologyforLifewithDrJolantaBurke

Strengths survey (example) - http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey

Evan Peck is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Bucknell University in the US. Evan has a passion for teaching and also wants to do good research but when he was looking around for a faculty position, he decided he didn’t want to trade off family life and life quality to do it all, as he considered he might have to at a top-rated school. He also wasn’t sure about industry where he could have better life quality but would miss teaching. He is now an evangelist for Liberal Arts Colleges, like Bucknell, as a middle way for PhD students to include when considering career options. Evan talks about his decision processes getting there and his current experiences as a new faculty in learning to be deliberate about his use of time so that he can include teaching, research and time for family. He also has a great blog post written on this topic.

"It's all trade-offs."

“Put on the calendar, this is when I am done for the day and this is the amount of time I have to get work done and if it doesn’t get done it happens tomorrow and not through dinner”

“So have to be deliberate about how you use your time.”

“In Grad School it’s really easy to fall into this trap that your identity is the work you are doing and that’s why these rejections feel so much more personal”

He talks about (times approximate) …

01:30 Start

02:15 Background starting out at a Liberal Arts College and having a broad education, teaching focus, courses capped at 30 students

04:30 Path getting to Bucknell  via an UG degree at a Liberal Arts College and a PhD at Tufts Uni with Rob Jacob on Brain Computer Interaction, having a child during Grad School and starting to think about what measures of success and impact means and what he wanted

06:00 Up to then a typical grad student perspective re rankings and top school as measures of success; realised “even if I were to be productive at the rate of someone at a top school, I think I would be miserable doing it” – something about the pace, can fit others beautifully but grants and away from teaching not how he wanted to spend his time, or emotionally or the stress of the tenure process

08:20 “They say, here are the things that are valuable to us and if those don’t align with the things that are valuable to you ... things you don’t want to do are more taxing … if you are at a university where the benchmarks involve things that you don’t what to spend all your time doing… then it can seem very overwhelming”

09:00 Thought he was going into industry because he thought academic was two pillars, either research or teaching focussed. Loves doing research but not all the time. Had industry internship and saw good work life balance, didn’t consume them, not their entire identity and this aspect appealed to him. And getting to end of grad school was a grind so it seemed attractive.

11:15 After having a kid, shifting own work habits. If he continued his old schedule he would lonely see his son half hour a day. So getting up early and trying to set boundaries on the upper limit.

12:42 How to put up boundaries – scheduling wise, almost “put on the calendar, this is when I am done for the day and this is the amount of time I have to get work done and if it doesn’t get done it happens tomorrow and not through dinner”. Priorities becoming much more important and industry seemed more appealing as could see structure in industry. And in appealing places to live. Factors line up.

14:15 Very lucky in lab culture and advisor who was very sensitive to family issues, told him to go be with his family; the only he can figure out how to do 3 CHI papers is to work 15 hrs a day, may be different for others.

Challenges when you set these boundaries – could be more productive without boundaries but “It’s all trade-offs”. “First level says I’m missing out on something, second level says would I trade it” and no he wouldn’t, helps come to terms with those decisions

16:20 Role of supervisor in setting culture, and previous grad students who had children so wasn’t breaking new ground

17:15 Comparing self to others – very challenging, easy to compare yourself to the best teacher and the best researcher, very tempting – but remembering they only take one of the jobs

18:15 Heading back to liberal arts via advice to apply everywhere, supervisor a wealth of good advice, can always decide you don’t like it later; hoping grad students think about this more in advance; having options and opportunity to figure out priorities on the fly; “I really like my job. Many ways I could have missed it. How could I mitigate this for other people coming on?”

20:35 Being more deliberate? Written about in blog post. Perception that things fit cleanly into categories of academia vs industry, research vs teaching school but not does not fit reality. Representation of academia at conferences most visible but not representative. Muddied when you visit these places. Careful to say this is about him, he wouldn’t be able to do all, others he knows can.

22:20 “What are the things that I take joy doing?” Knew wherever he went he would want to spend significant time in teaching, loves getting students excited about computer science. “The question was, if I’m spending time in this [teaching] is it going to be rewarded or not? Will the people around me say this is part of you excelling in your job or is it something…that’s an obstruction to your research?”

Told at one place the way to succeed was to make sure students don’t hate you but don’t do too much more. Feels like he is doing fewer hours because it is investing in things he wants to be doing.

25:00 First year of teaching really taxing but didn’t feel like he was doing as many hours as in his PhD. Something he wanted to invest time in. Towards end of PhD everything felt like a grind, exhausting. If teaching more then getting faster feedback. So the feedback loops are a lot faster but slower feedback loops in research can be tough. Took a long time to get first paper accepted. Can go years without those reward feelings it takes your toll.

26:40 The big shift to grad school. Difference in identity between undergrad and grad school; “In Grad School it’s really easy to fall into this trap that your identity is the work you are doing and that’s why these rejections feel so much more personal” because this is what he chose; Handling rejection by keeping on working, but pretty demoralising when rejections start piling up, but also short term thinking so did finally have a year when work comes through. But again a comparison point. An exhausting way to go about things,

28:40 Importance of making this message that there are alternatives in Liberal Arts schools. Integrating teaching and research. Saw another lab member to go to a liberal arts and still be able to do research so had a hint.

30:00 Making the decision in the end. Thinking about mobility in academia, some directions harder than others. One concern was about moving out of liberal arts to focus on research? And many school sin very rural areas. Big family decisions. Are these places we want to live? Factors that played into decision – visiting the campus and the faculty and getting a sense of people’s lives there. At Bucknell and some others, impressed with seriousness of work and also talking about other aspects of life – sole identity not inside the office.

32:35 One of the interesting side benefits of smaller school in a more isolated place is the community that forms around it is very strong, most people live within three miles of each, a real sense of community and that the community values not just you but your family; had meals provided for a month and half after daughter born. Those factors really important on the family side. And not conceding professionally either to deal with family side.

35:00 Biggest challenge moving from grad student to faculty member – working on 10 things at once, now time splintered, needing to be much more organised, needing to be productive with small pockets of time, need to be more deliberate about research. Understanding what your strengths are, the rhythm of the semester, being reflective. Different strategies during semester vs during summer. Now uses a calendar. Setting in calendar these are the time to do research, otherwise can always improve lectures. “So have to be deliberate about how you use your time.”

37:20 Learning process re being deliberate: Understanding where he can be high impact. Always concessions. “How can I be high impact given I’m not going to publish 4 papers a year, that I don’t have grad students, what topics are more high impact, what resources do I have and voices do I have in the community that other people have?” So in the first year he determined that his time in the classroom most valuable, working to what he was strong at. At some point “I only have this much time. What benefits the students the most? If I only had 2 hrs to prep for this, how am I going to spend those 2 hrs?” A little structure one year helps the next. Slow process getting the pieces that work together.

40:15 Always been reflective and strategic thinker to some degree. People around in grad school very reflective. Seeing value on reflecting on the structural pieces that help. More honed now out of necessity. More constrained about his resources and so has to think more about what would be valuable. Letting grad students know there is a huge spectrum of jobs. Could be miserable in grad school but be an excellent professor. Feel like he is a much better professor than a grad student. “Fits me a lot better.” Thought was a one off for a long time, not knowing what the landscape was. After faculty position, talked to senior grad students and same things came up. And they would be amazed that a place like this exists. 

43:40 [Option of liberal arts college] should be a liberating thought. In PhD where you start out with big visions about how you are going to change the world and do research and then realise it is only small corner of research and keep working, still excited, but somewhere along the lines think “Oh no, I’ve been working on something for 5, 6, 7 years, and maybe I’m in the wrong profession, or maybe I still love this stuff but the way but the way the jobs line up don’t seem very exciting. That’s just horrifying.”

44:45 Goes to a bigger picture of computer science education. All these students at all these universities, computers impact us in all parts of life, and students not at big research schools. All PhDs graduating, passionate about these ideas but not connecting pieces well. The best educators who leave or go to industry, not because it is best fit, but their personal priorities don’t map to the big research schools.

47:26 End

Related Links

Evan Peck: https://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~emp017/

Evan’s blog post on “The jobs I didn’t see: My misconceptions of the Academic job market”: https://medium.com/bucknell-hci/the-jobs-i-didnt-see-my-misconceptions-of-the-academic-job-market-9cb98b057422  

Rob Jacob: https://www.cs.tufts.edu/~jacob/

Liberal Arts College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_college

Scott Robertson comes from a psychology and cognitive science background and is now a Professor in the Information and Computer Sciences Department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Scott shares the experiences of being rejected for tenure twice and how he dealt with that. His story is one of perseverance and courage, doing what you care about, and the importance of mentors and being part of a community. He is now in a tenured position and enjoying the freedom to follow his mission around civic engagement and to get back to acting.

UPDATE: Scott has just been made Chair of his department! So not getting tenure is definitely not the end of a story!

“You have to do what you care about”

“So [failure/rejection] is survivable, not just survivable but also then you can go on to the next thing and make the best of whatever situation you are in.”

 “[Don’t] define yourself by your position or your affiliation [but] by your mission in life.”

He talks about (times approximate) … [You can also download a full transcript here]

01:30 His early career as a child actor eg on the Brady Bunch! Current acting interests and how it has enriched his academic and personal life – acting like HCI as understanding other human beings. And inhabiting another world.

05:38 Time to focus, becoming present to the moment, a centreing exercise

06:35 Discussion of early career: social science at UCI, then cognitive psychology masters, then cognitive science PhD at Yale; first using a big Vax computer in a statistics class and getting interested in computing at Yale; dissertation in how people use text editors and presenting at the first CHI in ~1981, feeling intimidated by Don Norman in the front row; HCI as his direction then

10:30 End of the story: full prof at Uni of Hawaii but not a straight forward to get there; started usual ass prof pathway in a psych dept publishing in HCI; tenure evaluation ‘what is CHI/HCI’, not publishing in APA journals etc; failed to get tenure

12:10 Still an issue for several people, feeling misunderstood in their dept, ‘what is HCI’ still

13:00 Mentors who helped at these transition points; feeling part of the CHI community but alone in the Dept so able to rely on mentors in CHI community eg Gary Olson wrote a letter, Jack Carroll helped figure out next step to IBM

14:45 Incredibly devastating – work hard, trajectory going nicely, so quite a shock; “when you look back on it you wonder why you spent so much time thinking about it” but did take a long time to settle it; move to IBM a smooth transition though intimidated as no idea how to be a researcher in a company

16:20 Felt out of place in the year after tenure denial as have to go back to the institution, the so-called terminal year; tenure denial because of vote he missed by less than half a percentage point so felt like it was random – those kind of things did occupy his mind for quite a time

18:10 Thinking back, it did allow him to move on; “so it is survivable, not just survivable but also then you can go on to the next thing and make the best of whatever situation you are in.” Doesn’t believe that ‘everything happens for a reason’ as he was often told, but “I do believe that you can turn a situation to your advantage if you focus on it and try”

19:10 In industry/research labs at IBM and US West in Colorado, doing quite different work than what he would have done in a psychology dept; chairing the CHI conference during this time and a talk he gave about the importance of the CHI community, an anchor.

21:08 Going back to academia, starting trail to tenure a second time, this time in an iSchool; better fit however also missed tenure so two tenure denials; continuing story of ‘what is CHI’ and also had decided to change research interests, looking at e-voting systems and political participation which might have cost in terms of publishing but another close decision

23:55 Shift of topic area – wanting research to have some impact and where he could make a difference; realised not the voting machine per se but the education beforehand where the real challenge is for technology

26:40 Awareness of impact/risk re tenure? Didn’t think the shift of topic was not a good idea. “I feel like you have to do what you care about.” Never thought of them as risky decisions, never focussed on the tenure issue, focused instead on what he cared about. No regrets about anything.

29:04 Experience of second denial, again surprised as had good feedback; a good lesson re having to be clear with non-tenure professors about how they are going; went through appeal process but a waste of time, should have moved on more quickly; did win an appeal that process not followed correctly but same outcome when done over again

31: 45 Still glad he went on a new direction of tech to support political decision making so easy to slide into current research on use of social media for political decision making

32:15 Same people around to support eg Jack Carroll, “so important to have a mentor all the way through” not just in tangible way but other intangible ways of advice, listening, see at conferences and ping him when he needed support/advice

34:30 Dealing with the second tenure denial, focussed more on it than the first time, later in his career; and partner/wife also an academic in humanities going through tenure process that also didn’t work out – spent half of marriage living in different places, decided not to do that any more

36:50 “Need to keep a confidence of some kind, that you are doing the right thing. It’s important to have your community.”

37:50 Difficulty putting down roots, friends in local community, getting back into theatre when in Philadelphia, dislodging from that difficult when moving on; value of getting back into theatre, like CHI, people interested in others and wanting to impact them

41:10 Moving on to another faculty position in Hawaii, the only one he got. Most of these transitions, only got one option each time. Prepared also to go back into industry and would have seen it just as ‘next step’ and how to make the best of it

42:45 Can’t help having something in your mind that you didn’t live up to expectations, being nervous coming back to conferences because people would know it happened but very different experience, people on his side

43:54 “When something like these things happen I think it is important to just pick yourself up and put yourself back into the game”; practical tips eg centering, who am I at the core, did these really change me, being able to see it as an external event; not an easy thing

45:00 Hawaii hard for partner’s work – not landed a job there yet but has a community;

46:00 Perspective on where you are at any given time has changed, from thinking it would be a model of prof with tenure staying put, to more jumping from one thing to another, “people are going to have to re-define themselves several times during their career … think tenure model will come to an end”; “Wouldn’t define yourself by your position or your affiliation [but] by your mission in life”; Scott’s mission around civic engagement

48:30 Tenure process at Uni of Hawaii, now in a computer science dept, supportive colleagues, tenure process opposite of everything before, smooth; one thing that has changed for academics is need to bring in money but harder to get  but also more needed to support students; success rates down around 10%; half of all writing and effort goes into proposals but not a total waste of time, making up your dream, what I want to do, creative writing of an aspirational document; if don’t get the grant then re-work it, “Persistence is extremely important”; also dealing with rejection in acting

53:00 Celebrating tenure and then having to think about what to do now so deciding to write more for general public; can’t do this though before getting tenure

55:22 Liking the computer science department, interested in work of colleagues doing things he doesn’t do, more so than when in psychology

57:00 Final thoughts – now can tell this story, “my responsibility to say that these things happen, and you can preserve through these things, but the critical issue is knowing who you are, …research direction and who you are as a person.” And realising you can jump across icebergs and be fine. And focussing on the larger community.

01:00:39 End

Related Links

Scott Robertson - http://www2.hawaii.edu/~scottpr/

Art Graesser - http://art.graesser.us

Gary Olson - https://garymolson.com

Jack Carroll - https://ist.psu.edu/directory/faculty/jmc56

Mary-Beth Rossen - https://mrosson.ist.psu.edu

CHI2017 Career Development Symposium - https://chi2017.acm.org/careerdev.html

CHI Stories - https://chi2017.acm.org/stories.html

Margaret Burnett is a professor of Computer Science in the School of EECS at Oregon State University. She is a pioneer woman in computer science whose work has been honoured with numerous awards, including ACM Distinguished Scientist. Her passion is to change the world by designing more gender-inclusive software. In this conversation, she shares experiences being the first woman software developer at Proctor & Gamble Ivorydale in the 1970s, and creating two start-ups as well as a women’s business network in the 1980s. She also talks about her work in academia, in particular about her GenderMag project, as well as practical experiences including mentoring and management using dove-tailing strategies as well as managing family life by drawing fences. She also tries to do one thing every day to make the world a better place. An inspirational person in so many ways!

“Don’t ever say yes unless you know why you are saying yes. ” “No one person can do everything.”

“Try to do something every day that makes me feel like the world is a little better”

 “Please help me change the world! … When people change their products [to be gender inclusive] everyone likes them better.”

She talks about (times approximate) …

1:30 Being the first woman software developer hired by Proctor&Gamble Ivorydale and navigating how to fit in as a women in this era and in this industry, “not having a vocabulary”

8:00 Pulling up roots and moving to Santa Fe New Mexico, following husband; starting up a new business, and doing freelance programming

11:54 Dealing with reactions to being a woman in IT and a client who didn’t want to deal with her because she was a woman

13:27 Moving into academia – influence of professor as an undergrad; being dragged ‘kicking and screaming’ to a new town pregnant with first child, doing a Masters degree at Uni of Kansas and starting another business; dealing with two careers and daycare issues

15:30 Going to social events where everyone wanting to know what husband did for a living but not wanting to know what she did for a living; deciding to start an organisation of professional women to help them network, the ‘Lawrence Women’s Network’; starting to teach a course at the university and discovering she really liked teaching, which became the motivator to go and do a PhD

17:45 Doing a PhD to become a faculty member, the second woman to ever get a PhD; Going back to university to get a PhD from Uni of Kansas in Computer Science

18:25 Starting in faculty job, promoting women’s issues but almost sub-consciously and serving own interests, bringing women into her lab, win-win-win team working style; how she includes her undergrad researchers into work;

21:35 Her academic children and grandchildren all over the world

22:30 Now 25 years at Oregon State; Taking more academic risks after tenure; Considering it a badge of honour if she gets all 1s on a paper ... 5s are good too … but shows she is ‘out there’;

24:45 Whenever she says ‘yes’ she has to have a reason; Reasons for saying yes and for not saying yes

27:25 Reflecting on ways she has changed – loves taking risks academically. GenderMag as an example; the beginnings of GenderMag, with Laura Beckwith, looking at software and whether there were gender biases at the user-facing part of it; reading literature from diverse disciplines, hypotheses ‘dropping into her lap’; clustering tendencies, women tend to take a bursty style, men tend to take a tight iteration style when problem solving; gender differences in the way people use software, spending about 10 years running studies

31:20 Working with a medical company where (mostly women) practitioners hated their software; collaborators especially Simone Stumpf very good at helping keep an eye on the practicality

32:50 Led to method, GenderMag – gender inclusiveness magnifier – now downloadable, and a CHI17 paper about research-backed personas built into a method and a vocabulary about problem solving and information processing style; study with Nicola Marsden, multi-personas that don’t invoke stereotyping

37:00 The story of a Distinguished Speaker talk on GenderMag- changing the language from ‘you’ to the personal ‘Abby’; average is 1 feature out of every 3 they evaluate they find a gender inclusiveness problem with their own software

39:18 Not advocating for a pink or blue version but thinking of it as a bug; “If there is a feature that is not gender inclusive then…there is a barrier to some segment of the population”; tooltips as an example; also risk aversion

42:15 Getting the toolkit and methodology out into the world – still learning; GenderMag teach resources; talking to industry; downloadable kit; needing top-down and grassroots interest; call to listeners who might have ideas for changing policy, changing the world

46:24 When people change their products [to be gender inclusive] everyone likes them better

47:00 “Try to do something every day that makes me feel like the world is a little better” – something ‘that counts’

49:20 Dove-tailing work strategies through setting up collaborations, and saying no - “No one person can do everything. My bit is GenderMag … that’s my corner of the diversity world.”  Drawing the boundaries, the purposeful yes.

51:40 Managing the group: weekly group meeting, project sub group meetings, various GenderMag meetings, one-on-one meetings with graduate students; collaborative writing style; involving students in reviewing papers (mentoring dove-tailing with professional workload)

55:10 Other mentoring strategies – ‘pushing’ people forward, encouraging people to consider ‘the brain is a muscle’ and it’s ok to be ‘bad’ initially;

59:30 Managing life and work with kids – drawing fences around the day, avoids “always feeling like it is the wrong thing”, but no extra hobbies until after the kids graduated; “don’t have the fences anymore because I don’t need them so much anymore and energy patterns have changed”

01:04:04 End

Related Links

Margaret’s home pages - http://eecs.oregonstate.edu/people/burnett-margaret ; http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~burnett/

The Lawrence Women’s Network - https://www.lawrencewomensnetwork.org   

The GenderMag Project - http://gendermag.org

Laura Beckwith - http://hciresearcher.com//

Simone Stumpf - http://www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/simone-stumpf

Nicola Marsden - https://www.hs-heilbronn.de/nicola.marsden

CHI2017 paper: “Gender-Inclusiveness Personas vs. Stereotyping: Can We Have it Both Ways?” - http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3025453.3025609

ACM Distinguished Speaker - http://www.dsp.acm.org/view_lecturer.cfm?lecturer_id=3543#lecturer_id#

[NOTE: UPDATE since this episode was recorded Amy transitioned and now identifies as a woman: see Amy’s blog post on ‘I’m trans. Call me Amy!” - https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior/im-trans-call-me-amy-8a72a3951964]

Amy Ko is an Associate Professor in the Information School at University of Washington. Building on Amy’s blog post, “How I sometimes achieve academic work life balance”, we explore lots of different perspectives about how she works at being structured and productive. The conversation ranges from her experiences doing a start up, learning planning skills from her mother, putting them to work at college, and adapting priorities while working in industry. Now back in academia, she shares her very deliberate practices around things like managing her PhD supervision, co-writing papers, running efficient meetings, quantifying time and tasks, managing to-do lists and the like. A common theme is that these are ‘simply’ skills and habits that are developed through repeated practice, discipline and self-awareness, and working to your strengths.

“That paradox of being structured and flexible at the same time… never enough time to do all the things we want to do… so there has to be flexibility… The only thing you can predict is how much time we have.”

“We all have different skills…and abilities to be self-aware and disciplined …most of this is practice… For anybody thinking about how to use their time more effectively they just have to first think about what skills they already have and... how to build practices around them… slowly incrementally over time… Much more about a process of learning and being reflective…and less about borrowing a particular strategy.”

She talks about (times approximate) …

1:54 Amy’s background and research area, and taking time in sabbatical to read deeply about learning science to support current research

4:04 Sabbatical just after tenure, and its relation to taking two year’s leave to do a start-up, “a good stressor on my productivity skills”, clear trajectory from career grant to start-up

6:14 The start-up process story – wanting to apply research in practice, and different goals of co-founder, resolving conflict of interests, getting in touch with potential customers, raising venture capital, building team and product, market plan; support of faculty important

09:44 Lessons learnt? Biggest mistake, not doing enough user research, forgetting enterprise customers were also users

11:54 Coming back to academia, hiring replacement CEO, CTO, and ongoing involvement as chief scientist (patent work and strategic R&D), now 1 day a week for the company

13:14 Previously working 60 hours a week, conversations with families/kids and getting consent from them re not being so available and ok with it, becoming talented at productivity, needing to be ruthless about protecting time and using it wisely

15:24 Fundamental idea of having to invest time, economic model of how much time committed to different parties, “doing the most I can within that time” and then context switching

17:05 Compromises? Being present in the company 8-6 every day, then needing to be flexible eg meeting with students in evenings or at lunch; accepting research having to go slower, with result of sometimes helping eg student having to grow, and sometimes not; becoming more reflective about how much he gave and how much was needed

19:25 For supporting students with publications: “What’s the thing that they need to me, it’s not so much about how much time they need from me but what they need from me”; explicit discussion, developing more self awareness for self and students, and other downstream effects; confounded by getting or having tenure (how critical it is to get a publication done now)

21:24 New skills for managing different projects, keeping track of people’s state – capturing information 5 mins after a meeting about to remember for next meeting, and scheduling 5 mins before next meeting to catch up – using Apple’s notes app and document for each student as log of interactions, progress, challenges etc; also helps with context switching and shorter meetings

24:22 Shortened meeting times, there’s something about a 30 min meeting, more focused, forcing function of having to reflect on the purpose of the meeting sometimes even solves issue before the meeting; scaffold meeting by defining purpose, build prep/reading into the meeting time, more efficient use of time; value of physical documents, can’t hold smart phone, nudges towards engagement

28:15 Attribute most learning to deliberate practice … being organized, impact of watching mum being organized

30:39 At college, being obsessive around to-do lists because he was bad at remembering things; still do to-do lists, tools better now, task capture easier; helps a lot with faculty life with multiple responsibilities; using Omnifocus, 4000 open to-do items spanning 3 yrs, the discipline around future planning … “because that little tiny commitment muscle is practiced enough every time I remember... I capture it too”

36:12 Story of professor and research of prospective memory, learning about memory and opportunity to reflect on practice, capturing metadata around tasks, being very deliberate about what can fit in the time, and the value of having data to support that, and requiring discipline to capture that data in the first place; hard to begin those practices, because hard to judge what the future value will be

39:34 Setting a quota for types of work, being rational about commitments, we say numbers (50% research 30% teaching, 20% service) but ignore them entirely so tries to be committed to those numbers and to reciprocity principle eg with reviewing

41:54 “That paradox of being structured and flexible at the same time, that’s just the nature of the work we do. As researchers and scholars, we have this great privilege of all of this time in which to pursue our curiosity and do things that are valuable to the world and yet there is never enough time to do all the things we want to do so we are constantly balancing what we want to do and what we have time to do and trying to fit things into the time we have so there has to be that flexibility in balancing that structure as we don’t have predictable paths that we follow in the work we do. … The only thing you can predict is how much time we have.”

42:55 Usually does an 8-5 or 6 day – knows that when she burns out, thinking isn’t as clear, forgets to do things, stares at email longer than she should; using self awareness around own cognition that is valuable, doing things that are appropriate for level of consciousness and energy at the time

44:55 Most common reaction/question since the blog post – could never do what you do or how do I get started;

“we all have different skills we have developed over our lifetimes and abilities to be self-aware and disciplined and I do believe that most of this is practice, I’m really not much of an innate talent mindset… but the reality is that I have had a lot of practice at a lot of these things ... that allowed me to develop a certain set of practices that are very structured and mature. For anybody thinking about how to use their time more effectively they just have to first think about what skills they already have and how to build upon them, how to build practices around them. … build slowly incrementally over time … Much more about a process of learning and being reflective about that process and less about borrowing a particular strategy. … Very personal processes very tied to our ability to self regulate and discipline our behavior.”

47:24 Now researching software developers and their self-regulation skills – even teaching novice students self regulation skills increase their productivity, self-efficacy and their growth mindset because of awareness

50:52 End

Related Links

Amy's blog post: “How I sometimes achieve academic work life balance” - https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior/how-i-sometimes-achieve-academic-work-life-balance-4bbfc1769820

Jacob Wobbrock - https://faculty.washington.edu/wobbrock/

Start-up: AnswerDash - https://www.answerdash.com

Tool: Omnifocus - https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus

UPDATE: Amy’s blog post on ‘I’m trans. Call me Amy!” - https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior/im-trans-call-me-amy-8a72a3951964

Gloria Mark is a Professor in the Department of Informatics at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at University of California Irvine. Gloria talks about her experiences as chair of a major conference, not just the work but also the rewards. She talks about how she moved from a Fine Arts background, painting murals on buildings, to a PhD in cognitive science and now studying the relationship between media use, attention and stress, but still being able to be creative in work. She also reflects honestly on her own struggles to manage her screen time and stress but above all she reminds us of the importance of fun and fulfilment in work.

“There are opportunities all around us and very often we are blind to them. … You have to be willing to give up a particular path that you might think you are on.”

 “Email is a symbol of work… a reminder there is work there” 

“You can practice creativity in so many ways, in conversations, in writing, in just thinking of ideas.”

“It’s important to keep some kind of fun in what you do because otherwise it’s not worth doing and it’s very important to have fulfilment.”

She talks about (times approximate) … (and full transcript can be downloaded here)

1:30 Organising a major conference as a tremendous amount of work but being fulfilling, and value of CHI stories for understanding who are the people behind the research

4:50 Taking on a big service role as conference chair, its fit to her ‘big picture thinking’ strengths, growing into the role and learning about people

8:40 Greatest moment seeing it come together walking around the exhibit hall

10:10 Everyone has a particular talent they can contribute, encouraging volunteers and matching skills/interests and what they can contribute

11:00 Career path starting with a fine arts degree, painting and drawing, painting building murals … but not being able to see a future painting in a studio

14:00 Decision to do something practical using her maths skills, but finding bio-statistics boring, needing to earn a living and applying for a research assistant position

17:20 Being asked: “Do you think you can do research on the discovery process of artists?” Of course! Loving reading on cognitive psychology and being yelled at at her first conference

20:00 Getting into cognitive psychology PhD in decision making

20:30 “One philosophy that guides my life - it’s what Einstein says, chance favours the prepared mind. I love that. There are opportunities all around us and very often we are blind to them. But if you are really aware and open, important to be open.” “You have to be willing to give up a particular path that you might think you are on and you have to be willing to change, to veer away from it or to change completely.  And of course … you have to do it intelligently and weigh the risks and the benefits of whatever choice you can make.”

“If it connects to something that is really a part of you that is worth the risk. Because you can’t do something that you feel is not who you are or is against your belief system.”

22:50 Themes from research studying issues around multi-tasking, stress etc. How this research strand started from a personal experience, moving in 2000 from Germany working in a research institute doing only research, to an assistant professor position in the US to do teaching, writing grants, committees, service work … “to what extent am I the only one [multi-tasking]?”

25:20 Patterns seen in studying multi-tasking – sped up and intensified through use of digital media, and the more people switch attention through different screens, the higher their stress because of limited capacity of attentional resources and not replenishing resources

29:30 Extra stress in re-orienting to a new context, every email involves some new topic - “Email is a symbol of work… a reminder there is work there”; online a lot, reading email at breakfast,

32:50 Measured average duration of attention for people on any computer screen is a little over 40 secs, a cost when switching so frequently

33:40 Knowing this from research but making a difference to personal patterns? More insight – as habits are hard to break

34:40 First habit to break? To be more aware of physical environment, going outside more, interacting with people more, shifting attention from screen; but hard to break away because there are rewards for being online –the Las Vegas phenomena and random reward hits

37:30 “Another reason it is hard to pull away is because we are all caught up in this web of interconnections” – have to solve the problem on a macro level, need to think about organizational policies eg batch email times

40:25 Study cutting off people’s email in the workplace for 5 days – stress down, screen attention duration longer … variety of individual responses but at the end of the 5 day period realised life went on. But Information is too seductive

42:40 Looking after herself, honouring the art piece of her? Discovered she can be creative in different mediums not just visual and art training good for science “because I learned how to do lateral thinking” – “you can practice creativity in so many ways, in conversations, in writing, in just thinking of ideas”

46:20 Not good at pulling away from work. Too stressed and manifest in sleep patterns. Take vacations but sometimes vacations can be stressful. Don’t do enough of trying to alleviate stress. One thing that helps – “try to take care of a task as soon as possible because delaying on a task makes stress worse”. ... “It’s like a treadmill”

50:00 Final thoughts? Important to do things that are fun and interesting.

52:43 End

Related Links

Gloria's home page: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/Home_page/Welcome.html

CHI2017 conference chaired by Gloria with Sue Fussell - https://chi2017.acm.org

Chris Frauenberger is a post-doctoral researcher and principle investigator at Technical University Vienna. Chris shares his experiences navigating various post-doc positions, taking parental leave, negotiating with his partner about family-career choices, dealing with an uncertain future, and being strategic about trying to build up a CV and visibility to maximize the chance of getting a permanent position.   He also reflects on what happens if this doesn’t happen and being able to pursue other dreams.

 “It’s hard to say no to something because then you are effectively jeopardizing your CV and that’s a bit of a silly game”

“Sometimes it’s really healthy to take a step back and think about what are the kinds of dreams that you have and if you’ve got enough dreams to do you feel less anxious about that one working out”

“I’ve done all the things that I think I can do… but there’s a limit to how much control I have over the rest”

He talks about (times approximate) …

1:30 Moving to the UK as a PhD student and experiences; Shifting to a Post Doc position in Sussex and shifting topics

13:40 Finding participatory design aligning with his values and it becoming one of his central fields

15:50 Not being strategic about the decision of where to next, but relying on things ‘feeling right’, just doing things; no point not being happy with decisions

19:35 Family situation, negotiating agreements to handle both partner’s career needs, but at a cost of lots of travel between London, Graz and Brussels for three years

22:30 Tensions and tradeoffs in making decisions about moving to Brussels for partner’s opportunity, leaving professional networks and career imaginations, versus financial security, time with son but (always feeling a but); in the end still a quick clear decision

25:20 Being emotionally hard to leave the UK, the difficult of thinking about doing participatory work with language issues in Brussels; making a deal with partner about next move being his if something came up

27: 30 Enjoying the good life in Brussels, looking after children, but still trying to publish, write grant applications

28:50 A lot of uncertainty around career but also a lot of security financially; but “what do I do with my career” and after two proposals fail “What if I don’t get back into that loop?”, checking out options in design companies

29:55 Third grant proposal finally getting funded – straight after the call, being hit by the reality of having to “move all this to Austria now”, almost a frightening thought that it had come true; but no regrets

32:00 The three years in Brussels show on his Google Scholar page – not just about writing journal publications but whole social networking you miss out on, not being asked to do service roles, not having visibility; also tiring without support structure around you

34:00 Motivation to work on papers while on parental leave; driven by sense of unfinished business and carving out time to work on writing around running a household

38:10 Anything different to support networking and visibility? Strategic twitter use but it still can’t replace the many small conversations you have when you meet people face to face

40:30 Problems not having parental leave officially sanctioned and impact on applying for grants where this leave isn’t formally recognized since he was technically ‘unemployed’ not on parental leave

43:15 Experiences taking on principle investigator role, being able to do what he wanted to do, employing good PhDs, steering/shaping and being able to step out and let it run

45:35: Learning curves? Leading from behind, giving as much freedom as possible, leading by asking questions but depends on having the good people to do this with – felt natural

47:20 Do differently next project? Shaping the environment, more of a research studio, getting to a more integrated way of working around a table

50:15 Reflecting on being nervous at the beginning of the project about publishing and dealing with paper rejections in the first year – concern about “what if this project doesn’t yield the currency that I need” after three years not publishing

52:15 Focussing on raising profile, saying yes to everything, lots of reviewing, service roles internationally and within the faculty – becoming more visible, setting up a good CV profile to be considered for jobs

54:30 Huge relief of next project funding after other proposals falling through, other applications not coming off, but wanting to stay where he is, which makes for vulnerability and having little leverage; making it hard to say no because of CV; but liking many of the service roles for conferences and communities, and having influence

59:25 The future after this next project? Not wanting to be in the same emotionally draining situation as at the end of the current project, diversifying in also thinking about career choices including outside of academia - “If that’s the case [of something not working out] I’m going to pursue one of my many other dreams”… wanting to stay in the academic system but recognizing that it “might spit him out”

01:02:50 Academia quite hard in having to live with rejections and needing to find a way to distance self, but if things “don’t work out then you have to embrace that as a positive thing” and you go to a different dream

01:05:00 Having an absolute last parachute of going back to Brussels if really needed but not wanting to; taking best of three years to be in a place and tiring to re-build it

01:07:38 “That’s how I calm myself down, saying I’ve done all the things that I think I can do and like to think they’re working out well, but there’s a limit to how much control I have over the rest”

01:08:00 One of the downsides of this constant worry is impact on doing actual research, instead time is spent on writing proposals, doing things for profile; having more future certainty will provide more freedom to do that

01:09:40 Looking at what kind of position he wants to have, by looking at others and how busy they are and how little they do get their hands dirty, “it’s not entirely positive”; ambition to have a small research group

1:11:40 Concerned with increased push to performance measurement, how to find time to write, do research and chase next job;

1:14:00 PhD time the best of your life but not believing it when you are a student!

01:15:45 End

Related Links

Outside the Box project - http://outsidethebox.at

Ole Sejer Iversen - http://www.engagingexperience.dk

Ali Black is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland Australia. Ali tells stories of courage and care and connection, stories that grew out of painful interactions with ‘the academic machine’ and feeling like failure. She talks about creating a different way of engaging in academia, one that is based on intentionality and meaning, on connecting to what is important, on being and becoming, and on creating a more caring and collaborative culture. An important step in this was reaching out to colleagues and forming a women’s writing group to write together and to explore their versions of slow scholarship.

“How we might cultivate ethics of care and caring where we acknowledge our human dimensions and actually care for one another as part of our work.”

“Failure is actually…an invitation and a gift to go’ well what do I want to do differently, what isn’t sustainable, what am I not prepared to do anymore’.”

"… it is finding the ‘and’ in the ‘yes’"

She talks about (times approximate) …

2:11 Long career, working in three unis, career interruptions for children, family bereavement

5:40 Writing about the blurring between the personal and professional; pressure to put on a professional face despite whatever is going on in the rest of life; the academy needing to recognize we are human beings and these personal things happen; cultivating ethics of care and caring for one another as part of our work

8:18 Inviting women friends/academics to share stories about what is it like to be in the ‘afternoon of our lives’, meeting for writing workshops, giving feedback, connecting

13:00 Stumbling across slow scholarship, trying other ways of being an academic, being more deliberate and intentional

14:55 Common themes from the stories – understanding the complexity of lives that we’re all living and how amazing to negotiate all these things

16:48 Importance of sharing and particularly responding to say ‘I hear you’ or ‘you’re amazing’

18:15 “We’re in the arena and need to be valuing each other for having the courage to stay in the arena and to do our best and to care”

19:00 Caught up in the managerialism, constantly feeling like we’re not enough, important to try to change the local culture so we can change the wider culture, and care for one another, doing those things that don’t count but count in terms of the quality of our lives and our values

21:37 Being part of the academic machine and the tension of perpetuating the functioning of that machine, but being more alive when you follow what matters to you

22: 37 Story of moving to a new university, accepting a lower position ‘to get a foot in the door’, meaning a salary reduction and being on probation for 3 years, and feeling like a failure, not being valued and wounded as a person and academic

26:37 The ‘wise women’ writing became a saving space, finding her own ways of working on what mattered to her, creating a promotion application that was “like me” and getting promoted – getting there without playing the game perfectly; “In the end I can only be myself and I’m very good at being myself”

30:05 Encouraging that might not have to do things the ‘system way’, but doing it our way within some of their frameworks; but not all happy story, having depression, but recognizing that“Failure is actually a gift because there’s no-where to go, you’re at the bottom of the heap, so you can only decide well what will I do now so it became an invitation and a gift to go well what do I want to do differently, what isn’t sustainable, what am I not prepared to do anymore.”

31:20 Office surrounded by inspirational messages, planning, decorating diary

On her desk: “Is this task vital? Does it really matter to me or someone l love and care about? Give my energy to what matters to me and to what inspires me” – as a result, not going to faculty meetings any more, anything that is deadening to the soul or joy or sense of hope

33:54 Say yes to the spaces and places to contribute that you’re going to like a lot more, find meaningful or fit your values; if we said yes to everything we’d be overwhelmed overworked and wouldn’t be able to focus on what matters to you, changing your framing for service, meetings

35:56 Importance of knowing ourselves, strengths, values

38:25 Making time for human interactions, inspired by slow strategies suggestion from slow scholarship article, valuing quality over quantity, valuing thinking, that we need time to think

41:10 Counting in some different ways, valuing time and thinking, and organizing spaces differently to engender intentional conversations taking to meet and discuss ideas – connecting caring listening important

42:58 Taking care of ourselves before we take care of others; planning weekend spots with cups of tea, cats, sleeping in, family, leaving no space for work – weekends as sacred self care, family care times

44:23 Still working long hours but on things that matter

46:02 Importance of down time for creative thoughts to gel, need to stop thinking activity is productivity, making time to think and to write; importance of writing as research, and turning it into a collective process – “supporting the productivity of the academic machine while also being fulfilled for the personal the human being … it is finding the ‘and’ in the ‘yes’”

49:25 Self care practices, reading widely, getting inspired, being content to be me but the best version of me, becoming intentional, creating a vision board

53:11 Being, belonging, becoming … and ‘becoming’ takes the pressure off, always becoming

56:40 Encouraging us to find our own groups and making local connections, and pointers to related links

1:00:31 End

Related links

If you are a woman in academia, please contribute your voice to this survey on women in academia for research by Ali and Susie Garvis: http://www.thewomenwhowrite.com/survey.html

Ali's Research Whisperer post "Saved by slow scholarship" https://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/saved-by-slow-scholarship/

Websites Ali has created to support women and their listening/storying/connecting

http://www.wisewomen.world/

http://www.thewomenwhowrite.com/

Blogs Ali finds inspiring

On Being http://www.onbeing.org/

Brain Pickings https://www.brainpickings.org/

The Slow Academic (Agnes Bosanquet) https://theslowacademic.wordpress.com/

Research Whisperer https://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/

Slow Scholarship reading

Berg, M., and Seeber., B. (2016). The slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. Canada: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division.

Mountz, A., Bonds, A., Mansfield, B., Loyd, J., Hyndman, J., Walton-Roberts, M., Basu, R., Whitson, R., Hawkins, R., Hamilton, T., & Curran, W. (2015). For Slow Scholarship: A Feminist Politics of Resistance through Collective Action in the Neoliberal University. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 14, 4, 1235-1259. Retrieved from   http://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/acme/article/view/1058

Link to ‘Wise Women’ memoirs and the ‘invitation’ I sent out https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z5q83mqkohac295/AACt8R6yox8AYaWYNdZiBG14a?dl=0

Manuscripts we have written about our collective writing or the blurring of personal/professional

Black, A.L, Crimmins, G., Jones, J.K. (in press). Reducing the drag: Creating V formations through slow scholarship and story.  In S. Riddle, M., Harmes, and P.A. Danaher (Eds) Producing pleasure within the contemporary university. Sense Publishing.

Loch, S., Black, A., Crimmins, G., Jones, J., Impiccini, J. (in press). Writing stories and lives: Documenting women connecting, communing and coming together. Book series Transformative Pedagogies in the Visual Domain, Common Ground Publishing. Eighth title Embodied and walking pedagogies engaging the visual domain: Research co-creation and practice. Kim Snepvangers and Sue Davis (Eds).

Loch, S., and Black, A.L. (2016). We cannot do this work without being who we are: Researching and experiencing academic selves.  In B. Harreveld, M. Danaher, B. Knight, C. Lawson and G. Busch (Eds). Constructing Methodology for Qualitative Research: Researching Education and Social Practices. Palgrave MacMillan: UK and US

Black A.L. (2015). Authoring a life: Writing ourselves in/out of our work in education. In M. Baguley, Y. Findlay., M. C. Kirby. (Eds). Meanings and Motivation in Education Research. UK: Routledge, Research in Education Series

Black, A.L, and O’Dea, S. (2015). Building a tapestry of knowledge in the spaces in between: Weaving personal and collective meaning through arts-based research. In K. Trimmer, A. Black, and S. Riddle. (Eds). Mainstreams, Margins and the Spaces In-Between: New possibilities for Education Research. UK: Routledge, Research in Education Series

Black, A. (2017). I am Keith Wright’s daughter: Writing things I ‘almost’ cannot say. Life Writing, Reflections section, Taylor & Francis. DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2016.1191980

Black, A.L, and Loch, S (2014). Called to respond: The potential of unveiling hiddens. Reconceptualizing Educatonal Research Methodology, Vol 5, No 2, Special Issue.  

Manifesto of care: