Changing Academic Life

Anna Cox is a Reader and Deputy Director at the UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC). Anna shares her early career experiences, the challenge of lecturing a large class, and how she and her partner created flexible work practices to manage family and work. She also talks about the research studies she and her students have been doing on ‘work life balance’, including the ways in which people are different, and strategies such as creating microboundaries and frictions to help us take more control of our work.

“The longer people are in this job, the more busy they get. You always seem to get more stuff. No-one is ever going to take anything away from you. So therefore it is down to you to say no to things and that’s really hard. I think lots of people struggle with that.”

“Making changes is hard so we need to be thinking, what are the strategies that will help us make the changes we want to make.”

She talks about (times approximate) …

1:45 Background in cognitive science and HCI, and early career learning curves e.g., performing in front of large classes, dressing the part, being mistaken for a student instead of the lecturer, coming to be an institution

10:10 Taking a risk, giving up a permanent job for a temporary one in moving to UCL to pursue a research career

12:35 Co-editing an HCI textbook and taking maternity leave during the process

15:55 Experience of having first child, maternity leave, returning to work and taking advantage of being able to work flexibly to juggle family, partner needs….but all parties needing to be flexible

 22:13 “I suppose some people might think that I had to compromise on things like travel but I’d never really it very much so at the time it never felt like something I was giving up”

24:05 Getting research funding on balance, through an unusual ‘sandpit’ process mixing an initial face to face and then virtual meetings (interesting experiences of getting ‘kicked out’ of the environment but where participants didn’t feel like they had been able to go through the usual ‘goodbye’ rituals)

27:29 Digital Epiphanies project and a network (Balance Network) funded, and using a PhD student to extend that work

28:13 What is a Digital Epiphany? Related to post traumatic growth, can we track computer activity and give people feedback so that they get to their own epiphany about balance?

30:45 Studying academics, and professional services staff, and patterns of work relative to role and type of life they want and helping people understand what their preferences are so they can create the support they need

33:23 And what can an organization do – not have one policy for everyone!

34:09 “The longer people are in this job, the more busy they get. You always seem to get more stuff. No-one is ever going to take anything away from you. So therefore it is down to you to say no to things and that’s really hard. I think lots of people struggle with that.”

34:45 Work on how people handle their email, and what is the best way to handle it; the difficulty people had in following instructions about either keeping on top of email or only looking at it once a day; more efficient if they try to minimize time dealing with email in clearly defined times, less disruptive to rest of work and deal with email quicker

36:38 Work of Marta and how people use smart watches to manage when and how they respond to messages. The strategies people are adopting to work around the technologies and evolving practices.

41:50 Own use of insights from the studies? Going through stages of using tools to track how much time working on the computer; times of year particularly busy that can be predictable but never really plan for it; putting in work around deadlines; using tools to help justify taking a break afterwards.

43:13 “Is the reason that there is so much on my to do list that I don’t work enough? And it was very interesting to track how much time I worked and then say actually I do enough. And there is just too much work. I feel like I need that evidence.”

43:55 Times switching off email from the phone, removing work account – creating micro-boundaries, to make it harder to slip back into behavior you don’t want to do

45:05 Other examples of micro-boundaries: different email accounts, different devices and apps; creating frictions; becoming more conscious of what you are doing and reflecting on data that tells how we are living our lives;

47:35 “But making changes is hard so we need to also be thinking what are the strategies that will help us make the changes we want to make”

49:05 Questionnaires for understanding work-life boundary preferences, and then thinking about what strategies to adopt to help us gain control again

51:35 Reflecting on own personal balance – overall pretty happy. But the irony of the enormous work to put together the Athena Swan award submission in part about the things to support flexibility and balance.

53:40 Getting too much? “You recognize things when the other things you want to do in your life start becoming more difficult to include… then that is a good sign you need to think about what you are doing and change things”

55:05 Broader changes? Creating a culture where more and more papers become expected and impact on early career researchers. Thinking about number of deadlines, more journal focus, job ads/promotions, more men taking parental leave and its influence on understanding of working part time, and all of us thinking about working less and spending more time on things we care about.

58:00 Getting ideas to try to out from other podcast stories; tells a similar story of seeing in an application about someone holding a daily stand up meeting for their team, and then implementing that for her team on Slack using a bot for a daily check-in by the whole team; advantages of increased visibility all round

1:04:45 Good academic life – getting to spend lots of time with her kids and feeling challenged and fulfilled at work and having control over what you do at work.

1:05:40 End

Related links

Digital Boundaries Project https://digitalboundariesresearch.wordpress.com

Related publications including microboundary papers: https://digitalboundariesresearch.wordpress.com/publications/

Microboundary strategies booklet & self-study diary on communication habits https://digitalboundariesresearch.wordpress.com/home/resources-links/

Marta Cecchinato – research on work-life-balance https://uclic.ucl.ac.uk/people/marta-cecchinato

Links to questionnaires:

Kossek, Ellen Ernst. "Managing work life boundaries in the digital age." Organizational Dynamics 45.3 (2016): 258-270. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0090261616300705

Kossek, Ellen Ernst, et al. "Work–nonwork boundary management profiles: A person-centered approach." Journal of Vocational Behavior 81.1 (2012): 112-128. http://ellenkossek.hrlr.msu.edu/documents/YJVBE2638finalofboundarymanagementstylesarticle.pdf

Kia Höök is a professor in Interaction Design at KTH in Stockholm Sweden, director of the Mobile Life Centre and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. We talk about her early research career, and her experiences securing a large amount of research funding with some colleagues then co-leading a large research centre, building a culture, and managing relationships with industry partners. She also talks about how her year-long sabbatical gave her time and space to reflect on the challenges of success and to reconnect to what is important, to re-set her own rules and to re-think how she wants to engage as an academic.

"You end up in a situation where everything you do you do in order to be able to work more…and that is not a good life.”

“All of that stuff that you get worked up about, is it really that important, or even if it is important, can I have a different attitude.”

“It is about finding your core, knowing yourself, slowing down, and being more empathic with other people.”

She talks about (times approximate) …

 [Research background]

1:57 Evolving research foci from information searching to social navigation to affective computing – carving out new research areas

8:57 Developing the proposal for 10 years funding for the Mobile Life research centre

[Shaping and running a research centre]

11:27 Learning how to interact with industry to win their funding support, what are their drivers, who to speak to

15:57 Learning how to manage a large research centre, learning the hard way – IPR, growing a research group, sharing the funds among the four leaders, the challenges of cross-fertilisation across the four groups

19:07 Reflections on wishing they had shared research methods across the groups more and thoughts on what they could have done instead

23:17 Strong culture based on seminars, the Swedish Fika – the ‘enforced socializing’ every week -, joint trips

25:07 The challenges when some of the four leaders leave and the changes in dynamics

27:28 The challenges when some of the key company partners are no longer there and contributing matched funding; now knowing what to look for to see something going on with industry; being able to shape relevant research agendas

29:32 Practical suggestions for how to work with industry partners, e.g., needing to communicate what the research means, connecting the dots for them (“what are we seeing that they should care about, translating that”), making everyone work for 3 months with a partner and having people from the partner sit in the research centre, joint workshops

34:12 Lessons on managing people, building a culture – the challenges of having researchers from different disciplines, putting together teams based on competences and personality and creating safe creative spaces

36:40 Moving from being a researcher who can control the research to being the vision person - scaling up the vision, seeing the connections, … but then losing contact with the reality of the research

[The sabbatical experience – reconnecting with what is important]

40:34 The amazing invigorating sabbatical experience, time for reading, writing, connecting with the passion, sitting under a tree talking philosophy – “reconnecting with why we are doing this”, why it is important

44:22 Not only reconnecting with research, reading etc but reconnecting with herself; time alone, being lonely, unraveling strong personal ‘survival’ rules that were about being productive and efficient to function managing a household and work

46:35 “You end up in a situation where everything you do you do in order to be able to work more”

47:09 “And that is not a good life, you don’t live to constrain yourself in this way. It is not helping your creativity.” But taking time to get down from this, crash landing in Florida

48:27 “I actually do believe that one can change” - now recognising the emotional state and what might be an alternative emotional state she could transfer herself into … feeling collected, slowing down, listening to very small signals in your body, the benefit of Feldenkrais at work

51: 27 “What you have to remember is that all of that stuff that you get worked up about, is it really that important, or even if it is important, can I have a different attitude”

52:00 Being leader, the worked-up Kia did not spread a good work environment around herself – strong bodily signals you give off – so trying to listen to the alternative self that is more collected

54:21 Being flattered as an academic with invitations, awards etc but not being able to do all of it, needing to make choices, have new rules now about what to say yes and no to

56:39 “You have to know why you are doing it so if you do it because you are flattered and because it’s a notch on your belt or are you doing it because you are actually learning something important or you are communicating your research or whatever. So I have to think about that.” Making people email her so that she think first before replying/agreeing or not

57:42 Other changes – putting effort into the book she is writing, accompanied with the kind of exercises that connects her to what she is writing about, trying to do things she enjoys

59:00 Conflict of caring for students, keeping promises and looking after her needs, needing to promise less

1:00:21 Also needing to think about what the organization tells us we need to do to be a success and taking a stance about what is important, and what is enough funding

1:03:19 Risk of being flattered by recognition for your work, by prizes, “but if you don’t have a core, if you don’t know why am I doing this research, what is it that I am changing in the world that I actually believe is good” … “it is about finding your core, knowing yourself, slowing down, and being more empathic with other people ... it is a much slower way to success but one I do believe in … If you don't have your core, then it doesn’t matter if you get to be the ACM distinguished whatever, that is just shallow”

1:06:02 Hard to get recognized internationally when you are in Sweden, longing for that recognition, now not taking that so seriously

1:07:27 The struggle that comes along with the success, the sick leave because of stress, the colleagues who aren’t always supportive or happy for successes, the gender aspects

1:12:28 End

Mobile Life Centre http://www.mobilelifecentre.org

The first iphone was released June 29 2007.

Fika: https://sweden.se/culture-traditions/fika/

Lars Erik Holmquist http://blog.siggraph.org/2012/07/qa-with-siggraph-2012-mobile-chair-lars-erik-holmquist.html/

Oskar Juhlin http://www.mobilelifecentre.org/people#oskar-juhlin-

Annika Waern https://katalog.uu.se/empinfo/?id=N13-228

Barry Brown http://www.mobilelifecentre.org/people#barry-brown

Cliff Lampe is an associate professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. He also plays numerous key service roles in the HCI and CSCW peer communities. He talks about faculty meetings and peer service being joyful, the importance of social capital and relationships, how he decides what to say yes/no to, how he manages his work. He also talks about concerns around the production of busyness, the push for quantity not quality, and the increasing community burden of peer review. He challenges to think about new models and to play our role in making academia work. If nothing else, he will change the way you think about faculty meetings and peer service.

“Academia runs on social networks and relationship development is something we spend not enough time training PhD students to do”

“Academia requires a rich heterogeneous set of people to make it work and we can all play different roles”

He talks about (times approximate) …

01:45 On being a Michigan boy… building a career in Michigan

04:44 On being willing to work hard and having 80 different jobs

06:38 On work being its own reward… being joyful … and loving faculty meetings

09:51 Being a better participant in meetings by attending to what is being talked about

11:00 Experiences in coming back to Michigan as a faculty member after having been a student there

15:00 Being a bad grad student by only having one paper published but being good at knowing what makes an interesting research problem

18:00 His first faculty job, what was challenging eg re-establishing work-life-balance in a different way, and what clicked eg building relationships

21:34 Social capital building and reciprocity in academia

23:20 Taking network building out of the shadows – Phil Agre’s paper ‘Networking the network’

24:42 Mentors, Judy Olson, and the generosity of senior researchers

27:10 Paying it forward with his research group, advisees

28:38 Various peer service roles

30:10 Always being dedicated to service – “if you can do something you should do it”, loving the service work

33:00 How he decides what to say yes to – and saying no to things that he thinks he won’t particularly add to or if someone else can do a better job or if he’s just not interested – working to his strengths

35:32 How he fits it all in, being unwilling to rob time from his wife and son, and his practical strategies

38:02 High commitment to teaching as well, doing client-based classes, and his service learning perspective – the intersection of teaching and research and service being compelling

40:38 Practical strategies for managing the work, differentiating between managerial work and creative work, setting up bundles of like work in the same day, delegating and letting go

44:08 The importance of humour, not taking anything too seriously, having a strong capacity to let things go – “if you project positivity everything becomes more positive; we can choose how we react to things”

48:12 The problem of the “production of busyness” and the “cult of being overwhelmed”, and wanting us to slow down - artisanal craft research - where we take our time, and appreciate the heterogeneity of different types of research, the willingness to listen to each other

51:38 Also concerned about the burden of review and service load for volunteers; the continuous amping up of expectations re numbers of publications that is going to break the community or degrade its quality -  thinking through options to make this more sustainable

54:40 Over the next 5 years we need to fundamentally re-think how we disseminate our work

55:44 What a good academic life will be, what sort of senior professor he wants to be

58:02 Encouraging everyone to get involved in service and to choose how we think about service – academia requires a rich heterogeneous set of people to make it work and we can all play different roles

1:00:27 End

Related Links

Why I love academic service: https://medium.com/@clifflampe/why-i-love-academic-service-8c7e4da19092#.dmayhcwty

Phil Agre’s article on Networking the Network: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~ksheth/astr8500/networking_the_network.pdf

Cliff and others serving SIGCHI: http://www.sigchi.org/people/officers

Cliff's article on Citizen Interaction Design: https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2016/citizen-interaction-design

This is a very short reflection [07:55 mins] from me on 2016 and the wonderful diverse stories we have heard. And looking forward to 2017 as we continue to explore together how to create a better academic life.

I would also love to hear your feedback on the podcasts so far and your 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 2017, whatever that may mean for each of us!

Contributions via Twitter to end of year reflections - thanks! 

• [marta] overall learning about career paths, hearing how everyone goes thru hard times and how they come out of it + practical tips
• [anna] that there's no one-way to be successful in academia. Every podcast has told a different story
• [anna] the power of personal stories. I feel like I know all of these people now even if we've yet to meet.
• [ari] The resounding wish of everyone to see more empathy in academia for everyone's struggles, choices, and circumstances.
• [jenny] I am loving the @ChangeAcadLife podcasis. So many interesting stories and valuable lessons to learn.

Lone Malmborg is an Associate Professor and heads the Interaction Design Research Group and the People and Computational Things Section at the IT University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She talks about what is happening in Denmark and ITU around performance measures for academics. She reflects on the impacts of what gets counted and how counts get benchmarked and what this means for things like publication strategies and stress levels. She also shares strategies that she has tried out in her own section to turn individual counts into cooperative activities, as well as her personal strategies.

[On performance measures:] “We know that big ideas take a lot of failing but we can’t afford failing. If we’re stuck with performance measures, we have to get the foundation of the model right or fair so we’re not measuring ourselves against something completely impossible. What is giving people stress is not having given tasks, but always having tasks you can never fulfil.”

She talks about (times approximate) … 

01:30 Her early studies, then working, and making a decision to pursue a PhD opportunity that was offered to her; PhD on limitations of formalisations

06:35 What drives her now in her research – wanting to do things that makes a difference to people, working with seniors, having agendas with a political and social part around technologies

10:00 Getting funding resources for these sorts of societal challenges being easier than for basic research; Challenges with different value systems between funding agendas with expectations vs seeing seniors as resourceful people and quality of life – a fight to get this agenda on board

12:37 Not being able to get the big funding for these areas in the same way as other areas of science

13:48 What’s going on in Denmark now re benchmarking all research and measures at IT University (all faculty ‘have to’ spend 1 million DKK (Correction: should be 878,000 DKK) each year) but being difficult when you don’t need to spend money on expensive equipment

15:34 Impacts of benchmarking of funding on culture in the university; Measurements being about efficiency, and not trusting people to do their best – introduced in all sectors; and what makes an ‘efficient academic’

18:00 Started counting teaching, ‘student production’ and various bonuses eg if students graduate on time, and how this can lead to lower requirements at exams

19:30 Now counting publication - all publication channels grouped into levels and credits/points for publication channels, and numbers of authors; Measuring how much people teach, publish, how much external funding they attract.

21:23 Long process set up by Ministry of Science and Education; being a member of one of the groups setting up the publication channels/levels; implications for new publication venues; and difficulties arguing for HCI conferences.

24:44 Creates all kinds of strange publication strategies – rather than picking exactly the right journal in terms of the topic, you pick the publication venue that gives you the highest credit; Universities then having very different ways of handling this – ITU ‘harvest’ twice a year to see points for publications, but no points or visibility for publications rejected or proposals rejected – how much work that is not recognized

27:10 Very unhealthy in terms of allowing yourself to fail, risky to try out new ideas, and supports research strategy where you never fail, but good research requires a lot of failing – see the consequences of this is boring research

28:35 Strategies for helping people in her section to deal with the stress – moving to a collective model to give people the feeling of helping each other out; Series of workshops with all section faculty once/year to discuss funding strategies and having access to an external company that helps write the applications; value for junior faculty to learn the process

32:00 Retreat idea first invented as a paper writing retreat around a conference deadline – structured writing activities – coming with an idea and leaving with a draft paper; taking shared responsibility; value of support of external companies

35:44 strategies for helping people manage stress

39:40 Her strategies as head of section – writing retreat, creating new relationships between people as side benefit, changing the way people work together

41:37 Personal strategies for dealing with this – having something very tangible as an output that satisfies her in another way e.g., cooking, eating together, something you can see the immediate result of

43:50 Being quite seriously ill giving her a new perspective, to focus on what is important; liking her job, her colleagues, but work being never ending and able to work for 12hrs/day easily; so buying a country house after illness and being immersed in picking up the weeds or painting the house that keep her attention on other activities

48:30 Going into a new managerial position and trying to make some decisions about how to be a good manager and not put stress on her colleagues; one example is avoiding sending emails to people in the evenings, also leaving office at 4:30 then people shouldn’t feel bad if they leave at 4:30; People shouldn’t work for free but can’t see how performance measures can be done in 37 hr work week

51:08 Finding arguments for other ways of benchmarking our research, not against national average but other departments in our area; a way of compromising that if we have to have benchmarks, they need to be more realistic; No other area with this amount of quality control that we have – acceptance rates of conferences as a form of quality control so why do we need another one

53:33 “Everybody is doing it the best they can. We are so longing for the honour of being a good researcher. It’s what drives us, we want to be the best.”

54:07 We have so many ways of making sure that people are doing good work. We are just creating stress that prevents people from doing deep thoughts; We know that big ideas take a lot of failing but we can’t afford failing

55:00 If we’re stuck with performance measures, we have to get the foundation of the model right or fair so we’re not measuring ourselves against something completely impossible. “What is giving people stress is not having given tasks, but always having tasks you can never fulfil. … We have to take this feeling away one way or another. … It’s so unhealthy.”

57:29 End

Related Links

Lone's blog https://lonemalmborg.wordpress.com/

Give&Take Project http://givetake.eu

Dr Ben Kraal recently started working as a User Experience Consultant, having chosen to leave a contract research (and teaching) position after 9 years in academia for a position in industry. He talks about his early career, doing a PhD and then working for 9 years on time-limited university contracts. He reflects on the challenge of being legible within an academic system when you are not in control of your own research agenda. And he talks about making the decision to leave academia for industry and how he is now able to be more present and engaged at home and he gets to do all the parts of his research job that he loved in his new industry role. I encourage you to also look at Ben's blog post on academic burnout and the Guardian article below that happened to also come out today.

“It’s a job that doesn’t ever stop. That’s ok if you are enjoying it and I think I’d gotten to the point where I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. And my family had long stopped enjoying that fact that I had ever enjoyed it.”

He talks about (times approximate) …

01:20 From degree to industry to a PhD position

05:16 Going back to academia, doing a PhD at Uni of Canberra

09:20 Moving cities to take a post-doc research position

12:46 Working on research projects

15:20 Moving into more teaching work

21:15 Publishing interdisciplinary work, boundary crossing, and using an editor for papers

23:15 Working on soft money, shorter contracts when soft money runs out,

26:30 Being an illegible person in the university system

28:52 Making the move into industry, making the choice to stay in Brisbane

31:08 Talking at a practitioner conference, taking students along, making connections, framing his expertise to be relevant to industry

35:40 Telling the university, he is leaving

36:53 The family’s reaction to his leaving, and getting to the point of not enjoying the work, the increasing pressure of meetings and impact on working at the weekends

39:00 Now much easier being engaged, being present to the family at weekends

40:25 Breaking the news to his students, colleagues, tying up final research work

43:14 What he is enjoying about his new job; doing all his favourite bits from being a researcher; and the long commute

48:15 Not doing email on weekends, “which is fantastic!”, because the firm doesn’t! Not doing email when he gets home; being told he looks so much happier when he comes home

50:50 “The pace is faster than the university but the rhythm is more consistent.” … as an academic having multiple plates in the air, “and if you can keep them in the air someone gives you an extra plate”

53:00 Will probably miss teaching - “Better at being a teaching academic than a paper producing research academic”

54:40 “Because I’m illegible in the university system, I’m actually interesting in the commercial world”; Discussing the way the academic system looks for people going deeper and the challenges of being cross-disciplinary

57:25 About Tom Rodden’s experience not being his experience, as Tom was able to be in charge of his own research and able to tell a coherent story, being legible into the wider system; And Marcus Foth also being able to tell a legible story; and being able to tell his own story in a way that is interesting to industry

65:00 Lucky to have had long term contracts compared to others not employed for more than a year at a time “so the university can keep them in a box”

67:07 End

Related Links

Ben on researching the airport of the future: an interview with Gerry Gaffney:  http://uxpod.com/researching-the-airport-of-the-future-an-interview-with-ben-kraal/

Ben’s blog post “On Academic Burnout”: https://benkraal.com/2016/12/01/on-academic-burnout/

Ben's review of 2016: https://benkraal.com/2017/01/01/2016-year-in-review/

See also a 2 Dec 2016 Guardian article on experiences with casual/short term contracts: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/dec/02/short-term-contracts-university-academia-family?CMP=share_btn_tw 

Symplicit: Customer-Led Innovation Consultancy - where he is now working: http://www.symplicit.com.au

People he mentioned:

Inger Mewburn: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/mewburn-i

Helen Purchase: http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/computing/staff/helenpurchase/

Vesna Popovic: http://staff.qut.edu.au/staff/popovic/

Previous interviews he mentioned:

Tom Rodden interview: http://www.changingacademiclife.com/blog/2016/11/2/tom-rodden

Marcus Foth interview: http://www.changingacademiclife.com/blog/2016/9/25/marcus-foth 

Tom Rodden is a Professor of Interactive Computing and Director of Research for the Faculty of Science at the University of Nottingham. He has led the Mixed Reality Laboratory and founded and co-directed the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute. He is currently Deputy CEO of the UK research funding council, EPSRC. In this podcast we cover lots of issues from personal career choices, what drives his research and dealing with insecurities and rejections, to bigger issues around funding models and metrics and what universities are about. He also discusses being part of a two-academic family and their strategies for managing this.

“There’s always another, whatever it is, there’s always another […] and it’s only a job”

“Research is never perfect, it never pans out perfectly and actually remembering the things you’ve done and the successes you’ve had is important.”

"I am not an income source, I am a researcher!"

He talks about (times approximate) …

01:20 Early days of the EU COMIC project

05:30 Worrying about whether the system now allows the same space and risk taking and the impact of metrication of research

07:00 His role as Deputy CEO of UK funding council, EPSRC and journey to this current secondment

08:50 Understanding his skills as a researcher – energy and enthusiasm, making connections and focusing on doing interesting things rather than thinking strategically

12:10 The difference between drive and ambition and targets, and where achievements become the incidental things along the way

13:50 The tendency to focus on the things that are failing than celebrating successes

16:20 Managing rejections, taking a while to not personalize the failure, and taking solace in the statistics and that you don’t always get ideas right the first time

20:20 Advice from his grand supervisor - Do good work and everything else works itself out.

21:30 Unpacking metrication and the responsibility to interpret metrics – that citations don’t equal impact and influence; and that metrics aren’t the issue, it’s the pressure that the institutions puts on individuals

26:40 The path of a new idea and taking a while to be socialized and understood; and the dilemma of needing to think of your career over 30 years vs the next 3 years

29:00 Understanding the rhythm of a university and that they are complex and slow to change; and having informal mentors and people you can talk with

31:00 Creating the space to do good work, and thinking of your work as the resources to build a good narrative, then figure out how to match it the funder’s expectations – the craft of doing projects

33:25 Talking about different funding models - remembering that the income is only the means to deliver the research and remembering there’s good and bad funding, thinking about whether the type of research you do matches the funding model

37:40 Building a research identity – moving between fields vs being focused, enjoying opening up new questions but also beating himself up about not having a deeper focus

40:00 Always being able to find people that you feel are doing a much better job than you, and this is at every level. “Still the case for me. I still get nervous about things.” But having a better armory of coping tactics now.

 42:30 Strategies for when both partners are academics and having a family – changing tactics, throwing selection not time to problems, understanding each other’s pressures and job dynamics,

47:38 Compartmentalizing, being tactical, planning in rewards and the Achilles heel of marking procrastination

50:45 Remembering ‘there’s always another’ and ‘it’s only a job’!

Reflecting on the incredible freedom and flexibility and opportunities in this job

55:20 Every yes is a no, but also being careful not to give up the bits of the job you love too quickly - the mid career challenge or ‘the problem of demonstrating competency’

58:40 Final reflections

59:34 The ‘go home’ announcement!

1:00:45 End

Related Links:

EPSRC - https://www.epsrc.ac.uk

REF Research Excellence Framework - http://www.ref.ac.uk

Steve Benford – https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/computerscience/people/steve.benford 

Boriana Koleva - https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/computerscience/people/b.koleva  

Roger Needham - https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/archive/ksj21/RogerNeedham.html

Saul Greenberg is an Emeritus Professor and Faculty Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary in Canada, where he led the GroupLab, doing research in the area of HCI/CSCW/Ubicomp. He discusses his experiences picking and supervising students, strategically building a research lab and community, taking control of our own work-life balance, publication strategies, remote working, and moving into retirement. 

"Work will never end and it’s up to me to balance my life. [...]  The question I would ask myself is: if I said yes, which I really want to do, what should I stop doing?”

He talks about (times approximate) ...

02:43 Being a supervisor, how you pick good students (or not) and still learning right to the end

07:05 Students finding their own topics or working on yours, growing a lab, nurturing promising students

12:50 The strategic things to think about when designing/creating a lab, creating a community and a culture, and what wasn’t so successful in setting up the lab

20:50 Choosing where he wanted to live to do the outdoor activities he loved, then choosing the job

23:00 Tele-commuting, partitioning work, walking the talk with remote working and lessons learnt

29:00 Realising work will never end, making choices, and his strategy for deciding whether to say yes or not

36:00 Sharing teaching materials as a by product of making teaching easier – “you can be both selfish and give things away”

38:00 How academic life has changed, increasing pressure to publish, and making hiring decisions

43:20 Making the decision to retire and move into emeritus status

45:30 Final tips (lots of pearls!) – no easy solutions, being strategic, scheduling time, not being driven by the next conference deadline, don’t let your work take over, don’t get into the vortex of more intense colleagues, and it’s a great job, we’re our own worst enemies

48:50 End

Related links:

Saul’s Grad Tips: http://saul.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/pmwiki.php/GradTips/GradTips

GroupLab: http://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/

Yunan Chen is an associate professor in the Department of Informatics at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) at the University of California, Irvine.  Yunan shares her experiences moving from a medical degree in China to a PhD at the intersection of medical informatics and human computer interaction in the US. She also speaks out about her tenure experiences, being part of a long distance relationship, and the struggles negotiating academia and becoming a new mother.  

“We don’t talk about our stress publicly.” “Give yourself a break after the baby.” “It’s ok to be lost [after getting tenure]”

She talks about (times approximate) …

01:35 Moving from medical school in China to a PhD in the US

09:00 Applying for faculty positions, getting applications rejected, moving to Irvine

12:41 Challenges being a new faculty member, learning paper and grant writing

17:20 Having great mentors

19:30 Having a baby, learning about life beyond work

21:10 Having a long distance relationship with a partner who is also an academic, working hard

22:10 No longer being able to count on evenings/weekends for working

24:00 Having a baby puts in a boundary on time, and using time more wisely

25:30 The first year with the baby, after tenure

27:08 Making the mistake of thinking it was still possible to be on a Program Committee, “if others can do it, maybe I can … but it turns out to be very difficult” … “First time I realised my life is forever different” … “My time is not as flexible as before”

30:20 Posting to Facebook that she “just feel very tired doing this”, one lesson, “I didn’t have to do it”; Her advice “give yourself a break” and “no-one talks about the challenges”

33:00 Trying to build a work-life balance and family life little by little, and moving to a bigger house and lowering expectations lower (ok if home not perfect, a bit messy) to achieve a better and happier life

38:48 Experiences of a mother support group, struggling with being a good mum and being a good researcher and quitting the support group, and stopping feeling guilty

41:38 Final thoughts: talk to a lot of people, we don’t talk about our stress publicly, don’t be afraid of approaching others, don’t be too harsh on yourself, things get easier

43:58 Being on academic mamas Facebook group and learning from other people’s experiences

48:00 Being lost after having a baby and after getting tenure, and finding what to do next, but it’s ok to be lost

51:45 End

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Marcus Foth is an i/Director of the QUT Design Lab, founder and former director of the Urban Informatics Research Lab, and Professor in Interactive & Visual Design, School of Design, Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. Marcus talks about being on sabbatical, creating a research niche at the intersection of disciplines and publishing in diverse venues. He also shares his experiences of setting up a new lab and of chairing conferences. 

“We need to first focus on the passion and zest of our researchers - and it’s not these bean counting KPIs, it’s the beans themselves”

He talks about (times approximate) …

01:41 His sabbatical experience (long professional development leave) – nice to have time to think

04:10 Moving from Germany to Brisbane Australia and finding a PhD focus

09:15 Finding his PhD niche at the intersection of various fields

12:45 Choosing a deliberate publication strategy across different disciplines, rejecting a monolithic approach (not just think of CHI)

15:55 Publishing edited books and value of the process for networking, building a new field

20:45 Lessons learnt choosing a publisher

23:35 Conveying the narrative of your research, helping people interpret your publication venues

25:35 Starting up the Urban Informatics Lab and building a culture and identity – the value of the sign on the door

29:45 Lessons learnt leading a group, needing time to grow, and promoting inclusiveness

34:45 Reflecting on service roles, chairing a conference and the opportunities that come with service

40:05 Lab activities and when the lab grows too big

42:35 Needing more conversations about the research beans, not just counting the beans

46:05 End

Related links:

Urban Informatics Lab - http://www.urbaninformatics.net

References to his books from here - http://staff.qut.edu.au/staff/foth/

Smart Cities Summer School – http://summerschool2016-smartcity.tuwien.ac.at

Jaz Choi - http://staff.qut.edu.au/staff/choih/

Designing Interactive Systems (DIS2016) conference - http://www.dis2016.org