Just delivered the thesis for my supervisor to read it.
It is a curious process, this of delivering the thing. It is like a birth, really. It spent so much time being mine, in my small computer, and now it is out there, in the world, being handled by a complete stranger. ...
Difficult to concentrate these days. Have my mind into other affairs. Desert-like.
Also I have been doing some research about usability in Brazil. But this is a subject for another post. Maybe even to another blog??
I have plans about reformulating this blog. I want to have time to do it.
Thursday 14 August 2008
Friday 8 August 2008
Geeky blogs and academic work - a good match?
In a conversation with Stephan at Tinseltown over a rather nice glass of milkshake, he told me he investigated the use of blogs in academic research -- and the little ant only told me this now.
He even published two papers on the subject (!) available on his webpage.
That made me
1) remind me that I have a blog
2) think why I stopped writing.
Number 1) brought me here today to try to answer number 2). I think -- and Stephan's studies confirmed -- that is because I don't have a reason to write. In fact, I do, but I am writing somethin else (the thesis).
I guess that if I had used this blog to communicate with my supervisor, i.e., if I had made this blog available and that he could read and comment on my posts, it could have been interesting. But how much of my thesis would I really want published on the web? How much of my line of thinking would I want exposed to people I don't know. And, considering I have an external host, how much of their identity would I have given away?
During the first part of this research I didn't have anything concrete to write about, and a lot of anxiety to be ejected from my system. So I think that writing had this main function. At the moment I re-directed the anxiety to somewhere else, the blog lost its function.
I think it would be really useful, though, if I was working with someone else on the project. for two reasons:
1) We are not always in the same room, so it is nice to be able to communicate online. But what are emails for. That leads me to two:
2) Conversations over comments are organized and restricted to specific themes. I find that in emails people feel free to go astray, because it is like a little letter you are writing to someone. You can include lots of "BTWs", like "what are you doing tomorrow", "did you see Heroes yesterday?" or "I hate the weather", which can lead to other infinite, non-related topics (specially the last one, if your partner is English).
Need to refine these thoughts, but this is a very interesting topic.
He even published two papers on the subject (!) available on his webpage.
That made me
1) remind me that I have a blog
2) think why I stopped writing.
Number 1) brought me here today to try to answer number 2). I think -- and Stephan's studies confirmed -- that is because I don't have a reason to write. In fact, I do, but I am writing somethin else (the thesis).
I guess that if I had used this blog to communicate with my supervisor, i.e., if I had made this blog available and that he could read and comment on my posts, it could have been interesting. But how much of my thesis would I really want published on the web? How much of my line of thinking would I want exposed to people I don't know. And, considering I have an external host, how much of their identity would I have given away?
During the first part of this research I didn't have anything concrete to write about, and a lot of anxiety to be ejected from my system. So I think that writing had this main function. At the moment I re-directed the anxiety to somewhere else, the blog lost its function.
I think it would be really useful, though, if I was working with someone else on the project. for two reasons:
1) We are not always in the same room, so it is nice to be able to communicate online. But what are emails for. That leads me to two:
2) Conversations over comments are organized and restricted to specific themes. I find that in emails people feel free to go astray, because it is like a little letter you are writing to someone. You can include lots of "BTWs", like "what are you doing tomorrow", "did you see Heroes yesterday?" or "I hate the weather", which can lead to other infinite, non-related topics (specially the last one, if your partner is English).
Need to refine these thoughts, but this is a very interesting topic.
UPA & BBC
Went to the UPA event yesterday at LBi, to see the what the BBC is up to. Of all presentations we heard, the most interesting was definitely the one by Nicky Smyth, head of Innovation and Research at BBC -- who I met at the VizThink event last month, with her lovely friend Sal.
I was fascinated by the approach they had to research -- despite the fact that her 15 minutes only allowed her to give us a taste of what they are doing. The Participate project seems to encompass a myriad of areas, from augmented reality to encouragement and perception of media. I will look at their delicious logs as soon as I get over this bit of work.
I was fascinated by the approach they had to research -- despite the fact that her 15 minutes only allowed her to give us a taste of what they are doing. The Participate project seems to encompass a myriad of areas, from augmented reality to encouragement and perception of media. I will look at their delicious logs as soon as I get over this bit of work.
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