Networking (shmoozing people in the hope of gaining future benefits) is pure sycophancy. This shouldn’t be confused with engaging effectively with people, which is a core ability. Sadly, sycophancy often gets you further than ability.
Just thought I’d share that with you from a BBC news article on: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16415584 (with acknowledgement to the author “Jay Bee” in the comments section)
Was sent the following over the weekend. I’m not an eco-warrior at the best of times but this is SOOO true.
The Green Thing
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”
The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”
She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in it’s day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building.
We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts ~~ wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.
Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house ~~ not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.
We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and… we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because…
We didn’t have the green thing back then?
Think about it people – THINK!
And here we are. New Year. Focus and finish. Sounds all too easy put like that!
I am on version 8 so far… and why is this? An instrument is only as good as the questions it seeks to answer. And I don’t know if the right questions are being asked unless I adopt a test and retest approach. It’s part of the “valid, credible and robust” approach.
It’s particulary useful becuase I am using an instrument developed by other researchers, but changing the way in which the attribution of characteristics is made. Better still, the previous instrument cites various elements per topic area, which, if treated using a particular statistical test (factor analysis), could show that the original instrument’s groupings of the elements is contradictory. So, following my panel guru’s advice to simplify (“semper simplificare”.. ring any bells…hmmmm?), the section of the survey relating to perceived environmental uncertainty has been dramatically revised to provide a definitive indicator per topic (summated scales – handy technique).
If you’d like to take part in this pilot phase, then by all means follow: https://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/questionnaire/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=n611mo6
I’ll know more by the end of next week and whether we are “Houston you are cleared for launch” or “Houston, we have a problem”. Great!
I had an email today from distinguished subject matter expert Professor Richard Wilding (@SupplyChainProf) (guru in Supply Chain Logistics field)…
Guess who is at Number 3??
Now this is a maxim I think I shall adopt. In fact I probably need it stuck on very large letters over everything I do. Like Occam’s Razor (Achem’s Razor is you prefer that spelling).
Had some cracking feedback in the pilot survey – mainly about the scary nature of the questions. And some excellent feedback from Uni on the instrument itself. Summed up: “strip out all the guff n cafuffle so the interpretation of the numbers is a simple and slick as possible leaving no doubt whatsoever how and why you got to your view”.
So the survey instrument itself is morphing (great word that…) before its final release to its intended audience. Who are in fact waiting in the wings for this to be unleashed in a blaze of publicity. Thanks for your patience guys!
And thanks as always to HWMBO for the “its ok, keep doing iterations until it looks right” calm voice while I imagine all kinds of “I will never get this thing right” scoldings.
Semper simplificare. Always Simplify. Oh boy I hope my Latin is still up to scratch!
And here’s why I keep a few papers’ extracts with me for reminding myself how I got into this in the first place:
“So what is on its agenda? The attribution of human, unhuman, nonhuman, inhuman, characteristics; the distribution of properties among these entities; the connections established between them; the circulation entailed by these attributions, distributions and connections; the transformation of those attributions, distributions and connections, of the many elements that circulates and of the few ways through which they are sent.
The difficulty of grasping AT is that it has been made by the fusion of three hitherto unrelated strands of preoccupations:
-a semiotic definition of entity building;
-a methodological framework to record the heterogeneity of such a building;
-an ontological claim on the “networky” character of actants themselves.
AT asserts that the limits of these three unrelated interests are solved when, and only when, they are fused together into an integrated practice of study”~ Latour, 2005 (Clarifications paper)
There’s a lot to be said for “Let the data tell the story”. But even more to be said when you “inform” the data with context and condition. The back story. That’s what turns data from being binary statements, or comparative scales, into meaningful information.
I was reminded the other day of the apparent correlation of “storks nesting in Italy” and the “fertility rate of Italian women”. Hence the deduction that “Storks bring babies”. These factors are indirectly connected by a 3rd factor. How would you go about finding this out? Interview the storks? Timeline the migration patterns, timeline the sex lives of Italian women? (Oh I would love to see storks being interviewed….. “well of course we chose this spot for the view…”)
It’s not until you code stork-related factors to environmental factors, and fertitlity rate issues to environmental factors that the correlation is made. It is context and condition specific and bound by time.
Sadly, there are more direct correlations between certain lager brands and domestic violence against women. Yet, the same analytical principles apply. Context and condition specific.
And that’s why I like “socially informed science”. Gotta love the data!
I know I know, it has been a while. One or 2 minor mishaps in the last couple of months, but like the trooper I am, I am hangin’ in here.
So what I thought would be a short update paper and would take me a few days turned into a writers total block and my brains deserted me. But I have the paper. And there is one in the mill for publication.
And I’m still struggling with the measures – I whinged about that last time. I’m really not comfortable with “just making it up” if someone else has done it before me. And HWMBO is stuck in Mumbai!
Ah well, c’mon H: grip, get one!
Perhaps it is the cynic in me… but when you really dig to see what’s behind “measures”, the majority of commentary seems to use the phrase “adapted from”; “derived from”; “extending”…. which seems to indicate a fuzzy “made up-ness” that I don’t feel totally comfortable with.
Worse, when I’ve dug back into the literature, there’s a whole history of Bloggs & Bloggs included 6 things, Bluff & Scarper included 25, Gigabrain only used 4… blah blah Various scales (funnily enough, the majority are Likert 5 point based) BUT there is no declaration of actual question. And the scientist in me is asking “well what is it based on then?”
How am I supposed to develop measures for measuring without true foundation?
At least my old faves Emery & Trist say “and we examine uncertainty by considering the number of internal interdependencies within an organisation” and call them something specific. Its a tangible measure and you can say “has this increased” (for example)
Drivers for Continuous Morphing in Microstate Actor Networks
Why is it that I find myself reverting to the earliest “point of concrete”?
The nice thing is that I can “mix” my topic measures – so “uncertainty” is one measure instrument, “constraint” is another…
Continuous morphing of microstate actor-networks…
And I still find myself fascinated by this topic!