I write these pieces every 6 months, usually for the Centre for Social Informatics’ all-centre meetings. (I’m usually incapable of speech by the time it’s my turn to report.[1]) I’m still really miffed that we can’t get together in person. Click this link to see all the pieces in this series.

Academic/Napier

This isn’t the full list – some things can only be publicised later. These are in no particular order.

Success	Systematic literature review. I have finished the searching, whittling and getting meaning for a literature review around ‘memory institutions’. I’ve written a rough draft of a paper. The project leaders will complete this, but are currently working on other things. This work has also led to other useful connections.
Success	Marking User-centred organisation systems courseworks 1 and 2 (apart from a handful of students who have extensions – I’ll complete this in early January.)
Success	Creative Informatics mapping. I’ve mapped data about creative companies in southeast Scotland. Here is my rant about data-quality.
Success, mostly	MSc supervision. I supervised 6 School of Computing MSc students’s dissertations, and was external examiner for another 6. Most of my students passed. It’s lovely that some of my students praised my supervision to their examiners. I hated having to fail some students but it had to be done.
Success, so far	More MSc supervision. I’ve been supervising five Business School MSc students whose research is around information systems. Two of these students submitted their dissertations at the beginning of December. The other three have suffered delays due to their day-jobs and other impedimenta, so will submit in April 2022. It’s been a rare treat to engage with students in other disciplines, and who live in Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East.
en route	Project supervision. I’m setting up a project to analyse community council online presences next year. The data-gathering will be done by MSc students. With luck, they will also be involved in data-analysis and output creation.
en route	Project leadership. I’ve done a lot of project-initiation work for Platform to Platform, the first academic project I will lead.
finished	contributions to an international research proposal. The outcome of the funding bid is due next year. $deity willing, I can say more then.
en route	information avoidance and diabetes. My draft paper is with the project leader and the ‘prof’ for feedback. $deity willing, it will go into formal internal peer review in January, then be submitted to ISIC 2022. Berlin, baby!

Non-academic

Success	Still minutes secretary and web-weaver for 3 Edinburgh community councils
Success	£eithChooses PB event: publishing, IT, web, admin, working with Edinburgh Council to enable online voting…
Success	Community Councils Together on Trams: taking minutes and asking important impertinent questions
Success	Creation of a website and blog for Edinburgh Bus Users Group.
Success	Occasional bits of proof-reading and writing for my wife’s company, Glen Shuraig Consulting.
Success	In June, my wife and I helped my sister move into the house she’d bought so she can live near our brother and sister-in-law. Later in the year, my wife and I helped her move the rest of her stuff, so this is finished.
en route	Trying to get through probate for my late mother. The solicitor with energy and a braincell is working hard, but her colleagues who are selling the ancestral pile are running into delays. I’ve had the place cleared, and am waiting on the proceeds.
Failure – but not my fault	My wife and I have still not had our cycling holiday to a hobbit-house in the Netherlands. (It was planned for April 2020!) And now a combination of the ‘rona and the clowns in the UK government means we may not be able to go until late next year. We did get to have a fortnight in a caravan in St Andrews, and to go to a Manics gig in the Usher Hall. Obligatory Arnie-quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-za0Lu7tI
Failure – but maybe not my fault	In September 2020, it became possible to ‘re-acquire’ the Austrian citizenship I would have inherited from my mother if she kept her own. (She was born Jewish in in Vienna in 1930, and only just escaped in 1938.) I’ve just not had (made?) the time to apply yet. However, I am getting lessons in Austrian-accented spoken German from Kerstin Steiner.

Of course all my moans are about first-world problems!

[1] by Dorothy Parker

I wish I could drink like a lady
I can take one or two at the most
Three and I’m under the table
Four and I’m under the host.