My 2009 Mac Pro is getting long in the tooth. IGGY still works just fine of course I feel the need for speed. I don’t want to replace him with a garbage can. No matter how many cores and Thunderbolt ports they have, they only have one storage unit. The base model has 256 GB of PCI-E-based SSD, and I need at least two units of 1TB each. (One for normal use, one for CarbonCopyClones).
I’m sure we all want to live in a fairer society. But who says what this is, and how can we get there? It’s clear that a government can’t just impose a fairer society – there’d be a massive dichotomy between the imposers and the imposees, even if other parts worked. I’m pretty sure that imposees would reject the whole thing anyway, just because it was imposed, even if everything else about it was great.
Fortunately, the Scottish Government isn’t going down that road. As the Scottish Community Alliance puts it, Continue reading
Following on from the workshop we ran in January at Napier (blog post, outcomes report), I’m running four more this autumn.
All community councillors are welcome – the events are free and your ideas and experience are are the magic ingredients that will make the events work! For example, you might know how to gather great a Facebook audience, or have crowd-sourced opinions on planning matters. Others will love to hear how it’s done!
The events are free to attend, and lunch will be provided, but we can’t reimburse travel expenses. Continue reading
Well, a lot has happened since I last blogged, so this post is partly about sorting it out in my own head.
The data-gathering stage is over, except it isn’t. We closed the survey on Wednesday. We’ve had a very good response rate – over 80%. (This doesn’t include some partial responses which would push the rate up into the high 90s.) Of course I can’t give detail here but it’s clear that for some respondents, DREaM was a career-changing event. Many others have been influenced by DREaM – technique sessions inspired some to use such methods in their own research. Others have passed on their knowledge and inspiration to students they supervise, so you might think of DREaM and a research-grandparent. I’m imagining a Quentin Blake drawing of a 3-year-old in an adult-sized long cotton nightshirt and nightcap, holding an old saucer-style candleholder just now. (DREaM finished in 2012.)
My immediate aim is to get the survey data into our project report as soon as possible, so there will be much consumption of diet IrnBru over the few working hours.
We had a very successful focus group last week – this provided a lot more detail on the ways DREaM influenced LIS professionals and researchers, and goes a long way to answering our research questions. I’ve begun to analyse the data but haven’t yet fully sliced and diced it into the report – that’s my aim for Monday and Tuesday of next week.
So that’s why a data-gathering stage is over. But wait, there’s more! I’ve just finished organising another focus group in Napier for the middle of August and I’ve booked travel for one in London in September. My next task is to draft an invitation to that focus group. That’ll be a fun day – train to London, learn lots more about DREaM and LIS, hop back on the train to Edinburgh and then a final journey to meet up with friends in Stirling over the weekend.
I’ve also been having some fun learning more about UCInet, and how to feed back into it old data so I can be sure I process new data correctly. That hasn’t been so successful yet, but I’m sure I’ll get there.
I’ve also booked (pending budget-holder’s approval) travel and accommodation for 4 workshops I’m running later this year. I can’t say much about them until they are announced to the world next week, but I can say it takes ages to investigate and book travel, especially trying to find affordable accommodation in small towns. I’m a bit disappointed that certain online booking systems don’t allow booking trains more than 3 months ahead, and I’m really grateful to our departmental administrator for her local knowledge. This enabled us to book a hotel which wasn’t over 10 miles from where I need to be – cycling to an event I’m running with laptop, iPad, GoPro, papers, name badges and all the other stuff I’ll need while wearing a suit would not be good.
Before this, I spent what seems an inordinate amount of time confirming and recording details of venues, dates, catering and facilities arrangements with the people hosting the workshops, liaising with potential guest speakers and drafting invitations. This might be my first ever adventure with using Eventbright ticketing – I’m just a bit unsure whether it’s sensible to have four EventBright URLs in the invitation. It may be better to stick to my original plan of asking delegates to email me to register.
The really enjoyable events over the last few days included a presentation on digital ‘story-telling’ by Dr Brian Detlor. As well as being fascinating in its own right, for me there’s a connection with my main interest, in that Community Councils need to to get better at telling their own stories of what they have done and will do to support their communities, so I’ll watch Dr Detlor’s project with interest. The presentation also brought back memories of reading What is History? – which I really enjoyed – and reading On ‘What Is History?’: From Carr and Elton to Rorty and White – for me, this is a load of post-modernist tosh. (Oops, there’s a tautology!)
And finally, thanks to Hazel and Tim for inviting me and my ever-wonderful partner to a highly enjoyable dinner with Dr Detlor and his sister Liz, our Emeritus Professor Lizzie Davenport and her husband and Michael, and some of the CSI postgrads.
As I read this back, it doesn’t seem like much but I know I have been working. Getting back to it right now!
I’m still enjoying working on the project studying the impact of the DREaM project in 2011-12. You can read more about this on the Library and Information Science Research Coalition website. In short DREaM comprised the delivery of a launch conference, three workshops and a closing conference – and what looks like a huge amount of work by organisers and participants. Continue reading
On Wednesday I gave a presentation which was coherent and informative, and yet made up partly while I was listening to someone else’s but mostly in response to questions from the audience as I was speaking. Whenever I’ve given presentations before, I’ve mumbled incoherently as I drowned in my own nervousness. So throwing me in the deep end is perhaps the way to get good presentations out of me. (Peter, don’t you dare!) Continue reading
As Hazel Hall has blogged, I’m working with her on a follow-up study that investigates any longer-term impact of DREaM, and the forms that such impact (if it exists) has taken. Continue reading
Wise words from Angus Hardie of the Scottish Community Alliance:
I see community empowerment and ‘local’ democracy as two sides of the same coin with something akin to our system of community councils (albeit properly resourced, probably restructured and with effective national representation) as the bridge between the two. So while some might take issue on the detail, if the purpose of empowering communities is not about working towards genuine local democracy, could someone let me know what it is?
(emphasis added)
Here’s the full article, including a message from Marco Biagi MSP and pieces on ‘Caltongate’, the Big Lunch, community growing, euro-funding, Iceland’s financial crisis, COP21 and Comrie Development Trust
I have been interested in how governments use the internet to engage with citizens for a few years now. Of course, I’m very late to this party – e-democracy was ‘invented’ over 20 years ago. Continue reading
My academic online profiles
Bruce's IT-ish world 