May 2016 round-up

Well, I may ready for warm weather; but the warm weather is not ready for me. While we had some nice days here and there, it is now early June and I still need my duvet!

In May, I did my first race – it was a last minute decision; there was no preparation and so on. But I very much enjoyed it, and shall do another one at some point. I also add fun looking through the pictures from my #2013Kms adventure, and turned them into a short film.

My friend Ines shared this lovely article on Facebook. The author talks about how her hobbies (different crafts), often elicit the reaction ‘How do you have the time?’ She writes:

The other day, I posted my latest quilt on Facebook, and a colleague wrote a comment: “How do you find the time?” I used to get those a lot in grad school. I’ve seen friends training for marathons, or posting photos of their cosplay outfits, get similar comments. They frustrate me, because they imply that we should be working every single waking hour.

(…)

“How do you find the time?” is pernicious. It’s a form of concern-trolling, because the person seems like they have your best interests at heart, but they’re really just shaming you for not being at work all the time. Don’t listen to them. First, you don’t need to work eighty hours a week to succeed in academia, and most people probably aren’t anyway, even if they think they are. Secondly, having hobbies and outlets is good.

 

This article resonated with me because I hear ‘how do you find the time?’ a lot in relation to my blog and other social media activities. Sometimes this comment comes from certain colleagues who see blogging as frivolous writing (It’s like keeping a pet, someone said). Other times the comment come from friends in other walks of life, who probably think that academics do little work outside of term time. And, on occasion, it even comes from my own family.

 

I usually blurb something in reply, about blogging and social media not being more time consuming than delivering a workshop, attending a networking event, and so on; that extends the useful life of materials that I prepared for an event; that I need to learn about this stuff, so that I can teach it to my students; etc., etc., etc.

 

But you know what? I blog, and post, and share and whatever… simply because I love it. Social media is heaven for INTPs like me. It’s my outlet. And I shall continue to do it for as long as it pleases me.

 

Ah, well. Rant over. Here are my highlights for May. What are yours?

 

Researching

This month has been dominated by marking, so I did not have much time to do anything else. The only ‘research-y’ thing I have done, is to go through some qualitative data, again, to answer some queries from reviewers. Oh, and I also set up some data collection for another project. Exciting!

 

Writing

I finished the draft of the report I have been writing, on the use of social media in the business to business context. I passed it on to my co-author, who seems happy with it.

 

I also did some work on two papers, to address the queries / requests from reviewers. For those readers not familiar with the academic publications process, when you submit a paper to a journal, it is either rejected straight away, or passed on to a number of reviewers (usually, experts in the field). The reviewers read your paper, and make a recommendation to the journal editor. Usually, that recommendation is to request that the authors clarify some aspect of their argument, or make a number of changes in the paper.

 

Teaching

This month was dominated by marking – both of papers, and of presentations. I marked the modules that I taught, and, as part of the quality assurance process in place at our (and most other) university, I also had to second mark assignments from other modules.

 

In addition, as I had another module starting at the end of the month, I was busy setting up and writing briefs for three consulting assignments for our MSc Marketing students. I am really happy with these three projects – they are all very different, yet they all offer students a taste of the typical decisions made by marketing managers, and which they may face when they leave us.

 

Learning

They say that the best way to learn about something is to teach it. And, indeed, I have been reading and learning a lot about Brexit, because I agreed to do a presentation on its impact for marketers. There is so much information and scaremongering about, on both sides of the argument. Quite sad, actually. It also made me think a lot about the future of our family in this country… and worry, regardless of the referendum’s outcome.

 

 

What were May’s highlights for you?