April 2017 round-up

This was a challenging month – school holidays for the kids, exam revisions for the teen, a house move for the family, and some unexpected marking, among other things.

So, in this monthly round-up, I am trying to be kind with myself about my limited productivity… but I must make up for it, in the next month!

Researching

The data collection for the in-store technology project stalled a bit because both my colleague and I had too many demands on our time and attention. But that turned out to be good because I realised that the ethics approval that we had for that project may need to be updated – so, the delay means that I can check the paperwork and make sure that everything is OK *. The delay in collecting data for that project also made me think of another angle for the project, mixing quantitative and qualitative data. I think that this mixed methods approach will make for a much stronger and more original project. This cloud certainly had a silver lining!

A proposal that I had submitted for a presentation at a workshop about marketing automation and in-store technology, was accepted. And a conference paper that I had submitted in January, about the use of social media by business to business organisations, has also been accepted.

On a different note, I reviewed a grant application related to the use of the Internet of Things by children. Super interesting.

* If we collect data without all the necessary approvals by the ethic’s committee, not only are we unable to use the data collected, but we can also get in serious trouble with our institutions.

Writing

I had a(nother) paper rejected. I did realise that the paper was a bit quirky and that it had a fair chance of being rejected. But… it still hurts when you get that message saying “I regret to inform you that…”. Not good.

On a more positive note, I made some progress on a paper about consumers’ attitudes towards in-store technology. I also had a great (I think!) idea for another paper bringing together data sets from a number of studies that I have been involved in, recently. And I settled on a structure for the social CRM book that I am working on.

Teaching

I held revision sessions for the modules that I have been teaching on, this semester: Database and Customer Relationship Management, and International Marketing.

I did some marking, too. It wasn’t too onerous, but, as it was unexpected, it did derail my plans, a bit.

Finally, I had a couple of meetings with my PhD students, and provided feedback on several of their documents. Talking about PhD students, I noticed that a blog post that I wrote some time ago about PhD topics that I am willing to supervise is still attracting views. Maybe I should update it, as my interests have shifted a bit.

Learning

I want to submit a paper to a specific top journal in my field. I think that there is a good fit with the theme of the journal, but I never submitted to it. So, this month, I went through the last couple of issues from this journal, and read all the papers that they published, focusing not on the content of the papers per se, but rather on their structure. I focused on things like how the authors develop their arguments, the style of writing (e.g., passive vs active voice), the role of images, the range of sources considered, and so on.

I once did a similar exercise dissecting qualitative vs. quantitative papers written by the same authors, to see how their style changed. I find this type of ‘structural reading’ very insightful. I recommend it. But it is too easy to get carried away with the analysis – so, if you do try this, I recommend that you give yourself a time limit.

With the school holidays and the house move out of the way, I can now focus on writing, again. I am so looking forward to it. What does May have in store for you?