September and October 2017 round-up

I did not write a round-up post last month because I only “realised” that September had ended when we were well and truly into October. I think that every month should have some sort of celebration on its last day, like October has Halloween. Isn’t it great to end the month on a festive note (and lots of sweeties)?

This is what I have been up to in the last 8 weeks or so.

 

Researching

That proposal for a project investigating how social media may help small businesses obtain customer insight was submitted. It bounced back with a request to identify specific small organisations that would be involved in the project. I am now working on that bit.

 

If you work in / for an SME, and would like to get involved, let me know. All that is asked from you is time and access for interviews. There is no financial outlay. Oh, and you need to be in the London area, as that is one of the conditions of the funding. For this project, we are adopting the EU definition of SMEs, which is a company with fewer than 250 employees and/or a turnover of under €50m/year.

 

I have also continued to work on the project about use of personalisation technology (e.g., beacons) in the retail environment. And a colleague invited me to join a project on use of social media by Chinese teenagers in the UK. All very exciting.

 

Writing

The paper on use of Instagram by Millennials was finished, and has been submitted. Fingers crossed.

 

And I continued to work on various other papers, two of which I hope to submit before the end of November.

Teaching

September saw the start of a new semester, which I always find very re-energising. This semester I am teaching Internet Marketing, which is a final year module for our undergraduate students. It is quite a demanding module, because there are so many new things happening all the time. This is, definitely, not one of those modules where you can reuse most of last year’s materials. Really not. But, hey, it is my area of expertise, and I feel that there is a really good synergy between research and teaching – for instance, at the level of readings. So, I am lucky.

 

In October, our new PhD students joined us. I am supervising two candidates. One is looking at the use of artificial intelligence in the customer journey, and the other at adoption and use of business intelligence systems within organisations. Super interesting projects.

Learning

I attended an Academic Leadership Symposium, due to my new role as Divisional Lead. It ranged from the very technical (e.g., changes in education policy), to the pragmatic (e.g., prioritising your work), and reflections on leadership via a discussion of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

 

I also attended a cross-college meeting to learn about work being done at Brunel about or with digital technology, to explore synergies and collaboration opportunities.

 

What does November have in store for you?