Brain Blockage

Judging by the fact that last time I was here more than a month ago and nothing(I mean NOTHING) has happened since then... I guess I need rest

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers

This is Pablo Picasso's quote. I wonder why he said this?
I prefer questions

My Path

... is to translate complex ideas into a popular-culture dialogue

Make me think that you're the one that I adore...

"Comedy as satire is acceptable, as fun it is a pleasant haven of escape, but the fairy tale of happiness ever after cannot be taken seriously; it belongs to the never-never land of childhood, which is protected from the realities that will become terribly known soon enough..."[1] Our lives are in general hopeless - we will anyway die some day - that's the tragedy of a human being. But we do enjoy our lives, don't we? That happinness of being alive, being able to do things that give sense to live... Making yourself the hero of your own adventure. Let's rephrase: - Life, LET me think that you're the one that I adore! :-) 1) J. Campbell. The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

Declaration

"You may charge me with murder — or want of sense -
(we are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
was never among my crimes!" (Lewis Carrol. The Hunting of the Snark (1874))

Key Points Learned From Myths

1. Spiritual adventure must have a question to answer. If you have a question - all your choices have a base
2. Spiritual adventure is full of hazards and obstacles - this is the way to improve
3. Difficulties either break you or make you stronger
4. When you feel the defeat - you can call to the soul, and the soul will show you the way to the best results
5. "Replace" is sidestepping, we are looking to "find"
6. Secret-keeping is an enemy to the phyche
7. "We will have another episode, then another, in which there will be opportunity to change course, to see and do differently—and better." - human life is longer than a myth and gives us chances to change the story.

"The idea, since forever, has been that story is a conveyance, a vehicle, to use in order to think, to move forward through life. At the end of a life that has meaning, the point is not that one is perfected, but that one will still carry a view of self and the world that is divine—and not just some kind of lazy drift. The point is to have enough stories that guide —that will allow life's closing act to end with one's heart still bright, despite the gales that have passed through it —so that it can be said that one has lived with spiritual audacity."

Fall to Rise

"It would appear, were we to follow the long genealogy of heroes and heroines in mythos, that it is via the soul being stolen, mismanaged, disguised, disrupted, pre-empted or trodden upon, that some of the purest features of the psyche may rise up and begin to long for—call for—the return of that radiant companion and counsel."[1] This introduction will continue my discussion of how failure helps to find new and, hopefully, better ways. Failure is a break from a common path, that was supposed to be successful. If we do not fail - there is no reason to revise, improve, change. - Dad, why does the sun rise on the east each day? - Does it? - Yes - Did you test it? - Yes - Cool, don't touch it, son - it works! But how would you know if something works the best way if you never challenge it? It's scary to change things that are comfortable and "working". But ... hmmm.... where is the sense of adventure? If you are looking for a companion, somebody whom you can stand for a long time, who would you select? My answer is "a player". If you do not challenge your life - do you actually move anywhere? And how do you even know? What story can you tell if everything is "allright"? Boring, isn't it... 1) Introduction to 2004 edition of "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by J.Campbell

The Myth

Inspired by the introduction to "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" I wrote a myth. I wrote it for a special occasion, but through writing it, I grew up and the occasion was left in my past. But the myth is still present and alive, and that's a good reason to share it with anyone who might ever need it: I was woken up in the night with a cry. My baby was crying. I felt like crying myself. This cold, endless winter has drained all my energy and now my baby was ill and I knew that I can't postpone it anymore: I had to take him to the hospital. The time was midnight, the snow was covering the earth with a wind dragging it across the street. The hospital was 10 km away and there was no way to get there in the night like this except for walking all the way. I've dressed up, tried to console my baby a bit and went out of the door into the wind. The baby stopped crying, probably shocked by the cold and wind and we started our way. Monotonous walking made every minute the same, they were just passing by unnoticed. Luckily the wind stopped and the moon showed up among the clouds. Suddenly I've noticed a shine on the snow. I walked to the side of the road and to my surprise picked up a heavy gold bracelet covered with colorful stones. Nobody was around who could have claimed the ownership. I thought for a second and found no reason not to take it. The baby moved uneasily in my arms, apparently unhappy with me stopping and paying attention to something else. But I've put the bracelet on my wrist and we continued our way. The bracelet turned out to be quite uncomfortable addition, scratching my already tired arm, but its colorful shine was joyful and reminded of sun and happy days of summer. After minutes or hours of walking (everything is the same in the night) - I've heard steps behind and when I turned to see who it was - I saw - a stranger. You see, he was looking for the bracelet. It was a pity to part with the charming bracelet, but after all it was not mine. At least my journey was a bit easier now and I sighed with a bit of a relief - at least I do not have to carry the bracelet anymore, my wrist was already sore from it. I kept on walking, but the sound of steps behind me did not disappear. Finally the stranger came closer and suggested to walk with us, offering us company and protection. And by the way he wanted me to keep the bracelet as a present. It sounded weird and I tried to find an explanation in my own memory. It came quick and clear: a present is a sacrifice, but how do you make a sacrifice if you only have a bracelet? Right - give it to a stranger. So I accepted and put the bracelet back onto my wrist. It was even heavier now. And we walked and walked and walked. Finally I saw the lights of the hospital in front of us - it was not more than 1 km away - soon the journey would be over. Suddenly I felt something like a release - I looked to the side - my strange companion was gone and so was the bracelet. "What a weird dream" - I thought. After all, we've arrived to the hospital, it was warm and light. The sisters helped us to get comfortable in the room that was assigned to us. The treatment time passed easily and my baby got his smile and liveliness back. The only strange thing - the kind doctor who was looking after my baby wears the bracelet. Yes, that same one.

Why Life Is Either Difficult Or Boring???

I Asked for Wonder

"In ancient Hebraic, this concept is known as tikkun olam; meaning repair of the world soul. This is a living concept, for it requires endeavor —a daily one, and sometimes even an hourly one. It is a commitment to a way of right conduct, a form of living meditation, a kind of contemplative pragmatic. I understand it this way: Tikkun olam is giving one's attention and resources to repair that part of the world that is right before you, precisely within your spiritual, psychological, and physical reach—according to soul's sight, not ego's alone." (J Campbell. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Introduction to 2004 edition) This is wonderful, isn't it? Just change the world, the part that is in front of you. I always knew that of course. I wonder why do I always feel that I was stupid before - this post dates 3.5 years back and not much changed. I wonder if I actually develop in any way? What did change? I can't answer... Recently I've been discovering my old writings, still in Russian. I feel I was more clever back then. I had the power in my language...Unfortunately, I can't estimate my English. It's hard to recover years of reading. My English is too instrumental - just say what you mean, there's no game, no throwing words around where the top layer hides layers and layers of sense underneath. You can unfold the sentences. I think I've remembered about it reading about Obi Okonkwo, how he distilled the multitude of associations coming from a simple Ibo folk song, a song which seems to have no meaning at all to somebody with no knowledge of the relevant traditions. Kamo gryadeshi...where am I going? I feel like I went into the field for these 3 years and collected loads of data..I want to make sense of it now. Can I repair the world in front of me? Should I? Should I repair myself? Should I create a new world?

Timeless Wisdom

"Whosoever desires to explore The Way —
Let them set out — for what more is there to say?" [1]
This was written 900 years ago.
Should I go? - Yes, you should.
When should I start? - Now
Why? - because "Each person is born with the wherewithal fully intact" - use it or lose it.
And ""Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!" [2]

1. J Campbell. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. 2004
2. Lewis Carrol. Alice Through the Looking Glass

Fool Tales

Fool tales teach us that following the traditional path does not fulfill your life potential. It is not your path. You won't find your jewels where everybody is looking for them.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Why did I do it only now? The practical guide to my journey, Campbell's "most influential book of the 20th Century" (1): "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" - got it now! Can't wait till the afternoon to start reading. It's my passage way to the world of dreams, the map of the mystical world of my own hero. In this research journey he will show one of his 1000 faces, but there are many journeys and adventures in life. And I'm going to make them interesting!






1)http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist2/hero.htm
2) Joseph Campbell "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"

Time to Move On

One day you will feel like you can't write another word, think another thought and you will be too exhausted to even care - and I do not even remember who said it. I'm not exhausted, but I'm really lost and very entertained by this fact. I know that I'm not going anywhere and feeling good about it. Well, almost...
Being honest with myself - I must collect my scattered mind and get ready for the symposium. After all - that's the path I've selected, not so?

Cultural Programming

Cultural programming includes "learning values (dominant beliefs and attitudes)"[1]. And cultural diversity challenges values. Many of the things that we know from childhood as the things that "ought to be so" can be easily challenged by a person from another culture. With the globalization most of these differences should be blurred, and more and more often we see global culture ruling the world. Is it bad or good?
Globalization brings tolerance.
Diversity brings alternatives.
And both do not exclude each other



1)Jones, M. and Alony, I. (2007) The Cultural Impact of Information Systems -- Through the Eyes of Hofstede -- A Critical Journey, Issues in Informing Science & Information Technology, 4, pp. 407-419.

Writing Desease

Some people as the result of their daily job responsibilities get into habit of writing tons of unnecessary information.
Note to myself: always remember that any written word should have its purpose

Research Motto

"...leverage the positive aspects of diversity while limiting its negative aspects"

(Carte, T. and Chidambaram, L. (2004) A Capabilities-Based Theory of Technology Deployment in Diverse Teams: Leapfrogging the Pitfalls of Diversity and Leveraging Its Potential with Collaborative Technology, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 5(11/12), pp. 448-471.
)

What Color Is Your Research

This is one of the questions that Badenhurst suggests to answer. For me it is always green. It is somewhat strange for me as almost everything positive in my life is blue. But blue research is boring isn't it? :-)
I think it is light green, because it is fresh, newly born, weak physically (but strong in spirit!). It is a celebration and inspiration and a way forward. It is my life and life should be bright.
When I was thinking about the color of my research, I was lying in bed and my laptop was far away, so I could not check my blog and I was worried that the color theme was blue there. Luckily, today I've looked and I see that it is green. But I think I must make it brighter :-) Spring clean!

Clearly Precious Information ....

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word:
* "A growing body of evidence..."[8] (Where is the raw data for your review?)
* "People say..." (Which people? How do they know?)
* "It has been claimed that..." (By whom, where, when?)
* "Critics claim..." (Which critics?)
* "Clearly..." (As if the premise is undeniably true)
* "It stands to reason that..." (Again, as if the premise is undeniably true—see "Clearly" above)
* "Questions have been raised..." (Implies a fatal flaw has been discovered)
* "I heard that..." (Who told you? Is the source reliable?)
* "There is evidence that..." (What evidence? Is the source reliable?)
* "Experience shows that..." (Whose experience? What was the experience? How does it demonstrate this?)
* "It has been mentioned that..." (Who are these mentioners? Can they be trusted?)
* "Popular wisdom has it that..." (Is popular wisdom a test of truth?)
* "Commonsense has it/insists that..." (The common sense of whom? Who says so? See "Popular wisdom" above, and "It is known that" below)
* "It is known that..." (By whom and by what method is it known?)
* "Officially known as..." (By whom, where, when—who says so?)
* "It turns out that..." (How does it turn out?)
* "It was noted that..." (A commonly used start of a line by Auditors with poor workpapers or little evidence)
* "Our product is so good, it was even given away in celebrity gift bags." (True, perhaps, but not relevant.)
* "See why more of our trucks are sold in Southern California than in any other part of the country." (Southern California is a big vehicle market.)
* "Nobody else's product is better than ours." (What is the evidence of this?)
* "Studies show..." (what studies?)
* "(The phenomenon) came to be seen as..." (by whom?)
* "Some argue..." (who?)
* "Up to sixty percent..." (so, 59%? 50%? 10%?)
* "More than seventy percent..." (How many more? 70.01%? 80%? 90%?)
* "The vast majority..." (All, almost all, more than half—how many?)

Diversity Faultlines

Found a very interesting article [1] introducing a concept of group faultline, which is defined as a feature, which can potentially divide a group into subgroups. Potentially it can be any feature: age, sex, profession, educational background, physical characteristics, intellectual features etc. In general, the probability of the division and forming of stable subgroups depends on alignment of several faultlines, i.e. if a group consists of 2 20-year old males and 3 40-year-old females - they will probably form subgroups.
Another important thing - physical, easily-visible characteristics (gender, age, race, language spoken etc) tend to create subgroups faster and can stay on the way of the formation of subgroups based on interests and intellectual preferences. "Although group members can categorize themselves in many different ways, they typically have a harder time denying their demographic attributes." (1). This, I believe, is usually undesirable if we are seeking intellectual contact and compatibility (and we are seeking it, aren't we?)

1)Lau, D. C. and Murnighan, J. K. (1998) Demographic Diversity and Faultlines: The Compositional Dynamics of Organizational Groups, The Academy of Management Review, 23(2), pp. 325-340.

About Fear

Sometimes when I walk on a sore feet stepping on uneven surface - I'm not sure and make very small steps. I'm not sure in my life now - I take very small steps and moving very slowly. Is it good or bad? I don't want to be a tortoise, but I also do not want to be hurt unnecessary. Eventually I'm unsure of what I can achieve and therefore scared. Looks like uncertainty avoidance again :-) Need to keep it in mind and try to reduce this fear.
"People implicitly categorize themselves into subgroups according to salient
cues and identify more closely with people they perceive as being similar to themselves. They do this to achieve and maintain positive self-identity."[1] Another creeping fear - loss of identity, becoming somebody unknown to myself and unusual to people who know me. Well, fear stays there, but moving forward means changing and the circle of people around me will change inevitably. Though it would be nice if there will be people who will stay independently of my change.

Another great fear: that I'm doing something totally wrong in life and wasting time. Stupid fear, because how can you assess if you are doing a right thing if you do not know what is right? We are just doing something random and something that looks exciting and meaningful at the moment. Obviously, we are changing on the way and meaningful becomes something else. One way to avoid the change is take a written word for granted and follow a set of rules, which tells you what is right. But why follow somebody's else's "right", especially as it is surely outdated, because it was written/said some time ago.

And a very small fear, but frustrating non the less - what if I can't finish this research??? Awful :-)



1.Staples, D. and Zhao, L. (2006) The Effects of Cultural Diversity in Virtual Teams Versus Face-to-Face Teams, Group Decision & Negotiation, 15(4), pp. 389-406.





1.Staples, D. and Zhao, L. (2006) The Effects of Cultural Diversity in Virtual Teams Versus Face-to-Face Teams, Group Decision & Negotiation, 15(4), pp. 389-406.

Brief Assessment of the Present

I have no idea how to do research.
therefore...
I will have to find out!

I found out - that my way of keeping the literature resources that I've read is - putting it politely - not helpful. At least I do not remember what did I read.
therefore...
I need to add notes about what I've read and what I thought and how useful did I find it. Quick abstract of every article from my point of view.

I've lost the idea of why am I doing this research. Well, it comes and goes, so it is probably just one of the steps on the way. But it feels quite difficult, because I'm restlessly trying to fill up the time with doing SOMETHING, without any reason of doing it. And, certainly, I feel exhausted of doing things that I made myself to do, because I neither want neither need them. Am I running away from the reality? Scared to check the present and see that it is not as good as I wanted it to be? Lacking energy to assess the situation and make improvements?
I feel like the last statement is the most true, but is it really true, or is it my explanation to myself? Need to think about it and start doing useful things and abandon useless.

About Planning

When you turn guesses into plans, you enter a danger zone. Plans let the past drive the future. They put blinders on you. “This is where we’re going because, well, that’s where we said we were going.” And that’s the problem: Plans are inconsistent with improvisation. (Rework. Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson)
Yeah, planning is just a sort of uncertainty avoidance and I need to work on letting my plans go when a better way of doing things arrives (and there is always a better way! - if I'm optimistic that is). But I'm not saying that planning should be discarded - I think the best is to plan and then change as the situation changes (and it always changes - even if I'm pessimistic!)

Creativity

Probably anybody writing a research is interested in creativity, so here we go - creativity cookbook:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/creativity.html?page=0,0

:-) Now I have a great incentive to go dancing the Friday night off - so that I can write something very creative over the weekend!

Aha!

I finally understood how to use search in electronic databases portal:
- find an article that you are looking for
- find a journal where it was published
- find which database contains this journal in full-text
- find the right issue and download the article

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY (oh, why???) normal search will never give you the article!!!

People wrote books and articles about anything you will ever want to know..

The more I look for something the more I come to conclusion that if I got interested in something it is only so because many other people wrote a whole collection of books and articles on the topic. Because original ideas never come to my mind. Even when I think that I've got a very cute and deep thought and I write it somewhere - people think that I'm quoting somebody...

Road Ahead

So the assignments are done and now the real lonely journey starts.
Feeling a bit scared and unsure. The questions:
- What do I plan to accomplish?
- why do I want to do it?
- how am I going to do it?
And I'm full of doubt - why do I do it? For that matter - I'm deeply in doubt - why do I do anything at all?
Feeling like staying on an abandoned road in the middle of the night. I have no wish neither to go forward nor back. What am I seeking? I do not even know what is valuable for me. Nothing in the past that I want to return, nothing that inspires me now, nothing that I'm dreaming of in the future.
Maybe I should just rest till the energy comes back and the annoyance with the staleness will push me forward...

Amazing

I'm incredibly amazed with myself - I've managed to finish writing my methodology and even read it!!!

Internet

Internet is certainly a fabulous invention for a researcher... With the exception of the fact that after 2 hours you find yourself on a site largely unrelated to your research topic wondering why did not you do a research on a value of optimism in sports psychology!

Single vs Multiple Case????

Ahhh, can't decide!!!
If I will write an assignment for single - I can probably still change for multiple for the proposal, isn't it?
UPD:
It is too difficult to deal with 2 cases initially. Therefore - I will write methodology as if this is a single case.
Why it is helpful: I will analyse better what information I can get and how it will be useful. It would be a good learning experience. After that I will feel easier to expand it to multiple cases if necessary. Yay!

Methodology: sad thoughts

The more I write about my methodology - the less logic I see in what I was going to do. In general I think that with I have access to 1 virtual team (D object), but there is no signs of a VT in my other research object(E). There is virtual work, but the teams do not exist at all. How was I going to interview them, I mean whom, I mean why?
Thinking further - if I will drop the idea at all and just interview D team - it seems that I can get some more or less clear data there. But is it good to have clear data? The real world is not clear and everything is complicated and congested and the logic is hidden. Therefore...
It is better to interview both.
But how would I find the correct strategy to dig out any useful information?
Maybe my uncertainty is my bias?
How do I deal with that? If I feel that the processes in one organization are overcomplicated and unmanageable - it might be not true, it might be just my personal view of it.
I need a clean way to extract data, hmmm - wanted to say - objective - but I'm not looking for objectivity. Though I'm looking for something verifyable and internally consistent. If I have a bias against one of my research objects - it is internally invalid, isn't it?
Lost and confused...
I wonder if I have to start with the question - is there a virtual team at all?

Methodology vs Gauteng Winter Trail Series

I do not want to write methodology assignment, but I want to run GWTS. If I won't finish methodology by Sunday - I won't run trail series. There is no perfection in this world!!!
So sorry for myself :(((

Voice & Dance

Voice is like dance - if it is boring - nobody will watch it. It should be provocative, entertaining.
And just a bit of entertainment at the end:
"Research based on a Jungian personality schema
(Blaycock and Rees 1984; Nutt 1979, 1986; Slocum 1978;
Stumph and Dunbar 1991) suggests that the preferences
of the ‘‘analytical scientist’’ type seem to reflect
many of the exigencies of doing hard, quantitative research.
Empirical studies of these ‘‘types,’’ for example,
show that they value precision, accuracy, and reliability,
and they perform best when they can impose
models on a decision situation to specify the relevant
data needed and provide formats for logical analysis.
The two ‘‘feeling’’ types, the ‘‘particular humanist’’and the ‘‘conceptual humanist,’’ in contrast, provide a
closer approximation to the interpretive/soft systems
style of research. Particular humanists, for example,
prefer to conduct research via personal involvement
with other people; they prefer qualitative data and report
through personalized descriptive accounts."
As quoted by Mingers, J. (2001) Combining IS Research Methods: Towards a Pluralist Methodology, Information Systems Research, 12(3), p. 240.

Trying to be interpretive...

"They ain't nothin' till I calls them."
Sounds like what I am. But I am nothing until I call myself :-)

But then I call myself - and I'm immediately not what I've called myself anymore - because I've influenced myself by identifying!

Nothing again

As I have nothing to say, I will quote myself:
"Tomorrow you will be sorry that you did not start doing what you think is too late to start"

About nothing

I'm not writing anything, because I want to sleep and in general my interest shifted hell knows where!

Structure

Yesterday I was reading about structure in the research and one of the ways to develop a structure - organic way - is to continuously free-write waiting for the topics to emerge and structure to be "born".
I was wondering if it is applicable to the life in general - continuously try to do what you find worth doing until your interests shape up, preferences are defined, thoughts become clear and life gets a structure, becomes a story. Your life, your voice, your path, your identity...

Journey

Initially I wrote this post in this blog, but looks like contextually it fits better in another one, though applies here as well. So - here it is:
http://athletejourney.blogspot.com/2010/05/journey.html

Talk About It

I need to develop my own voice, express what I believe in. And it needs courage.
The voice starts inside - from internal communication with yourself, where desired and desirable qualities meet. You know what is desirable: your institution gave you guidelines, the other researchers did it in a similar way, you've read a lot about doing research - here is the path in front of you - follow and succeed. Just like with everything in life - follow the rest and you will arrive ... where everybody else does!

And desired can be very deep and hidden, scared by all the rules and regulations, - but this IS your own voice, this is your original contribution. You can't add anything new, if you are not prepared to find this voice deep inside and take it to the surface, show for the critical examination, expose what you have to say and be prepared to be judged.

So my goal for now - to learn to recognize what is desired and what is desirable and find a balance somewhere in-between. Looks like it is quite metaphorical post, not because I meant it so, but because I used wrong words somewhere (where?). Will try to improve

Gold Panning

Literature review is like gold-panning: before you will find any fresh idea (gold) - you have to read through volumes of general knowledge (gravel). Again and again...
Would be nice to find software that can filter it out for me! :-)

Research....

Research is 95% procrastination and 5% of rephrasing previous work! Truly original thought! :-)

Testing a new strategy...

It is extremely difficult to write and reference in the same time, because my mind either keeps the fluency of the thought, either starts narrating who said what.
So I've invented a new way: I've read a lot and probably there is very little of my orinigal thinking left in my head, so I just write on the topic, being sure that there was definitely somebody who said so :-) Tomorrow I'm going to go through all the articles again and attach authors to the thoughts expressed. If there will be a single thought originating directly from my mind - I will anyway be surprising as it never happened in my life before! ;-)

Research Purpose And Questions

After a week of hanging around doing nothing in total frustration I gave birth to an awsome Research Purpose formulation (anybody who does not believe in its awsomness - is no longer my friend!!!):

Research Purpose (copywrite T. Loskutova 26 April 2010 - of course - all rights reserved!)
The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of cultures diversity on virtual team work and productivity. Previous research (Hall and Whyte 1960) (Hofstede 1984) (Trompenaars 1996) suggests that the issue of cultural diversity has a significant effect on workspace, negotiation, communication, output quality (Furumo 2005) and general life and work level of satisfaction of team members (Furumo 2005).
Though well-examined and measured for a collocated team the issue of cultural diversity remains under-researched for a virtual team (Chauvet 2009) , which can be due to the novelty and ambiguity of VT definitions and scope (Schultze and Orlikowski 2001).
This is an exploratory research, which will be focused on determining the cultural dimensions (Hofstede 1984) (Trompenaars 1996) and variables perceived as important by the team members. The research will also try to analyse how these factors influence VT work, members’ lifestyle and quality of the outputs. It would be interesting to determine the directions for the future research, but identifying cultural factors and dimensions applicable for a VT environment.
Research Questions
The research will be help using qualitative method and the following questions will establish the direction for the research:
1. What challenges do software professionals face when working in a culturally diverse virtual team?
2. What management behaviour do software professionals expect to help them mitigate the cultural diversity impact on their work?
3. What kinds of relationships are developed between members of a team with different cultural background?
4. What kind of cultural adjustments can be suggested for VT members?

Chauvet, M. (2009) Cultural diversity of distributed teams, Proceedings of the special interest group on management information system's 47th annual conference on Computer personnel research, pp. 221-224, ACM, Limerick, Ireland.
Furumo, K. A. (2005) The impact of personality, task and technology on perceived team interaction and performance in virtual teams. Unpublished Dissertation, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, United States -- Illinois.
Hall, E. T. and Whyte, W. F. (1960) Intercultural Communication: A Guide to Men of Action, International Executive, 2(4), pp. 14-15.
Hofstede, G. (1984) Culture's Consequences, ABRIDGED EDITION ed., SAGE PUBLICATIONS, Newbury Park London New Delhi.
Schultze, U. and Orlikowski, W. J. (2001) Metaphors of virtuality: shaping an emergent reality, Information and Organization, 11(1), pp. 45-77.
Trompenaars, F. (1996) Resolving International Conflict: Culture and Business Strategy, Business Strategy Review, 7(3), p. 51.

Through the maze...

As it was predicted - the further I go, the more i'm getting lost...
Just some of the problems that I'm experiencing:
- I fail to create a support circle as I fail to understand what am I trying to communicate to the others
- The scope is changing - I'm scared of getting too narrow but in the same time - I can't go too wide. The positive moment here - if I want to be able to manage projects - scope change should be easy and comfortable for me
- The research goes through all my life and I do not separate it at all - it connects, glues together, affects my behavior, I learn new things and put them into practice immediately. Good or bad? I don't know - I try, evaluate and move on. When my personal life gets into a corner, my research stops or other way around?
- I feel pretty much like Alice in Wonderland - but I've always felt like this. Or like one of the girls in Gabriel G Marquez's stories. Alice is more positive and disconnected from the reality, structured, cleared. Marquez's women are more real - and all the stories end the same. And all my stories end the same - I wish I can play a different role once in a while - transfer from Maria dos Prazeres into little Alice :-) I think this is what my research is supposed to do - out of all the maze and chaos of the real knowledge extract a young and clear idea, show it to the world and make it attractive
- Eventually I like the idea - through the maze to Irreversible Achievement

That is how it goes...

Circles Of Self-Evolution

Hypothese: "Independently of how we go - we eventually arrive to the milestones of our own development"
When I was young - I've read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins - it certainly shaped my view of the world. I've learned lots of generics and in general wanted to be a genetic engineer, i.e microbiologist. Eventually I've become microelectronics engineer - still asking myself why? Was it the word "micro" in the title? One of the steps in understanding the world? Frankly speaking, I've enjoyed it as physics is my secret love, but eventually I've never used it...
Another step - Richard Dawkins - my colleague was sharing his words and videos and it felt close, true and associable. I went to the website and felt that I found a friend.
Eventually, I found a reference to mr. Dawkins in my research. Well, it's a long and cumbersome way to explain - but what I was trying to say - a human being is a collection of ideas, knowledge and ways of its interpretation. We are bound to find people who think similarly. A bit of scary part - is there a way to truly think out of the box of my own mind? Can I understand the people who are different? Or should I be happy with the ability to accept them?
"We are expected to be different.But we are also expected to respect and accept the others as they are" (1).



1) Hall, E. T. and Whyte, W. F. (1960) Intercultural Communication: A Guide to Men of Action, International Executive, 2(4), pp. 14-15.

Understanding

It will be the continuation of the thought from the previous post.

If people go deep into disclosing their internal integrity (and dis-integrity!) - how can they manage to understand each other?

Looking into my own past - my motivations were tragically different from the ones that I have today. Yet, my behavior probably was not that different. It is some time-related function, because I can also observe that I've gained understanding of the actions of the people, who were more of a mistery for me in the past, yet, those whom I could understand before - are out of my understanding scope now. In the same time - if the external behavior does not differ much - is it this important? This is probably how the working environment generally work - where the understanding between teammates exists initially it stays as long as it ... stays, where there is no common grounds - politeness switches on and we let the others have their own "strangeness". Good enough until somebody comes and decides that the "strangeness" should be eliminated and everybody should be plain and understandable, i.e. - same. Are we equal or are we free? :-)

Cultural Responsibility

Today my dog went to her new home and I'm very glad for her.
However, this fact triggered a long-time argument in my head: love vs responsibility. I know that my family (culture carrier?) tried to install a tremendous feeling of responsibility that is supposed to take over all the other feelings and direct my life. And... responsibility always loses. No matter how hard I try - the other feelings: fondness, hate, love, dislike etc. - take over! And the result is always the same - all the effort collected to support responsibility goes to waste and everybody is very glad that I finally do what I want and not what my feeling of responcibility told me.
Anyway, that was a personal introduction, but the questions are:
- what IS responsibility? Isn't it the force that preserves culture? Guargs it from change? Stops the change?
- How to deal with it? Unnecessary change is a waste too, so some guarding is ok, just to keep the structure within which we can operate. Isn't it just a pattern, with which to compare the effectiveness of change?
- Responsibility is objective, feelings are subjective. Where is the balance?
- Responsibility helps trust by keeping stability and making actions more predictable. Irresponsible/Unpredictable? Not the same. But responsible rather often means predictable. But predictable is not always good. Loyal -> predictable to one certain party.
- What happens when people of different cultures meet and their feelings of responcibility does not match? It's a very strong feeling (maybe just to me?) - should be really difficult if misunderstanding occurs. A takes pride in fullfilling his responcibilities, B do not care about his. In collaborative work A will feel insulted by the B's attitude.
- Maybe responsibility in general is not a cultural dimension (moral?), but the default list of responsibilities is.
I feel like in a wood trying to give everything a name... I need to find out what others are saying about it

Story-telling

"The hardest part of telling the story in your research is finding the story in the first place"(1). This is so true: find what to say and to whom.
I think lately my writing is just an expressed dialog with myself - it is a way of learning - once I realise something and put it into words - this thing becomes a part of me. In a way it is also a method of defining myself and determining my presentation to the world. Constructing the identity.
People are social creatures and we care about how others see us. We create this image and play the role. Sometimes it is a very holistic image, where all details match and all internal disagreements are well-hidden from outsider. But there is no such case as "no internal disagreement". The identity is always under construction. And another way is to disclose these disagreements, to anknowledge that there are things that we don't know, not sure about, don't have an opinion. I'm always struggling between what to disclose and what to cover up. I think it is a matter of deepness - if there is time and it matters - the inconsistencies should be disclosed (research, deep discussion, exchange of opinions). Otherwise, for brevity, it is good enough to show the world a simplified version, which is easy to deal with, with predictable reactions.
Here immediately appear additional questions about cultural differences:
- how much is appropriate to disclose in different culture within working environment (team). I can't formulate it good enough now - but I mean the level of details that a person in a team finds necessary to discuss. I would guess this is where cultures differ a lot (note to myself - check with Hofstede)
- another side - a level of integrity that should be shown to make communication comfortable (if I'm not sure about anything - I will be damn sure that nobody will find it easy to work with me! ;-))


Coming back to the story-telling - one of the main purposes of this blog is to find out what will be the story that I will tell. I need to filter things that are relevant only to me from those that would be interested to a reader.


And one more link:
http://www.isivivane.com/storytelling/creating.a.story

1) http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/writeup.php

Looking at the problem from a different angle

some useful links...

Found a nice useful site:
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/
Easy to read and good info on qualitative research

From this web-site - it looks like I'm a phenomenologist - I want to know how the world appears to others (well, it is quite obvious to me how it appears to myself, so others are definitely more interesting!).

(Continued later)
One of the outcomes of the qualitative research can be grounded theory, it sounds almost like life - iterative learning approach. The knowledge is acquired in iterations: categorizing - commenting/making notes/observations - and integrating all the details together (making sense of it). if applied to life again: we often face recurring situations that get more complex and detailed (like new levels in computer game). Each time some additional knowledge is acquired, usual things are viewed from a new perspective and at the end of each journey - we meet ourselves once again.

Scientific Morality

It is possible for individuals and even human cultures to care about things destructive for human civilization (1)

Probably well-known ideas, but what I find important is that the presenter talks about the necessity to identify common moral norms for the whole world - makes sense as the communication is so global now, that it is difficult to separate, close eyes and eventually - yes, we have to protect ourselves from self-desctuction, which is probably the base of these moral norms, otherwise they are not necessary :-)

1) http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5300

Knowledge acquirement

I often find myself comparing my own behavior in a situation with somebody whom I knew in a similar situation. It feels like I can draw parallels and understand my own and their behavior better. Was wondering to which degree does it make sense to draw parallels and if I can use it in my research. For example - can I predict the development of the situation taking into consideration that I'm aware of the comparison and will look at it before making choices? Can I use an individual's experiences to suggest conclusions? Probably should be careful there - need to read more about qualitative research approach

Research Questions

As I'm feeling extremely lost in my journey now, I feel I need to at least find out where am I going. Otherwise I will have to adopt Alice's method of going without turning and seeing where will I get in the end (1).
So, I will write questions here without any special order and then will try to see if it will take me anywhere:
1) How is cultural diversity perceived by VT members? Do they find it as obstacle? benefit? incentive to work in such a team?
2) Can social network help to improve team communication and create a feeling of team identification?
3) The importance of task? Whether task acts as moderator?

BTW - regarding a gap of knowledge: looks like I'm search-challenged - can't find anything about cscw and virtual teams together. But I guess I can always say that I will look into "other" tools, that were not researched yet. Here comes another question:


4) How [insert_name_of_software_tool] can be useful in VT management?

Random concepts that can grow into questions:
- personality traits for VT members? managers?
- crusial toolset for being able to do anything?
- how VT membership affects social life? family life? sports participation? travelling? feeling of financial security? ISOLATION??? (I'm not isolated - I'm surrounded)
- problem solving? Potentially more organizational issues around communication? Right-wrong?

ahhhhh






1) L. Carrol "Alice in Wonderland"

6 Hat Method

Trying to use 6-Hat Method (1) to solve a problem. Let's put on the 6 hats:
White hat – Facts & Information:
I have a dog Frida, who becomes a disaster and frankly-speaking I can't take care of her. I have 2 cats whom I love and I want them to feel happy and at home, but they are scared of the dog. The dog gets dangerous for them if she does not get enough walks/attention.
Red hat – Feelings & Emotions:
Tired, exhausted, sorry for Frida, sorry for cats - they are not happy together and I'm not happy with them

Black hat – Critical Judgment:
cats are scared
Ginger cant go to the toilet outside
I cant improve my garden
I cant find time to walk with Frida
Frida is niserable to sit locked in the yard
In winter she won't have any place to sleep as she eats blankets

Yellow hat – Positive:
It is nice to walk and run with Frida
It is a new learning experience to raise a dog
Topic to talk with others about


Green hat – New Ideas:
What if I take her to a kennel for a while and see if she feels better there?
What if I look for somebody to look after her?

Blue hat – The Big Picture:
So the strategy would be - talk to more people, phone SPCA and find out their opinion, look at the situation again after a while, in the meantime try to find if anybody can take her at all.

1)de Bono, Edward (1985). Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach to Business Management. Little, Brown, & Company. ISBN 0316177911 (hardback) and 0316178314 (paperback).

On Truth

Looks like truth depends on context.
When the context change - the other values become valid.
I am the same person, but depending on the context I am different.

Literature Review

If the purpose of the literature review was to make me feel like throwing up when I read again that Virtual Teams are important part of global economy - then the goal is achieved :-)
I'm going to produce another scientific research starting from "Virtual Teams are important part of global economy" :-) Sorry :-)

On Trust

Trust is the base of any team. Without trust any continuous collaboration is impossible (1).
Trust is certainly based on telling truth and keeping promises. But it is much more in fact - there is implicit component: keeping implicit promises. This is difficult for different people, worse for different cultures, and even genders (men from Mars, women from Venus). My thinking is that it involves a lot of patience and readiness to accept different views of responcibilities for each other. Comes to mind another example: parents and children - so close, but always having different expectations of implicit promises. Comes close to the feeling of fairness. Was it fair?

Comes close to positioning of an individual in the society and expectations from others:
I'm beggar - people should give me money. I'm homeless - government should give me a shelter. I'm hardworking - people should respect me and help when I work. I'm rich - people should service me, because I pay. I'm powerful - people should do what I say. This is my father - he will never lie. This is my man - he will protect me. This is my mother - she will be kind and caring. This is my family - they are on my side.
The above are cultural norms and can be slightly or severely different across cultures and generations.

But the most deep part of trust - the person whom I trust won't use my weakness against me. I think this is brilliant - complete trust. This last part is something that is communicated without words and is so basic, that it is actually the foundation of a relationship between people and animals (forget culture). Surprisingly animals get it right much better and are very unlikely to misuse it whereas people actually like to misuse it and use as a weapon.
So here we are - building trust:
- show care
- keep promises
- be reliable
- be attentive to implicit expectations (manage expectations). I would expect that being open about you r own expectations counts as well. Ensure communication.
Ok, I see lots of steps to be taken for myself :-)















1)Jarvenpaa, S. L. and Leidner, D. E. (1999) Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams, Organization Science, 10(6), pp. 791-815.

Just could not go pass it: it totally expresses what I was thinking about for a long time:
"When survival is uncertain, cultural diversity
seems threatening. When there isn't
"enough to go around," foreigners are seen
as dangerous outsider who may take away
one's sustenance. People cling to traditional
gender roles and sexual norms, and emphasize
absolute rules and familiar norms in an
attempt to maximize predictability in an uncertain
world. Conversely, when survival begins
to be taken for granted, ethnic and cultural
diversity become increasingly acceptable—
indeed, beyond a certain point, diversity
is not only tolerated, il may be positively
valued because it is interesting and stimulating." ({Inglehart, 2000 #26})


Inglehart, R. and Baker, W. E. (2000) MODERNIZATION, CULTURAL CHANGE, AND THE PERSISTENCE OF TRADITIONAL VALUES, American Sociological Review, 65(1), pp. 19-51.

Case Studies

Reading now about using case studies for teaching purposes. Sounds like a bit of revelation for me. I mean every programmer hears "case study" approximately every day of the life, but it is just a bit of different way of seeing it: teaching method. After all - I'm using it all the time, maybe due to the lack of cultural context, I always try to explain everything using a parable. It is also a matter of politeness for me - I do not want to force my opinion and experience on another person, rather show the way to get to the same conclusions.
Anyway, what I've enjoyed in my reading: suggestion that each teacher should start with animal training, i.e. if the animal does not do the trick, it is not the animal's fault, but the teacher's. In my view, for a teacher it is much more difficult - he/she must be able to take responsibility for the way he/she teaches, in the same time it is important to make the student understand his/her own responsibility for the studies, i.e. using the parable of the animals again - the student gives himself the treat-reward for the success in the studies.
And the last: the quote about case study, which in my view is the quote about the life in general:
"ambiguous evidence, shifting variables, imperfect knowledge, no obvious right answers, and a ticking clock that impatiently demands action"[1] - "alice in Wonderland" isn't it?
1)B.Barnes, "The more I teach, the less I use the chalkboard," Echo, 1997

Luck

I was writing today a wish for a colleague that is leaving for another job and caught myself on the thought that I always wish people good luck. And it made me think: there are people with internal locus of control (ILC) and external locus of control(ELC) as suggested by Rotter. And I would think that I'm definitely a person with internal locus of control, whereas luck is a concept typical for the cultures with the domination of external locus of control. So why such contradiction?
I have a theory: I'm coming from a culture with external locus of control dominance and I have internal domination. Then I moved to the place with the dominance of ILC and I clearly remember the feeling that I belong more to this place, which was further sometimes replaced by the longing for the taking of the world in a more usual for my previous environment way. In the same time I find it very beneficial have a sort of different overview, I think it correlates with the conflict resolution suggestions by Trompenaars(1) where he advise to take the features where one culture excels and manage them on international level (to be fair - he has different suggestion for the reconsilation of ILC and ELC).
Another argument can be that I take luck as: "The more I practice the luckier I get", which is quite internal control view. Probably that's where ILC and ELC meet - my culture tells me that luck is important, but my personality makes it internal

1) Trompenaars, F. (1996) Resolving International Conflict: Culture and Business Strategy, Business Strategy Review, 7(3), p. 51.

Sad thoughts

1. I'm incredibly far from being where I'm supposed to be.
2. I took reading wide too seriously - read everything except for what was really relevant to my topic

On Selfishness in Business

I've been really inspired today reading Mintzberg's article[1] about selfishness. It seems to me that he raises incredibly important questions about the values in our world. Maybe it will be my first step into understanding the balance of business, money, contribution to society and my own role in this world as a grown-up.
I find that many views are oversimplified by common opinion, which makes most of the views just "uncommon nonsense"[2]. The definitions of a human being as a consumer of goods, a creature with unsatisfied needs was amazingly wittingly mocked in "Monday Begins On Saturday"[3] and is still very vivid in my mind.
I guess over the past year I've lost a lot of important feelings - and it caused me to lose the sense of living itself. My world should be large, otherwise it becomes cheap. I want to be able to give and feel responsibility and know that each day had some value. And I feel that I need to get back my internal integrity, maybe it was good that it was shaken - it should come back stronger.
Individualism is good, but it should be part of the society. Society should have values and protect them. I can't think of myself disconnected from the environment - I am nobody without the people around me and I can't achieve much on my own.
It is important to view the business as part of the contribution into this world - what we create at work is the most part that we can give to the society. Job is not a way to make money, it is a way to contribute something that I can do well, so that others will contribute into my life. I guess it should be a day to day question: does it make sense to do what I do? Should I do it differently? Should I not do it at all? It makes sense to live the life after all :-)

References:
[1] Mintzberg, H., Simons, R. and Basu, K. (2002) Beyond Selfishness, MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(1), pp. 67-74.
[2] L.Carrol "Alice in Wonderland"
[3]STRUGAT︠S︡KIĬ, A. N., & STRUGAT︠S︡KIĬ, B. N. (1978). Monday begins on Saturday. New York, Daw Books.

Random Ideas

"A society devoid of selfishness is certainly difficult to imagine.
But a society tbat glorifies selfishness can be hnagined only as
base. Tbe intention here is to challenge such a society — not to
deny human nature, but to confront a distorted view of it. In so
doing, we wish to promote another characteristic no less
human: engageiucut"

"Real leadership is often more quiet tban heroic. It is connected, involved and engaged. It is about teamwork and taking the longterm
perspective, building an organization slowly, carefully and collectively"

Mintzberg, H., Simons, R. and Basu, K. (2002) Beyond Selfishness, MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(1), pp. 67-74.


"a propensity for ahruism and harmonious cooperation in social groups is favored by natural selection. The old thesis of social Darwinism — strict selfishness — was based on an incomplete understanding of animals, particularly social species."(E. Mayr, "Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought," Scientific American,
July 2000, 83.)

What to read??

I'm getting a bit overwhelmed by the articles. How to decide which ones are good and which I should skip? I remember the same feeling when I was doing the proposal first time - initially just reading everything and then I did not use any of these articles at all - just had to do another search and used completely different sources.
Well, I guess this is ok with me. But what about key thinkers? I think Hofstede is well cited on cultural diversity. Others are Fons Trompenaars and Henry Mintzberg.
How to evaluate if they are really key thinkers?
I can't really find their books on the internet, so I'm not sure how to proceed with them. Will leave it for now and read other articles. Hope i will get the "key" ideas and theories out of there

UPDATE:
The best way is to search by the author on EBSCO - gives a lot of results.

Research Support

These guys help me in my journey:

PMBOK

Today I came accross a book called The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK):
http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/pdf/pmbok.pdf
Here is a small MM that I've created as an overview of the basic terms discussed there:

I must start reading...

I decided to set up reading goals (otherwise I will never read!). So for this week - let's take it easy:
Monday: 2 articles and find another 2
Tuesday: 2 articles
Wednesday: 2 articles and find another 2
Thursday: 2 articles and find 4
Friday: 1 article at lunch break :-) Find 3 new
Saturday: Organize all that was read, write a draft review on it
Sunday: Read "Research Journey"and plan for the next week.

Good luck for me!

Update - actuals:
Monday: found 1 more article and one book. Read 1 page. Hmmm

Postmodern Approach To Research

I was reading today about postmodern approach to science and it "clicked". It is so releaving to find out that the view of the world with multiples "knowledges", multiples "truths" is accepted. Looks like I just was not talking to the right people.
The world is so subjective - we call a thing "objective" if the influential majority agrees that it is so. Especially in social sciences - human being is changing and quite rapidly over the last decades.
It feels like a valid question for me to ask: is something in this world unchangeable or is there just no reason to change it? Or - we lack control of how we change it. We do not want to change the climate to result in global warming - but we are doing it (lack of control, but enough power).
Maybe our world can be viewed as just a tool that we as human beings are using to create. Science is the way to learn to control this process. At the moment we create in an experimentative way - how will it work? Sometimes we do not know. It is always a risk. But there is always not enough time -- we want to know the answers even if we risk a lot. But that's the human nature. Or is it? :) Came to the mind: "There are 2 kinds of people: those who do things and those who do not want to make mistakes". Obviouly, while those who do not want to make mistakes are always late and have to face the consequences. That's unproved generalization, of course :-)
But I was thinking about creating knowledge vs discovering it. There are 2 things that support this view in my mind. First, the observer (scientist) influences (changes) the observed object. So the truth was not the same before somebody took an effort to try and find it. The second, the world changes under our influence, so human beings themselves are creating those things that have to be studied and contributed to the knowledge base. Part of this second thing is the nature of human beings themselves - we are not only changing the world, we also change ourselves.
In a way I would also say that truth is a function of time - it changes continuously, so the findings about it are always too late to describe the real truth. And this post is hugely outdated as well :D

Decisions to be made

I'm still wondering which approach should I take: qualitative or quantitative?
What do I believe is more true?
[Continued]
Just read this:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/Qualitative/qualquan.htm
Looks like my view of the world is more oriented towards qualitative research - holistic and unseparable from the researcher. I think I can still complement it with some quantitative data though. If it will work this way I mean :-) It will be actually very interesting to find out if these 2 appraches support or contradict each other in the context of my research questions.
I need to read more about analysis strategies. I think I will get some vague picture of the problem during my literature review, then I will need to make it clear, until I see the edges of the problem clearly. By this time I should have a set of hypothesa about the possible answers. I will find out the shortest way to prove them right or wrong. Or maybe prove that it is not possible to find an answer at the moment, or the answer is very context-tied and cannot be applied generally. The last step would be to provide theorectical explanation: why the answers were as they turned out to be.
This sounds pretty logical, so I'm not sure which research analysis strategy it is. Need to read more about it

Dissertation Requirements

I find that some of the dissertation requirements are easy, others are difficult.
I think the most difficult for me is"conceptual framework" - I just can't get what it means.
Probably the best definitions that I've found so far (http://www.mujersana.ca/msproject/framework1-e.php):
"It can be any or all of the following:

• A set of coherent ideas or concepts organized in a manner that makes them
  easy to communicate to others.
• An organized way of thinking about how and why a project takes place,
  and about how we understand its activities.
• The basis for thinking about what we do and about what it means, influenced
  by the ideas and research of others.
• An overview of ideas and practices that shape the way work is done
  in a project.
• A set of assumptions, values, and definitions under which we all work together."

I think it means a general knowledge about the subject. I assume the process of preparing the literature review should "create" conceptual framework in my mind. I guess the main goal of getting this conceptual framework is to find out where is the current knowledge about my topic, i.e. what is common view of the problem at the moment.

Maybe the second difficult part would be methodology. I guess I will just use the common methods and see where it will take me. Suppose I can always adjust on the way - stay agile :-)

Problems

I find it difficult to read. Well, I knew that I will hit this wall. I prefer writing. I think I will have to create a reading schedule and try to make it a habit to read a bit each day.
Or - maybe even better - if I will tell myself that here is an article, I'm going to write about it, thus forcing myself to read it.

What am I going to do

Just a very general starting brainstorming. I was trying to answer the question: "what am I going to do to write a dissertation?"




Done using FreeMind
Will refine it later as it becomes more clear.

Meta Congnitive Skills

This post will start a series of posts where I will try to show my thoughts on questions suggested by Cecile Badenhorst in "Dissertation Writing. Research Journey" book.
Learning is a part of life? In my case life is a part of learning. What we create becomes a part of the universe and stays there after our lives are finished. And it is important to emphasize that learning for me is part of creation. How can you create something that you do not understand? If something like this happens - and it can happen that we create something without fully understanding it - it is the creation of luck, if we want to claim the ownership of this creation - we still have to go and understand how it happened.
I must say - I like luck. I often invent something, achieve something by the virtue of luck and intuition, but I still want to understand it.
How do I learn? There are 2 main ways for me, which complement each other. I remember what I see. I can learn a foreign word if I know the spelling, otherwise it escapes my memory. Today I was looking for my car after the marathon - I must say that I had no idea where can it be as the long running flushed my mind and I came back to the everyday life with a clean relaxed brain like a newborn baby. I was lucky enough that this newborn brain remembered that I had a car at all, but asking for its location was only bringing back a picture of a sign with road names on it, which I could not read, but could say that one was the street that I turned into yesterday and another one was short and shaped nicely. Shaped nicely usually means a balance between hight of letters and the length of the word. I do not remember the name of the street again, but I think it was Briones (see the shape?). So I had to walk around all the neighbourhood looking for the sign (I could have run another 12 km in this time! ).
Another part of learning is understanding how to get there. If I know that hipotenuse = adjacent/cos(A), because of the definition of cosine - I do trust this knowledge. If I see the map and drive following it - I know where I am. If I know something that I can't prove - I don't trust this knowledge and leave it in the area of "supposed".
Something proveable is easy - who cares about things that are easy? Leave it for those to whom they are difficult :-) I prefer supposed knowledge - things that do not follow common logic. Just as a side note - this book is very useful:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/psa/
So, some things we can't prove, but we have to deal with them. Strictly speaking, these things comprise our world, i.e. the observer affects the experiment (I think it is relativity theory, but do not remember exactly who noticed it initially). My current interest is in people as social beings.
I guess I can say that I have experience in the topic - it just takes paying attention to people who surround you to learn about culture and communication . The practical part is acting within this environment. So maybe the missing component of my learning abilities - practical experiment. As I always want the prove and in some cases I can't prove it using logic - I will try to prove it by experiment.
The other aspect is how to analyse the experiment? I guess for simple scenarios statistics should be fine, but more complex ones require deep analysis. It is not always possible to create a proper experimental enviroment and even more difficult to repeat the experiments in social interactions. It takes a lot of creativity to find similar situations proving certain concepts. But this is a topic for another blog post...

Life as a journey - Part 2

Part 1 did not explain about the journey - right? What I'm trying to do now - follow the prescribed book "Research Journey" by Cecile Badenhurst - and write my reflections :-) So don't judge for being inconsistent - going to add this component later.
Cecile has a beautiful allegory - a hero myth - start a research as a journey full of challenges, dangers and tests - get a reward at the end, get changed by the journey and return to the normal world.
My earlier blog attempt (http://loskutova.blogspot.com/) mentioned a related concept: "Let the world change you". Originally it continues: ".. and then change the world". I'm sure the quotations are not exact, but I hope I do not alter the meaning too much.
I think this way of thinking helps me - I have difficulties accepting life as a set of goals to achieve - I like the journey, I like to try, I like to fail, I like to succeed, I like to be lucky, I like to get new challenges. Sometimes I rush, sometimes just enjoy the moment. I will think more about it during the marathon tomorrow.
P.S. I think I will do my main research thinking during Comrades. Maybe not :-)

Life as a journey

I'm starting a research program on communication. This is a fascinating topic - an art, science, talent? How do you communicate? How do you make another person understand you? How do you make another person NOT understand you? It is so different on different levels - we have culture that prescribes us a way to communicate. But what culture are we talking about? Nation? Religion? Profession? Country? Language? They all intersect and differ. Add personal differences on top. Ok, here comes the research topic: "Communication and Cultural Diversity Management In Virtual Software Development Team"