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
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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? :-)
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? :-)
Saturday, March 27, 2010
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
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
Thursday, March 25, 2010
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
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
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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.
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
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
Monday, March 22, 2010
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
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